The Chaos Of Covid 19: A Personal Reflection

A junior psychiatry MO in the hospital I am currently attached to came to me one day and asked my point of view regarding whether she should go ahead and volunteer to be a front-liner for Covid-19 screening.

“Kak Afiza, we have been asked to volunteer our names to be one of the front-liners for Covid-19 screening. I am not sure whether I should give my name or not. I am worried if I might fall ill and not be able to handle it.”

I didn’t mince words when I said “I would have volunteered, if I were you. If I am not currently doing my attachment and have to finish this attachment within the timeframe, I would have volunteered. You will certainly benefit from the experience, no doubt about it. In fact, I am planning to volunteer once I have finished with this rotation and am back in my hometown, if they still need volunteers.”

This was not just a lip service for me. I love volunteer works because I always learn a lot by volunteering. I was in Program Khidmat Sosial Negara (PKSN) as a 17 year old girl, and I still remember what a good experience I had as a PKSN trainee. Unfortunately, my study commitment interfered with my love of volunteerism for many years after that (I was in KMB for my IB diploma, and then went to Australia for my medical studies, and then there was that 2 years of that grueling housemanship period to go through). As an MO, I volunteered in early 2014 during the massive flood in Kelantan as part of the PFA team. And then I volunteered to be a polling agent and counting agent for Pakatan Harapan in May 2018 and that was a very illuminating experience. And at the end of 2018, I volunteered under IMARET for the humanitarian mission to Palu Sulawesi to do psychological first aid for the survivors of the devastating Palu earthquake and tsunami. 2018 was a good year for me because I did not take any exam in that year and I was quite free. Unfortunately, for the whole year of 2019, I was swamped with CASC preparation and did not get any opportunity to contribute much. But I have missed doing volunteer works that would jolt me out of the same routine every day. My good friend who volunteered with me to Palu is currently a front-liner for handling Covid-19 cases as well. I would have loved to be able to join her. I have told her before when we were in Palu, volunteerism is addictive.

At each of my volunteer mission, I gained massively in terms of knowledge, sense of personal achievement and  feeling of contentment. I love being able to experience how people handle difficulties in life. The reflection that follows each encounter with people who are less fortunate than you is something you cannot get elsewhere. It builds my own resilience and helps me tremendously in facing future difficulties, as I remember how much more fortunate I am as a whole. It told me that life really is fragile and there is nothing much you need to fear because life will continue to happen to you, anyway. You can only do your best and trust God. Volunteerism is not just about having a physical and mental experience that will enrich your life, but volunteerism is SPIRITUAL too. This is something you can never understand unless you experience it yourself. And trust me, you will be addicted to that experience.

(I wrote about my experience in Palu here. You may click the link H.E.R.E to read about it https://afizaazmee.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/palusulawesi-reflection-a-spiritual-journey/)

The next day the junior psychiatry MO told me “I already submitted my name as a volunteer. Feel better about it after talking to you.”

I wished her good luck and prayed for her continuous well-being as a front-liner. The last time I checked on her via Whatsapp she was doing very well and as predicted, she enjoyed the experience.

When you do something that Allah has created you to do – to be a khalifah of this world, to be of benefits to your fellow human beings, to fulfil the purpose of your creation – the sunnhatullah is such that you will feel content. Experience NEVER go to waste. It will make you such an interesting person to talk to, at the very least.

Because we are a sum of our experience.

 

We Are a Sum of Our Experience

Growing up, I admit that I got easily bored talking to people. I just could not stand the small talk that we are expected to make during kenduri, get-togethers and reunion and I would avoid having to  talk to people for an extended period of time. There was nothing for me to talk about with them. Most of them didn’t read what I read…. So what common ground did we have? Zip, zero, nada! What common area of topic and interest can we converse about? Zilch!  Bosan!  I was bored silly and I just wanted to go into my room and read the latest adventure in my next book. (But of course, my parents didn’t allow me to.)

There were times when I feel like I was more mature than my peers. I didn’t enjoy running around playing ‘police sentry one to jaga’. I just felt like “Apadia ni? Ligan-ligan, lari-lari penat… for what purpose?”. I enjoyed it as a 4 year old kid, maybe. But by the time I knew how to read (I was 5 years old), playing lari-lari no longer appealed to me.  I really did not feel it was fun. I preferred card games and chess, book-reading and story writing. So, I got easily bored with most kids my age but I did have 3 good friends in the primary school who shared my interest in reading.

As I grew up into my teenage hood, my father did not think I had enough maturity to attend a boarding school as a 13 year old girl.  I thought he was wrong… because I felt like I was matured enough to handle it. But looking back, I think my interpersonal skill was not that good. Haha. I don’t think I could survive communal living as a 13 year old because I was a very self-centred young girl. I didn’t like to share any of my stuff. I didn’t like it when people wanted to share food or drinks with me…. because I geli hahaha. And in hostel, most kids really like to take other people’s stuff and I would have made a lot of enemies if I went into the hostel environment with an attitude of obvious stinginess like that (as opposed to subtle stinginess LOL)

As a 16 year old girl, I was finally allowed to attend a boarding school of MRSM Langkawi. Even then, I had to adjust quite a bit. I made sure I had two bottles of water with me in my room… one bottle was exclusively for me and another bottle was for anyone else who randomly requested for my water. (My problem solving skill improved, see? People requesting to share my water was a problem to me hahha! But I found ways to maintain my ideal of what is hygienic while also being able to fulfil their request.)

As a teenager having to be in a communal living, I learned how to do small talk. I still preferred talking to someone who shared my interest (by this time I took up poetry writing, thanks to the influence of my roommate, Miss A) but I was no longer that awkward or that bored around people. Over time, I learned to be less self-absorbed. Previously, if things were boring TO ME, I just wanted to get out of that situation and cut the conversation short. Because I felt like, if I was bored, then of course you must feel the same way too. By cutting the conversation short or not engaging at all, I saved BOTH of us from being bored with each other. We can now go and do something else with our time. More efficient use of our resources, right?

But because of having to be in a communal living, I gradually understood the value of good-quality friendships (not just ANY friendship. But GOOD QUALITY ones, ok. Please take note.). With no family around other than hostel friends, I learned that my life was more pleasant when I had good friendships in the hostel.

Before living in a hostel and mixing with people who are not my own family, my idea of friendship was pretty rigid. “If we don’t have anything in common and therefore neither of us will be interesting to the other, then I don’t really want to spend time with you because it will be so boring.”  Peer pressure…. It did NOT really work with me. Even if I might succumb to peer pressure and societal expectation occasionally, it wouldn’t be sustainable. Sooner or later, I would have analyzed whether or not this kind of activity/behaviour/mindset MAKES SENSE and gradually I would have escaped from such pressure by choosing other friends or shift my attention to books. When some people had a whole lot of friends to always do things together (pi kantin sekali, pi toilet satu geng), I didn’t understand it. To me, it was so time-consuming and inefficient to wait for everyone to be ready before we can make a move. My idea of friendship could be described as mutual convenience… when it was not convenient, we should be able to separate for awhile. Not EVERYTHING must be done together.

Me: Kalau kau nak pergi kantin, kau pergilah kantin. Kenapa aku nak kena ikut? Aku nak pi library.

Friend: Nanti lepas pi kantin, kita pi la library. (she ‘pujuk’ me)

Me: Kau tak nak ikut pi library pun tak apa, aku tak suruh pun kau ikut. Kau pergi kantin, aku pi library. Nanti kau dah habis makan, kau datang la library. Atau kita jumpa balik kat kelas.

 

That was basically how I behaved when I was young. I didn’t feel I need to bend myself backward to change my habit in order to cultivate friendships because if problems in my life arise, I was sure I could handle it myself or my parents would handle them for me. Friendship was nice but I didn’t always need to do everything with them all the time. It did not occur to me that they might need me to do certain things with them and I should be kind whenever I could rather than thinking too much about expediency and efficiency. (Being kind…. being accommodative… those were new to me. And to be honest, I did not expect them to accommodate me – we could just do things separately –  and neither did I know that I should provide that to others when I had first joined communal living) I was like, if I can do things by myself when you guys don’t feel like doing it, why can’t you do the same thing too? Just do it by yourself if I don’t feel like doing those activities with you. More efficient, kan? Easier for everybody, isn’t it?

But when I was in the hostel of MRSM Langkawi, my friends and roommates were the ones who would help me with Add Maths, Physics and Chemistry (remember, we didn’t get to attend outside tuition as a hostel student). And some of them did not share my love of reading or writing and they were normally not someone I would feel any kind of friendship towards. But because I NEEDED them, I gradually learned how to mask my boredom, asked for their help, and sometimes I rendered my own service to them by correcting their English essays and improving their grammar.

Before I realized it, I had learned an important lesson. I shouldn’t have judged people so soon.

I. Shouldn’t. Have. Judged. People. So. Soon.

Some of these people who I would never be interested to be friends with just because they did not have similar interest as me, were actually really fun people to be around. All these while, I didn’t spend enough time to get to know people (because there were always other fun books I would rather be reading), and therefore before I could get to the point of appreciating their good qualities, I was already bored and I walked away thinking that it was too time-consuming to be their friends. Or I would think that the pros of this friendship did not outweigh the cons. But when the situation NECESSITATED me to tolerate them for awhile because I NEEDED their help, gradually I learned over time that “This girl is not that boring actually. She may not like to read. But she has other worthy quality that I could learn from. She is quite funny. How come I didn’t notice that before?”

So I compromised. “Kita pi Dewan Makan, lepas tu kita pi Library.” While having an outing, I compromised and agreed that we “go to Ismail Group for chocolate first, then we go to the book shop.” Slowly, I learned that efficiency and expediency were not the only thing I should focus on in my daily life. Sure it is more efficient to straightaway complete your task and not having to wait for others and not having to take their preferences into account. But when you are in trouble, you would have no friends to help you because you haven’t spent enough times with them for them to even bother that much about you. And that is a fatal mistake! There’s a reason why human beings are social creatures. (Look at how difficult it is for people to stay at home and NOT socialize in this current crisis of Covid-19 pandemic! We are social creatures!)Because our survival as a species depends on us having pro-social characteristics. Being sociable is a matter of survival in certain situations (but I was rarely, if ever, in a situation where being sociable is a matter of survival LOL. But yes, I had read stories and books on how knowing some important people in their lives had helped them out of a  tight situation)

(However, until now I am picky about my friendships. I cannot emphasize how important it is to have friends who are WORTHY of your compromise. I compromise my efficiency and expediency of doing things for you, because you are worth my effort. I could have gone to the library straightaway instead of waiting for you, but I wait because I know you are not comfortable eating alone. I value you that much because I know we have similar worldview, similar principles, and you are a kind-hearted person who I trust. But if you ever repeatedly do things that violate my ideals of what is right and wrong and then you do not listen to reasons and stop becoming worthy, I am no longer willing to compromise my efficiency and expediency for you.)

One of my friends had told me “If you had judged a song by its boring intro and stopped listening before getting to the beautiful chorus, you would not get an accurate impression of the ENTIRETY of the song.” (See? I have friends who talk this way. Who give me insight and correct my view and enrich my experience. This is what I mean by worthy friends.)

I didn’t understand it at first. But I get it now. You see, some people need small talk to feel at ease with other people at first. Some people need to be guided into a feeling of safety before they can feel comfortable revealing their true opinions to someone they have only just met. Everything has a beginning. A song has its intro and then a pre-chorus and then a chorus. Every story starts with an introduction to set the context, and then the story progresses to conflict, and then it reaches the exciting climax. If you are not patient with the introduction part, you will not be able to experience the exciting part.

It was my experience of living in a communal setting (first in MRSM Langkawi, and then in KMB, and subsequently having housemates while studying in Australia) that actually improved my disposition and my sociability. These days, I was always quite surprised when people described me as an extrovert. (Have I really improved that much? LOL.) They couldn’t be more wrong.  I agree that I am not a shy person and I have pretty strong opinions. But I am an introvert. No matter how much more sociable I am now, I will always need some portion of alone time at the end of the day. My weekends are for ME… to read and recharge. I will always prefer small groups over large groups. I will always be more serious than jovial. I will always prefer reading than attending kenduri. I will always take more time to warm up to people than most.

Or maybe…. I am an ambivert with a preference for solitary activities? I don’t know.

 

I also attribute my improved sociability to my volunteer works throughout these years. I tolerated A LOT of small talks and boredom (during the initial ice-breaking period) because I know I could not do volunteer works alone. In doing volunteer works, you will always need other people’s help and cooperation. You have to meet members of other NGOs, you have to cooperate with leaders of the place you are volunteering in and whether you like it or not, you MUST talk to them. I look at small talk and being sociable as a SKILL SET that I need to master in order to do my work. Small talk is more tolerable now and not much of a problem these days. And trust me, anyone can do it when they practice enough!

Because we are a sum of our experience.

If we don’t seek out worthwhile experience, we will be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. There is nothing substantial to your existence. Your worries consist of every day mundane thing that do not give any special meaning to your life. When people like me meet you, we will regret spending the time tolerating your boring intro… only to find out later that even your chorus is a monotonous, dull torture.

So, when you have the chance to seek out new experience, volunteer yourself for it! Beautify your chorus! Inspire people around you!

But be warned; the side effects of having varied experience is that, you will find yourself having a higher standard of what constitutes a worthy chorus. Over time, you will be more picky with who your friends are and who you spend your time with.

Civilization & Volunteerism

One of the first signs of a civilized society is having its members being helpful to each other.

I could not demonstrate this point better than by asking you to read this insightful excerpt below, taken from an article written by Remy Blumenfeld.

Years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about clay pots, tools for hunting, grinding-stones, or religious artifacts.

But no. Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000 years old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. This particular bone had been broken and had healed.

Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.

Isn’t that amazing? Helping fellow human being is the first sign of civilization!

So, volunteer and help your society! It is a marker of a civilized person.

Stay Home

And right now, it is very easy for everyone to do their part in helping their society. Sacrifice your freedom of movement for a while in favour of staying at home. That’s all it takes.

Let us, the health care workers, stay at work for you. All you have to do is stay at home to help reduce the spread of this Covid-19 pandemic.

I understand that you might be bored at home. But this is a very ideal time for you to beautify your chorus! I have mentioned before that your chorus is made beautiful by your experience. But experience can also be gained indirectly by reading books that you would not have the time to read without this lockdown. Read inspiring stories! Read autobiography! Read fiction! Enrich your life experience by reading about things you never knew before. Or if you don’t like to read, watch documentaries! That works too!

If you are a parent, maybe this is a time to teach your children to master a particular school subject beyond his/her syllabus. When I was a child, my father would teach me the next year’s syllabus just to make it easy for me to master my subjects later. And it was really quite helpful.

My nephew, Eshan, who is only 9 years old is trained by my sister (a statistician and a lecturer) to do a mathematical task that I had only learned as a secondary school student. I am so proud of this little man. As my very first nephew, Eshan occupies a very special place in my heart. I have such a gooey soft spot for Eshan, right there at the centre of my chest. (Soppy, I know. LOL)

 

I think I am a very cool aunty to all my nephews and nieces. (Hahhah perasan! But this is proven by the fact that they love hanging out in my room so much whenever they ‘balik kampung’. No other rooms hold allure to them but mine. So, bersepah bilik aku diorang kerjakan. It spoke volume of my patience that I tolerated that from them, okay? Haha) I used to feel despair whenever they cried while I was baby-sitting them when they were around 1-2 years old. I would quickly give them back to my sisters whenever they wailed loudly. I didn’t enjoy being an aunty then because they couldn’t talk, they didn’t have any meaningful fun play and I was bored and wanted to continue my reading.

But as they grew up, I could relate with them better. We could play games; Eshan and Aayra are very good at scrabble, chess and card games and they love playing verbal fluency games with me (and sometimes they beat me too!) I could tell them stories. Or we could go out to the movies (Now that their mothers trust me more to take care of their kids LOL. But not more than one at a time LOL). But kids below the age of 4 years old just hate me even when we are blood related. My siblings told me it was because of my eyes. “Scary, garang, mencerlang.” (Of course I don’t believe them. There is nothing wrong with my eyes.)

So yeah parents out there…. I suggest that you play games with your children at home and engage their minds and their intellect. But if your kids are younger than 4 years old, I also have no idea how to engage with them. You have to come up with the idea yourself because I am hopeless with really young kids! Haha.

Books Of The Month

The first book I would like to talk about this month is written by a very famous thriller novelist by the name of Dean Koontz. I had read a few of his books over the years but I stopped for awhile because I told myself that I need to read more non-fiction to increase my general knowledge.

But his book by the title of The Eyes of Darkness was made famous for the past 2 months because it was said that Dean Koontz had predicted the occurrence of the Corona virus. And the book was written in the 80s!

Let me show you the “evidence” that has been circulating around to say that Dean Koontz had predicted this Covid-19 event.

This has been circulating around in the internet!

So, you see, I was so curious and I wanted to read this book. But because I could not find it anywhere (it was, after all, published in 1981, more than 3 decades ago. I wasn’t even born yet!) so I then downloaded it from an online library that I was a member of.

I must say that I prefer Dean Koontz current style of writing compared to how he wrote decades ago. But I guess, every author must be allowed to gain experience and some polish before they can write excellently. Having said that, the plot was actually quite good.

The synopsis (spoiler alert!):

A young mother had been mourning the death of her son for the past 1 year. Her son passed away in an accident together with other kids in a camping trip. The mother was discouraged from seeing her son because she was told that her son’s body was very badly mangled, and therefore they had a closed-casket funeral. However, one year later, strange things started to occur around this young mother. She started to doubt her sanity and her own perception because of the poltergeist-like occurrences in her house.  She attributed these strange events to grief and lack of closure secondary to not looking at his son before he was buried. So the young mother requested for the body to be exhumed to help her get some closure. However, the moment when she requested for the exhumation of her son’s body, FBI/secret agents/ secret police started to hound her. She and her lawyer boyfriend (who also conveniently happened to be an ex-spy LOL) tried to get to the bottom of the mystery. They finally found out that her son was actually alive and was held at this lab as a test subject to study the effects of a virus originating from Wuhan. All those strange things that happened to this young mother was because her son had developed telekinetic and telepathic ability after being infected by the virus. Her son had been trying to send a message to her to rescue him from  this lab.

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars (I was engaged enough. But I felt like his style of writing was not much to my liking compared to his later works.)

Would I recommend this book to my readers? Well, if you are curious enough to know whether Dean Koontz really did predict the arrival of Covid-19, you can read it too. I downloaded this book from an online library I was a member of. I don’t think you can find any new prints of the book nowadays. If you are interested to read this book, let me know, and I will give you the link to the website via email. (You have to become a member of that online library, though. And I am only willing to share the link to those who are REALLY into books. I am too selfish to share that online library to everyone because my experience tells me that when something becomes popular, they will start charging you the price of your membership. So I might as well share that website with those who are only seriously interested)

So the question remains… had Dean Koontz REALLY predicted the arrival of this deadly corona virus? Haha. An article discussing this topic is already available in Google. So jangan malas, google it yourself 😛

The next book I had read in this month was a memoir written by Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman who had worked as a translator for various reporters who were covering the civil war and genocide in Darfur.

He had lived through a harrowing experience after being captured by the Sudanese Government in one of his translating mission with Paul Salopek, a renowned reporter who was on an assignment from National Geographic.

The whole story was basically about his Zaghawa background in Darfur, his various assignments as a translator and how he was finally captured by the Sudan government. Fortunately, while working as a translator, he had made a lot of useful friends, most of them are International reporters who knew powerful people. They helped releasing him from capture and he finally escaped to the US and wrote this memoir (See? This is an example of how cultivating good relationship with others is a matter of survival. Never experienced this kind of situation myself. Because I will always take precaution against needing someone for survival matters. But this kind of situation can certainly befall you. When you are in that tight spot, having a solid network of relationship is an absolute advantage.)

 I give this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. It was pretty average to me. I have read better memoirs of similar experience. I was not engaged enough throughout the reading. I think there was a lack of balance between facts and sentiments.

And this is the problem with writing memoirs. You cannot have too much facts, or the story becomes too dry. You cannot have too much sentiments, or else the context and the message would be overshadowed by too much emotion. You must have the amount just right. And I guess, this is the problem with this book. I need more sentiments to be there so that I can be more invested in the outcome of the story.

But by the end of the book, I wasn’t invested enough. I was simply glad to finish reading it so that I could move on to  the next interesting book.

Still, you guys might want to judge for yourself. How about reading other reviews about this book in Goodreads website before deciding whether this book is worth your money and time? Who knows, you might like reading this book!

Until next time, my dear readers. May Allah deliver us safely out of this Covid-19 catastrophe. #StaySafe #StayAtHome. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

Happy New Year 2020: A New Year Rant!

Wishing everyone a blessed year ahead.

Dear readers,

I hope it is not too late for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Truly, I have given up making any sort of New Year Resolutions because it has been made clear to me year after year that I truly do embody the true spirit of hangat-hangat tahi ayam. And therefore, I have given up on having yearly goals or resolutions.

I only have short-term agendas… daily agenda, weekly agenda, monthly agenda and so on and so forth.  And my resolution is to cross off the list of my agendas and just get things done within the time I have stipulated for myself.

And that is why I am particular about time. Because I have daily goals to achieve. Even if the goal is as simple as to finish my latest fiction, or to finish reading the latest journal article suggested by the Royal College or just to finish writing an article for my blog (Remember that I have a monthly agenda of one blog post per month. And included in that agenda is to finish at least 2-3 books per month so that I could write about them in my blog post in the section of Book Of The Month at the end of each blog post.)

So yearly resolution doesn’t do much good for me. Never have I ever lost the weight I wanted to lose at the beginning of the year LOL.  Instead I have my “let’s try to jog and sweat more today” days and my “I just want to eat Secret Recipe cakes and Baskin Robbins ice cream” days. These two types of days are of equal importance to me. Because… it’s about balance, guys… right?

Never have I ever been a good, obedient daughter for the whole year. But instead I have my good daughter “I am a blessing to my parents” days and my bad daughter “Poor my parents, I am giving them the worst kind of headache” days. LOL.

Never have I ever been a good, sociable friend who is always available for everyone all year round and will attend all kenduri invitations and get-together events. Instead I have my “let’s try to socialize more today” days and my “I really just want to be at home and read and do my own thing” days.

Never have I ever for the whole year been diplomatic and soft spoken always. But I have my “I can be patient about this for a little while and will try to respect your authority even though I think you are making a wrong decision” mood and my “I absolutely cannot tolerate this and will argue till kingdom come if you don’t withdraw your faulty decision no matter who you are in your position” mood. (In general, this involves people doing something unacceptable that I think violates my sense of justice, fair treatment and good conduct. I cannot be patient about that. But I have learned to pick and choose my battle these days. Because… priority, guys!)

So I find that daily renewal of good intention works better for me. Because I am human. I am not infallible. I forget my intention. I forget my purpose sometimes. And I am thankful that I am surrounded by people who can metaphorically whack my head when I am being a pain in the proverbial backside.

You see, I choose my friends carefully. I have inspiring friends all around me. I have friends who have such a similar view with me that she will fight side by side with me or support me if I choose to pick up a battle. I have friends who teach me to be patient and diplomatic when I am so upset I forget to hold my tongue. I have friends with whom I can talk for hours about anything heavy or light-hearted that we are insensible to the passing of the time. I have friends who are so strong that they can face trials in life multiple times and they can still get up from their falls, forge ahead and able to make it in the end. I have friends who enjoy adventurous stuff so that we can travel to earthquake-ridden places and do meaningful volunteer works when we feel like it. I have friends who share similar worldview with me that we will marvel for hours over a cup of coffee on why most people don’t think the way we do. LOL.

In short, I have inspiring friends whom I can learn from and I can emulate.

I do not place myself in a position of having friends with negative attitude and negative mindset. If I sense from the very beginning that you will weigh me down with all your “unprincipled, pemalas, kerja cincai, tak tepati masa, kaki bodek, negative about others all the time,” I will still treat you with distant politeness but you do not fit into my inner circle.

I truly hold on to this hadeeth below:

The Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) said:

“A good friend and a bad friend are like a perfume-seller and a blacksmith: The perfume-seller might give you some perfume as a gift, or you might buy some from him, or at least you might smell its fragrance. As for the blacksmith, he might singe your clothes, and at the very least you will breathe in the fumes of the furnace.”

(Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 3, Hadith 314)

As a doctor, our clinical practice is based on evidence-based guidelines. As a Muslim, our whole life has been guided by the Quran and the Hadeeth  though I am not perfect (FAR from perfect) in following all of them. But when it comes to choosing friends and my close companions, I do follow this hadeeth strictly. Because I believe that the impact of friends on you is significant. At the end of the day, you must have enough strength of character to walk away from bad friends because otherwise, they will affect you little by little and before you realize it, you have changed.

It is true that good people around you can influence your behaviours. I credit my much improved patience now to my calm, amiable, friendly friends that I met in Australia. If God had left me to my own devices, I think I would not be able to moderate my temperament and would still be that tiresome argumentative child who just wants to win and have the last word (even though one can argue that I still retain that tiresome traits until now LOL. But in my own defense, I really did believe that I was right when I was being argumentative. If you do not have the oratory skills to convince me, how would I know that I was wrong?) Their calm, logical, kind understanding in answering all my questions… I had never met someone like them before I went to Australia. I don’t think I have ever told them about how much they have impacted my worldview about life and about religion… maybe if they still read my blog, at least they will know.

There are still so much room for improvement in me… but really, this is a much better version of me. This is Afiza version 3.0 ha ha ha.

A review of 2019 & The Beginning of A Rant (LOL)

2019 had been full of ups and downs. But I managed to complete my MRCPsych exam in 2019. So that was something major in 2019 for me to be thankful for and to be jovial about. That was the goal I had successfully achieved last year, Alhamdulillah. #AchievementUnlocked #MoveOnToTheNextLevel

But what’s next?

 

I received an offer from Athona recruitment centre in the UK to become a psychiatrist there around 2 weeks after passing my exam. At first, I ignored the email from the recruitment centre because I didn’t think I wanted to work in the UK. My whole family is in Malaysia and I wanted to remain in Malaysia. But later, when the social media was abuzz with the news that critical allowance for newly appointed doctors would be abolished, I found myself staring at the email from the recruitment centre again. I found myself evaluating the idea of moving to the UK and continue working there.

Solidarity for junior doctors!

I was wondering whether I should really give up on Malaysia.

I have experienced a lot of…. well, dissatisfaction… about a lot of things. I am wondering if I could be a better doctor somewhere else, if I could do more somewhere else…where the system is superior, the allied health workers are enough and functioning, and the admin is reasonable when you lodge a complaint against any staff who does not treat your patient professionally.  Truthfully… there are times when I am tired of working in Malaysia. It’s not about the money. It’s never about the money because I am relatively financially free with no responsibility to anyone other than myself, Alhamdulillah. When I say I am financially free, I am not saying that I am rich… because I am not, LOL. But then, I don’t need to be rich. I am content. My freedom is my greatest treasure ever. I can speak up and challenge authority if I am so inclined because I know that should anyone try to oppress me unfairly, I can fight them back. If I lose the fight, I can afford to tender my resignation (after first creating a lot of havoc and probably dragging that person to court. LOL. But most people do not push me  that far.) This is the reason I choose MRCPsych. I have more options in where I can work if I have had enough of Malaysian bureaucracy. And the freedom that comes with a world-recognized qualification is a bliss.

Alhamdulillah, thank God that He had placed me in a job I love. Going to work is not even a job for me…. but a vocation. If I ever decide to leave KKM and go to the UK, it will not be about the money.

It will be about having to be under the thumb of foolish people in the admin side who discriminate the psychiatry field in the way that they deal with problematic staffs. Sometimes these admin people let dysfunctional staffs with criminal-like behaviour to continue working in psychiatry when the same kind of behavior in another department would not have been tolerated and would have caused them to be transferred out from that department pronto. (And these rejected staffs from other departments got transferred to PSY Department most of the times! And then this kind of staffs continue to create havoc in PSY department but when we complain about them, the admin people will not bother transferring them out from PSY department. The double standard is abominable!)

It’s also about dealing with rigid, bureaucratic red tape set by KKM admin who sit around making decisions about us without discussing their (unfair) decisions with us first. It’s also about the increasing pressure of being oppressed in which the burden of work is increasing (has there ever been a time when doctors’ burden of work is decreasing?) but the privileges and the allowances are abolished (or are being discussed and debated for abolishment). They have revoked their decision to abolish critical allowance for now, but who knows what else they would try to take away from us in the future?

On a larger scale of disenchantment, Pakatan Harapan proves to be disappointing to most of us who had worked really hard as a PACA in the last GE14. There are so many issues that have made us wonder on whether or not we should vote for BN in the next GE. Despite thinking this way, I never regret choosing Pakatan Harapan in GE14. The message we sent to the politicians was crystal clear. You cannot take for granted the loyalty of our votes if you do a poor job of governing the country. BN got the message already in the last GE14.

Maybe PH needs the same message as well during the next GE. Hmm? Maybe for the next GE, I will be a PACA for BN pula? LOL. My maternal aunty (whose house has been a BN Bilik Gerakan in Sedaka for decades) will be pleased about that, I am sure. She was so upset at my parents, myself and my siblings when we voted against BN during the last GE.

Let us be demanding of our government to deliver high quality governance. We can keep on switching our votes between various different parties till the end of days if we have to. That’s why I am not a member of any political party. I choose who to support based on issues. Not because I am a member of any political organization. I wish to stay objective and unbiased. I don’t believe in misplaced loyalty and unconditional love to any person or organization. My love and loyalty will always be conditional upon you being a good and worthy person. Because I don’t like to waste my time and my resources. (My INTJ traits could not have borne it! We loathe inefficiency in anything or anyone).

The same reason : The craps that they accumulate if they are not changed often.

Ex-Education Minister

A lot of people in my Facebook newsfeed had expressed sadness and dissatisfaction about Dr.Maszlee having to resign from his post as Education Minister. I didn’t express any feeling whatsoever about this because I believe that if he is really good, he will make a comeback. In fact, he will come back stronger and wiser if he learned from this experience. Even Tun M was expelled from UMNO once upon a time because he was too loud in his criticism against Tun Abdul Rahman, remember? And yet he is our PM twice over. Sometimes, things happened so that you can internalize the lessons that you would not have learned, otherwise. He has a lot of loyal supporters. Insya Allah, he will make a comeback.

I do believe that Maszlee is a good person but I did not always agree with all his statements and actions. When most people in my Facebook newsfeed were shocked about Dr. Maszlee having to resign from his post as Education Minister, I was not all that surprised by the news. I had predicted it in my previous blog post.

Below is the snippet of my previous blog post by the title of ‘Truly Non-Partisan’ :

Nowadays, Dr. Maszlee has received criticism right, left and centre! He has nothing to lose if he just says “We will abolish vernacular schools. The standard 1 batch who first enters the new education system will no longer be subjected to any quota system when they are applying for matriculation, 10-11 years from now. We hope to promote unity between races by abolishing vernacular schools as well abolishing quotas between races.” 

But what did he do instead? He said  something to the effect of “Quota should be there because even job openings are discriminatory. Private companies only hire mandarin-speaking candidates.” Gosh! Is he saying that one act of discrimination justifies the use of another act of discrimination?! “Oh sebab hangpa discriminate kami dalam pekerjaan, so kami discriminate korang dengan quota lah.” OMG…. no wise politician will say something like that!

Politicians should have basic debating skills, in my opinion.  Rather than comparing quota with job discrimination, you should compare quota with vernacular schools…. because the existence of quota is part of Hak Bumiputera. And if Bumiputera have to sacrifice their rights, then the non-bumiputera must also sacrifice their vernacular schools. Barulah comparable kat situ, faham tak? Barulah kau tak kena bash! Dan kalau kau kena bash pun, at least it will be for a WORTHY statement and a WORTHY move!

If  you are interested, you can read the whole article in the post ‘Truly Non-Partisan’. But basically, I had written about how unsatisfied I was that he did not put his foot down and be firm about abolishing vernacular schools. How he was seen to be focusing on frivolous issues. It’s good that he is concerned about Pendidikan Untuk Semua especially concerning OKU kids… but get it done in a single-stream school. It’s good that he upgraded schools in the rural area and all… that can happen while prioritizing single-stream school too. It’s good that he is concerned about ‘beban kerja guru’…. again beban kerja guru could be dealt with while also making the bigger and more important change of having a single stream school.

Tackle the most important priority, first! The problem in Malaysia is racial disunity secondary to childhood racial segregation in schools! At least, even if you ended up making so many enemies that you had to step down, it would have been for a worthy cause. But now even without touching vernacular schools… he still had to step down anyway. What a shame.

Leadership is not about trying to please everyone (but ended up making every faction hates you anyway because of your lack of firmness). It is about doing the right thing, even if you please no one. When you do the right thing, even if you get a backlash from it, at least you will be satisfied and content. But when you try to compromise and please everyone, sometimes the strategy will backfire on you and at the same time you don’t even get the satisfaction of having done the right thing. For example:

• Go ahead and be firm about learning Jawi in schools. Even if you had to displease the Chinese and the Indians, insist on learning Jawi because it has been decided. Tapi tiba-tiba daripada 6 muka surat jawi… tinggal 3 muka surat. Because you want to compromise and please everyone. But what happened instead? The Malays are very displeased because it was supposed to be 6 pages. And the Chinese/Indians are still displeased because they don’t even want to learn 3 pages of jawi! What did you get? None of the races are happy with you! At least if you had stick to your gun and insist that we are sticking to 6 pages of Jawi…. because you believe that this is the right thing to do (otherwise why would you have made that decision in the first place)… you will still please the Malays. But when you reduced the learning of Jawi to 3 pages, hoping to appease other races (but at the same time trying to comfort the Malays that Jawi will still be taught albeit with a reduced number of pages), every race is angry at you! Nampak tak how being Mr. Nice Guy to EVERYONE will backfire on us! Just do what you believe as right. Because when you do what you believe as right, that intention of yours please God. Don’t try to please others because there are so many of them who have their own conflict of interests that you can never please everyone. There’s a lot of freedom in knowing that you don’t have to please anyone else other than God. Try it sometime, okay? You might get so addicted to that freedom, you will never go back to being a Mr-Nice-Guy-To-Everyone again. #Leadership101
• Go ahead and defend tanglung at schools because CNY is a cultural celebration and not a religious one. Defend tanglung even if you had to displease the Malays. (Tapi yang ni, pandai pula PH Government defend bagai nak rak. Isu jawi pula diorang macam tak ada spine!)

 

When it comes to Jawi, you said PIBG’s decision was the reason not to implement it. How about Tanglung? It was the PIBG who decided to get rid of the tanglung! This is a rather obvious inconsistent reasoning!

• You want to enforce the rule of no smoking in public premises to please the non-smoking public. But then you ambivalently flip flop and decided to allow a smoking area in the restaurants to cater to smokers. Seriously… whaaatt??

Create a pattern of leadership that is so fair and so firm in its fairness no matter who is displeased, that you inspire respect in your leadership.

And I am not saying this only about Dr. Maszlee. But the whole laughable PH government is an epitome of spinelessness. I think the young generation is getting very disillusioned about this country. Part of me feel like I should have stayed in Australia when I had the chance.

I am a very patriotic person. But when the fate of our country lies in politicians whose honour is questionable at best, the inclination to pack up and get out is very strong.

Why do I say their honour is questionable?

Well…if I were a politician, I certainly would not have hired political aides who are involved in drug parties. (Remember the hadeeth?) And I certainly would not want someone who commit adultery/sodomy to be among my trusted circle and working with me in developing my political career. In order for me to work with you, I need to know that I can trust and respect your integrity. I make it compulsory that if I am going to have to deal with you day in and day out, you better buck up and deserve my friendship and the trust that comes with it. I don’t want to waste my time having to deal with the complication of your dubious character. Time should be spent focusing on things that matter. Not dealing with bad behavior of undeserving people in your life that makes your life difficult to the point that you spend the bulk of your time settling headache-inducing personal issues, when you could have spent your time doing important things that would make a difference; things that would give you a reward in this life and the hereafter.

When it comes to dealing with my subordinates, I don’t go around checking the whereabouts of my HOs or my staffs every single minute of their working hours. I have better stuff to do with my time. But I want things to be done within the stipulated time that we had discussed. I will check and follow up on what I had asked them to do. I want them to show results without me having to micro-manage their time. You can keluar ambil anak from school or do whatever you have to do as long as you deliver progress and good results in your work. Tapi kalau kau pemalas, kau tak berdisiplin, kau suka buat pesakit atau kau tak buat kerja sampai pesakit under your care banyak relapse…. You should be sacked out of your department! Don’t demotivate other staffs around you who had to put up with your behavior.

As a leader, they must start learning the concept of Pygmalion effect. People deliver something better, because YOU expect something better! People will try to meet your standard because you expect it from them and will not put up with anything less.

As simple as that.

So why did you expect low?

 

***

The Worrying Global Trend Of Religious & Racial Persecution

Things that are happening to Uyghurs in China and to Muslims in India and Kashmir…. they are very disheartening.

In our own country, racial issues are fired up constantly and consistently.

Modi’s government wants India’s Muslims to prove their Indianness because their faith renders it suspect.  Seriously!

Some of fellow Malaysians of Indian race had dared to question Tun M’s stand to continue to criticize India, because now India had retaliated by not buying our palm oil. And some of these ‘Malaysians’ who are still LOYAL to India are saying things like “Take care of the economy of your own country first and guard your mouth, Tun M.”

Wow…. their priority is certainly skewed.

So, I then wrote this Facebook status. I hope my message is clear. Jangan main dengan api just because the majority is silent. I am certainly not the silent type when I have had enough.

One of my friends were saying to me, “Aku tak berani nak tulis some of the Facebook status that you had written even though I agree with you. Facebook aku ada kawan-kawan India, Cina…. aku takut depa offended.”

I have said it before. I say the truth even if people don’t like it. I am not responsible for your hurt feelings. I certainly do have Chinese and Indian friends in my Facebook as well as in real life and in our day-to-day life, we get along well and respect each other!

But this is political! Everybody will have their own political opinion which may be influenced by their race or their religion.

But regardless of which race or religion you are, justice is a universal concept! Regardless of which race or religion you are, FACTS are facts!

Below are the facts!

In China, the main culture/religion is Buddhism, and they speak Chinese languages (Mandarin/Cantonese/Hokkien etc), and the Chinese students take exams based on the syllabus in their own country which has been tailored to suit the Chinese values, Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy. Can a Muslim whose Malaysian ancestors had migrated to China demand that the Chinese Government recognize her SPM qualification (based on the Malaysian syllabus) so that she could enter universities in China? How is that fair to other citizens who took different kind of exams? #SayNoToUEC

Likewise, in India, the main culture/religion/language is not Islam or Arabic…. it is Hindu as the religion of the majority and Hindi language is the official language. Can a Muslim whose ancestors had migrated from Saudi Arabia demand that the India Government recognize her exam qualification based on Saudi Arabia’s syllabus in order for her to enter Indian Universities?

In Europe, the Western values is the dominant culture and Christian is the main religion. Before going to study in Australia, I took International Baccalaureate (IB) qualification before I can enter Newcastle University! Should I have demanded that they recognize my SPM, instead? I could sure try, if I wanted to be a barrel of laughs!

In the Middle East, the main culture is Arabic and the language is Arabic. I am sure they too have their own system!

In EVERY region and EVERY country, there is one dominant culture and one dominant religion and one official/dominant language. This is the country’s identity! Every country has ONE dominant identity which is usually influenced by the culture and religion of the majority! #FactsOfLifeInThisWorld  Please get this into your head!

In Malaysia, that dominant identity and that dominant culture is the Malay culture and the official religion in this country is Islam… but we didn’t stop you from practicing your own culture and religion! But respect to the dominant culture and the dominant religion must be there! You do not get to demand EQUALITY of all religions and cultures in Malaysia. Just like other minorities in other countries also cannot (and DID NOT!!) demand EQUAL recognition of their own cultures and religious practices in that country. As long as they can practice their religion and culture without disturbance, they do not demand that everything about their culture and religion is treated equally with the dominant culture/religion. In fact, they assimilated! Some of the Chinese and Indians in Australia could not even speak their mother tongues, and they have Western values and they adopt the Western culture.

Sure, Barack Obama who is a black American had been the US President for two terms. But don’t try to compare that situation with Malaysia by saying stupid things out of context such as “Malaysia is so backward… in the US,  they already have a Black president. Kat Malaysia, kenapa orang Cina/India tak boleh jadi PM? So racist!”

Hang on, guys! Barack Obama didn’t speak Swahili… he speaks perfect English. And his culture and religion are Western and Christian. He has assimilated! THAT is the difference!

He is so assimilated that people were not worried that someone like him was going to be the President of a white-majority country… because they were very confident that it wouldn’t affect their way of life in any way, shape or form. But can you imagine if Barack Obama speaks hesitant English, and more fluent in Arabic than in English, and is a practicing Muslim rather than a practicing Christian, whose values are Eastern rather than Western…. would he have been the US President? Think about it! Be fair in your judgment!

So if you want to be a Malaysian PM, come and join us and assimilate with us… starting from learning with us in a similar environment at schools during childhood. Tapi kalau itu pun kau tak boleh buat, tiba-tiba nak demand jadi PM Malaysia? Are you out of your mind? Who would vote for you to be Malaysian PM in a Malay-mojority country? This is not about being racist. This is about understanding facts and contexts! In Australia, MOST members of parliament are WHITE…. hardly any Asians or Muslims or Indians can be an MP despite them having assimilated completely with the Australian culture. Most of them don’t speak their own mother tongues and hardly know anything about being Asian or being Indian. And yet, they are much less represented!

Compare that situation to Malaysia where there are SO MUCH MORE Indians and Chinese who are MPs.  I and many Malays certainly would vote for a PM who is a Chinese Muslim like Brother Firdaus Wong. I am sure a lot of Malays would vote for an Indian Muslim like Brother Shah Kirit to be a PM… because we feel like they have assimilated perfectly with the culture of the majority! They would not suddenly question Islamic practices or the fact that Islam is the official religion of the country. Sebab tulah Barack Obama boleh jadi presiden US…. because he assimilated! #PoliticalScience101 Kalau benda simple macam ni kau tak boleh grasp (or maybe it is actually too complicated for you?), how can you have the maturity to be a PM?

Below is  an introduction to the wit of Brother Wong, to those who have never known him.

When you go to the Western countries, pandai pula kau tak demand vernacular schools kat sana. There are so many Indians/Chinese living in the UK or the US…. but why does no one demand for the UK or the US government to recognize their syllabus based on their country of ethnic origin? Why do you dare to insist on your vernacular schools when you are in Malaysia but not when you are in the Western countries? Perhaps minorities in the Western countries are more reasonable and they know not to cross boundaries. They know their place, their rights and their limitations. So, I reiterate #SayNoToUEC

Nak dapat cuti CNY/Deepavali… jangan haraplah kalau kat Australia! During Eid day pun aku pergi lecture hall ok! Nak bina kuil, rampas tanah orang suka-suka hati kat Western countries, kau berani ke? Kau ingat negara tak ada undang-undang??

If I ever decide to migrate to the UK, I would NEVER behave like some of the minority extremists here in Malaysia. Because in Islam, we are taught #FiqhMinoriti (Fiqh Al-Alqalliyyat or Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities). Did you know that in Syariah Law, Muslims minority must follow the law of the land they reside in? Otherwise, we have the options to berhijrah. Simple kan? We will still do the actions required in our 5 pillars of Islam (rukun Islam; namely shahada, praying, zakat, fasting, hajj pilgrimage) but we are not asked to change the law of the land to be in accordance to Islam.

But when we are in a Muslim-majority country, we are obliged to uphold the Islamic Law without trampling on the rights of the minority. And Malaysia is a Muslim-majority country!

“Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat”—the jurisprudence of Muslim minorities—is a legal doctrine introduced in the 1990s by Taha Jabir Al-Alwani and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi which asserts that Muslim minorities, especially those residing in the West, deserve a special new legal discipline to address their unique religious needs that differ from those of Muslims residing in Islamic countries.

According to Taha, “While Muslims in Muslim Countries are obliged to uphold the Islamic Law of their state, Muslim minorities in the United States are not required either by the Islamic Law or rationality to uphold Islamic symbols of faith in a secular state, except to the extent permissible within that state.”

But there will be extremists in any religion and any race. We certainly do get Muslim extremists in  the West too. And in Malaysia… there are minority extremists who are being given a wide publicity by the local media. My question is, what are you playing at? Are you trying to burn the country to the ground with racism and racial hatred?

So, if you are wondering why I can write controversial stuff in my Facebook my answer is…. “Kenapa kita kena senyap bila ada orang lain tengah propagate for falsehood, wanting something beyond their rights? Kenapa diorang boleh cakap lepas dan mulut capoi macam dengan apa dan post kat Facebook benda yang salah? Tapi kita tak boleh propagate benda yang betul? Kau boleh terima ke bila ada Malaysian biadap yang cakap jangan menyibuk soal India… jangan sibuk speak up bila Indian Government discriminate orang Muslim kat sana just because our palm oil will be boycotted? Economy first, before humanity and justice…. is that it? Religious persecution is okay ke… as long as our palm oil can be sold to India? I cannot accept that. So kalau orang boleh berani tulis benda yang salah, kenapa aku  tak boleh tulis benda yang betul!”

I posted what I believe as right! That’s my answer to why I don’t care whose feelings are hurt by what I write.

If you are hurt by the truth, you are the problem. Not me.

***

Book Of The Month

In the month of December, I had finished 5 books; 3 fictions and 2 non-fictions. But I would like to write only  about the non-fiction ones because I think these two books are quite beneficial to be read by my readers.

Some of my patients had asked me about what books should they read that would motivate them. And usually, I would be at a loss to recommend one for them. You see, the truth is, I do not set out to motivate myself by reading motivational books. I find that they are too contrived and they are trying too hard to motivate us in an unnatural way to the point that they sound unrealistic. I read fictions…. on justice, on quests, on hardship and difficulties… in which the hero would win in the end after facing so many trials and tribulations. To me, THAT is motivating.

So I don’t read books like ‘Chicken Soup For The Soul’… Or books like ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ or ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’. I mean… I guess, they are alright but they are not my cup of tea. I was never able to finish them and have given up buying them.Those kind of books are too… instructive, for me. Too contrived. Like I have to follow a manual instead of leading my life naturally. LOL.

So, I didn’t know what to recommend my patients if they asked me for that kind of books because I don’t read them, in general.

But one day I came across an instagram page of Mizi Wahid and I kind of like the things he posted. Later I found out that he had authored a book by the title of The Art Of Letting God. I bought this book in Senai Airport at the price of  RM50, and for  a 147-pages hard-cover book, I must say it was a great purchase.

This book is for Muslims who are looking for inspiration, motivation and the strength to let go of their past hurt and regrets. And it is the Muslim version of evidence-based practice (i.e, dalil-based) for letting go and letting God. I certainly enjoyed reading it and I finished them in 2-3 days. It does intrigue my mind and challenge my thoughts in certain things and that is quite rare to happen for me these days. For example in Chapter 9 “Leave Your Enemies To Him”… hahha…. I had a long thought about that. Because my core belief is Justice.

Let me quote some of the sentences in this Chapter:

In Islam, the choice to avenge a wrongdoing is a valid one. It is an option as long as the “retaliation” is equal or less than what was done to you. But there are other options too. And they are: the choice to be compensated and the choice to forgive the wrongdoer.

I will never be able to talk about forgiveness until you first acknowledge that avenging a wrongndoing is also a valid course of action! Most motivational books would jump straight to “Forgiveness of Others” as though the wish to be avenged is unnatural. But Mizi Wahid took a balanced approach. He had rightly stated that being compensated and being avenged is also a valid option. It does celebrate our natural human nature of seeking justice. And only AFTER talking about justice, he talked about forgiveness. That is very good…. very palatable to someone like me.

Don’t you just HATE it when some ‘budget bagus’ preacher talk about forgiveness without talking about justice? So impractical and so devoid of any understanding of human nature! Padahal dia sendiri pun mulut boleh tahan and taklah automatically forgive orang. Ha ha.

I like something real, genuine and practical. Don’t sound pretentiously religious when actually the reality is different. I tend to question your intention if I don’t trust your holier-than-thou tone.

So I do recommend my readers to read this book by Mizi Wahid, The Art Of Letting God. I think this is one of the motivational books that are less pretentious compared to many others out there. And like I said, it is dalil-based (evidence-based).

The next book I would like to talk about is Labyrinths by Catrine Clay. I bought this book in Alor Star during the Big Bad Wolf book sale last October. The reason I bought this book was because it is related to my career in psychiatry.

This is about Carl Gustav Jung and his marriage to Emma Jung and the early days of psychoanalysis. Even Sigmund Freud made an appearance in this book and he was like a father-figure to Carl Jung…until finally Carl Jung departed from Freud due to their disagreement about one aspect of psychoanalysis… namely the psychosexual part of psychoanalysis.

After reading this book, I had a clearer idea on how psychoanalysis was practiced in the early days and frankly, I am not impressed by how very unscientific their methods were.

Below is a table outlining the differences between Carl Jung’s assumptions and Freud’s assumptions (Nama pun assumptions, ok!)

I find this book is particularly illuminating when it comes to personal anecdotes of Carl Jung’s life and childhood (he was sexually abused). There were some questions on whether or not he might have suffered from Bipolar?

It was interesting to know about the ménage à trois between Carl Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff. I felt so sorry for Emma Jung about that.

In this biography, Carl Jung was depicted to have had multiple romantic relationships with his patients. For someone who should know better about transference, he certainly didn’t give a damn. There had been times when he continued to encourage romantic feelings in his patients.

I find that at the end of the book, I could not respect Carl Jung as a person. Maybe as a psychiatrist he deserved some recognition and respect. But on the whole, I find that he is not up to the ethical standard that should be expected from a psychiatrist. I wonder if the ethic governing doctors back then was much different than now.

But do I recommend this book to my readers? Well, I recommend psychiatrists and psychiatry MOs and psychologists to read this book. But I don’t recommend it to the general public.  Because you guys might have a wrong idea about psychiatry when you read the unscientific nature of dream analysis and psychoanalysis based on free-association.  Adeh!

Until next time, my dear readers. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

Most Eventful Ramadhan & Eid

Assalamualaikum, guys. I hope it is not too late for me to wish all my blog readers Eid Mubarak and Taqabbalallahu Minna Waminkum. May Allah accept all the good deeds from you and from me. Amin.

I have always loved the month of Ramadhan since I was a child. This year’s Ramadhan, however, was quite eventful for me. But I still treasure it, nonetheless.

In the middle of Ramadhan, I had to sit for my CASC exam and oh boy, it was like walking through a journey of a treacherously thorny path for me. At the end of the exam, I was drained and exhausted with a heavy feeling in my chest about all the possible (imagined or otherwise) mistakes I might have committed. My apprehension was made worse by the post-exam discussion session that we had self-torturously embarked on among ourselves. (Worst idea ever to have a post-exam discussion! Only worsen my fear) During that discussion, I came to realize that some of them had done this CASC a few times in the past… one candidate had even done it for 5 times. And they were so good and so experienced but they still failed… and I am just a newbie. I knew my chance of passing was very slim. But I didn’t want to lose hope just yet.

After I got back from CASC exam, my mind was perhaps too preoccupied… I missed a step and fell down the stairs at my parents house, spraining my left foot. But because I had only just returned from exam leave, I didn’t feel like I could get an extended MC just for a sprained left foot even though this felt like the worst sprain I have ever experienced in my life. So I went for my first post-exam on-call with a crutch. It was a terrible on-call, not just because of the amount of the on-call cases, but mainly because I noticed how everyone was staring at me when I walked with a crutch along the hospital corridor. Not exactly the best feeling ever.

I felt so self-conscious that I decided to not use the crutch anymore the day after. Luckily, by my next on-call, the pain got much better and I could weight-bear already, albeit with a funny gait. It wasn’t the most fun experience I have ever had.  Adeh. I ended up spending the rest of the Ramadhan at my parents’ house instead of returning to my own place because my left foot was still too painful for me and therefore any help I could get with free meals preparation would be much appreciated. (Muchas gracias, mamita and papito! Your ever loving daughter loves you) The good thing was, I got to spend a lot of time with my parents in Ramadhan and buka puasa meals tasted much better (And it’s also great because it’s been a long time since I last feel like an only child. LOL.)

I went through the middle part of Ramadhan feeling like I was going to have to start collecting more money for my next CASC attempt. At one point, I decided to stop worrying about the result and just focus on getting the best out of Ramadhan first. Priority must be set straight, I had to firmly tell myself.

I had a good Raya celebration on the 1st and 2nd day of Raya with my family and friends.  As usual I had a ‘beraya & bermaafan’ session with my parents, my sisters and their husbands (This year, tak cukup korum. Two of my siblings celebrate raya at their in-laws’ houses.)

And we also had our annual outdoor #OOTD Raya pose. Haha. There were a lot of ridiculous pictures of us acting like cheaply-paid models, displaying  baju kurung in an outdoor photoshoot session. 😛 I will only be showing you a few here. The rest look too ridiculous for public consumption. *facepalm*

 

On the 2nd day and 3rd day of Raya, I went out with two of my good friends. Because these two don’t know each other, I had to arrange to meet them separately.  These two are among the ‘wajib jumpa time raya’ people for me, despite the fact that I do meet them quite frequently throughout the year, anyway. I also attended a few open-houses organized by colleagues and friends. All in all, I really kept my promise to socialize more after exam. I did it! Haha.

 

But on my 3rd day of Raya, the anxiety about exam came back because it was the day my exam result was going to come out. I placed all my tawakkal in Allah because I knew I didn’t do as good as I hoped to do in the exam. I told myself that I would accept whatever result that I would be getting.

***

Dear readers,

I was quite disappointed that I did not pass my CASC exam. In order to pass the CASC exam, there are TWO criterias that must be met:

1)you must reach the passing mark

AND

2) you must not fail more than 4 stations out of 16 stations.

The passing mark is 62.7. My mark is 63.3%. So, I did reach the passing mark but I failed more stations than I should. That happened to a few of us. And there were also some of us who only failed 2-3 stations but unfortunately did not reach the passing mark. It was the most disappointing thing that could ever happen to a candidate… when you made it in one criteria but did not make it in the other. Gosh, so disappointing. Overall, around 47% of the candidates had passed. The rest, including yours truly, will have to prepare for another CASC attempt.

I was disappointed. But I accepted it (because what else can I do right? LOL)

I gave myself 24 hours to grieve properly. And then I told myself that I must get over it, stop feeling sorry for myself and start to DO SOMETHING (as in, study again, of course! What else, right? Gosh… so exhausting! But the truth is, the most exhausting part is remembering the money I had burned for this exam. Ouch! The pain is real! A lot of us MRCPsych candidates are struggling financially. That is one major stressor for all of us.)

But I couldn’t even grieve properly because I had relatives to entertain and my mom needed my help in the kitchen. Actually, come to think of it, that’s a good thing because it stopped me from ruminating over my result. Because my result had come out during the festive season, I had to be less self-absorbed and focus on helping my mother to entertain the guests.

I still remember how I had reacted when I failed my Add Maths as a Form 4 student back then. That was the first time I had ever failed at anything. It was such a HORRIBLE feeling back then. I was so self-absorbed, refused to talk and just ruminated for a few days straight LOL. But maybe it is a sign of maturity now that I could simply put aside my disappointment and responded to my environment properly, be sociable and just entertained guests like nothing really disappointing had recently happened to me. If I were still my old self, I would probably just shut myself in my room and ignore everyone after announcing to my family that I want to be by myself. I would  then pick up some fiction and simply escape reality by reading the story of another person’s life hahha. Yup… that was me as a teenager! (But I am so much better now, ehem, I think. Perhaps because as I grew older, I have come to realize that most things that I used to care about was not as important as I made it out to be. It is nice when things go your way. It’s good when things are calm and rosy. But when things don’t go your way, you are going to have to deal with it, respond accordingly and persevere. But, this is easier said than done. Because first of all, you have to calm the tumultuous turmoil in your chest. And that is HARD, my dear readers. But again, you have to do what you have to do!)

It is no use to deny that the weight of disappointment is always gonna feel heavy in your chest. But the point is not to let it overwhelm you. Keep your balance.

The day after I got my result, I felt like cancelling the plan I had made with another good friend of mine to meet up with her. I haven’t caught up with her for 2 years though we always keep in touch through whatsapp messages. She is one of my best friends during housemanship and now she is already a Paediatrician. But I just didn’t feel like going out the day after my disappointing exam result. Just wasn’t really in the mood. But then…  I told myself, “Afiza, you had wanted to meet up with her for so long. Just because you fail an exam, why should you change your plan? It doesn’t make it right for you to cancel a plan that you had committed to. Both of you had set aside a specific time to meet up and she had probably cleared her schedule for this reunion…. is it okay to break a promise just because you are disappointed? Buck up, girl! You are better than this!” 

I know it is not okay to cancel a plan that we had SO CAREFULLY laid out with each other many days prior. (Because both of us were always so busy to meet up properly, before. We doctors are not really spontaneous people and every get-together is NEVER a spur-of-the-moment thing.) And really, I also wanted to meet her. I knew she was going to be a breath of fresh air that I was going to need. So, I decided to go and see her in Sungai Petani as we had planned.

 

And I am really glad I did that. The force of her insightful wisdom was what I really needed at that time. She is one of the wisest person I have had the fortune to know. She shared with me her own struggle when she was studying to become a Paediatrician and now she’s already doing her gazettement. She really did lift up my spirit in that 3 hours I had spent talking to her. I am so lucky that I am surrounded by inspiring people like her. It makes it easier for me to emulate their spunk.

So, can you see now why I feel like I’ve had such an eventful (or stressful) Ramadhan and Eid? Haha. It was like I was thrown into a roller coaster whirlwind of feelings and emotions in this particular year of Ramadhan and Eid. Feeling blissful and happy about Ramadhan and Eid in one moment, and then feeling anxious about results in the next moment. In one moment, I would feel thankful that I get to experience Ramadhan and Eid one more time this year, and then in the next moment I would feel sad about not passing the exam. I couldn’t even cry properly because even though emotionally I feel sad but intellectually I knew that I have so much more to be thankful for that it wouldn’t make sense for me to complain about anything. I would be an ungrateful slave if I complain about petty stuff when He had given me so much throughout my life. How He had guided me in the past when I was lost  by throwing me into the midst of the kind and wise people I had met in Australia! How He had blessed me with comfort and love from the people surrounding me. How He protected me even when I didn’t deseve it!

Even now, I can feel the wave of love coming from family and friends when I am feeling disappointed and defeated. That is indeed a blessing.

 

Alhamdulillah for great family support and friends with positive outlooks. Anything more that He decides to give me would only be a bonus and I realize that. Passing an exam should not be anyone’s main focus in life, right? (But oh, it would be so nice to have passed. Really, I cannot deny that. But I am putting stuff into proper perspective in order to bounce back and fight another day. I am gonna beat  the crap out of you, CASC! Haha. Insya Allah).

Now, it’s time to resume my studying and prepare for the next CASC exam.

Wish me luck and please pray that I will have the strength and fortitude to go through the exam again.

Until next time, my dear readers. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

 

 

 

Heartbreaking News In New Zealand

When I first found out that there was an ACT OF TERRORISM being committed at two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand on Friday resulting in 49 Muslims killed and many others injured, I was devastated.

I had  to stop my studying for awhile and just devoured the news that were spreading like bushfire in my Facebook newsfeed. I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t. My eyes just refused to cooperate to tear up. So, I was left with deep heaviness in my chest instead. I know that the heaviness will go away if I just cry. (This is my problem. It is always difficult for me to cry. I think if I could just cry, I can relieve this ache in my chest.)

I have been to Christchurch when I was a medical student. I went there  with my housemates for a holiday during the first semester break of my 4th year of medical school. We enjoyed our New Zealand trip very much because New Zealand is just such a beautiful country. I never thought that this tragedy could happen in New Zealand because my impression was New Zealanders were much more tolerant towards ‘other’ people compared to their Australian counterparts. They are more progressive in terms of giving their indigenous people (the Maoris) their rights and privileges. The rights of the Maoris in New Zealand are better preserved and protected than the rights of the Aboriginals in Australia.

So when something heartbreaking like this happened in Christchurch, I just could not process it!

And then I found out that the evil perpetrator behind this massacre was an Australian who has a Neo-Nazi political leaning.

Well…. I love Australian people. Most of them are lovely and kind. But some of them can be such racist rednecks! Five years in Australia taught me all I need to know about white supremacy and racism. My experience in Australia shaped me into the kind of person I have become now. I am a person who is super-sensitive to any form of racism or supremacy or ‘budget bagus’ group. You can judge anyone as an individual if you are so inclined. But don’t overgeneralize the whole group because of any mistake done by some individuals in that group. I COULD NOT tolerate that EVER. Muslims living in the West post 9/11 would understand the kind of suffering we had to endure when we were all painted with the same brush. To them, either we were evil terrorists or oppressed Muslim women! Either way, we were treated with suspicions and being looked at as inferior just because we wore the hijab outside the house.

I remember how I felt like I had to prove myself as a Muslim medical student in Australia. I had to do MORE to get the same kind of respect or esteem that the Australians effortlessly enjoyed. As an introvert, it took some adjustment for me to push myself to be extra-friendly, to be outspoken in tutorials, to join group discussions, to mingle with people (now doing these things is much easier for me these days… especially the outspoken part. Haha)  I had to do all these extra efforts in an attempt to contradict the degrading narrative of what being a Muslim woman was perceived to be (when actually, I really preferred to keep quiet and just went home and read my books). Whenever I couldn’t answer any question in the tutorial group, I felt so embarrassed (more embarrassed than I would have been if I were in Malaysia) because I felt like I was feeding the stereotype that Muslim women are stupid by my inability to come up with a sensible answer. I felt like I had to say something (anything!) in the tutorial even when I had nothing to say. I felt like I had to fill up my speech quota of the day in order to appear fully switched on and involved in the tutorial discussion. I felt that way after finding out that some tutors had complained to the admin that “the Malaysian students are too quiet and not participating in the tutorial discussion”. So during each tutorial session, I doubled my effort to appear extrovert because apparently, the more you talk, the more intelligent people think you are. *rolled eyes* (And yes, Australians are very extrovert! And so, people who are too quiet would be thought of as less intelligent or less capable) So, I strove harder in order to contradict the stereotyped image of what being a Muslim woman was. My sweetest moment was when my assignment on Health Equity Selective was being put up on my uni website (in our students blackboard page) as an example to the juniors in the batch below mine on how to write a Health Equity Selective project in the category of Psychiatry.  Me, an International student whose English is only a second language, got the opportunity to display my assignment as a guidance for the juniors to emulate when doing their psychiatry Health Equity Selective… I was over the moon! (Yup, I had chosen Psychiatry for my Health Equity Selective project. I have been interested in Psychiatry since I was a medical student and had chosen that field for my elective.) I was over the moon because I felt like I had proven a point. It was like, I was saying “See… a Muslim student is not that stupid. If we don’t talk as much in our tutorial session, it is because some of the things are obvious already… that it is not even worth mentioning. And English is our second language… it takes more energy for us to come up with any sort of conversation compared to you guys. If we are a bit slow in articulating our thoughts, that is only to be expected, isn’t it? Besides, we just don’t feel the need to stand out all the time.”

My Malaysian juniors were like “Kami bangga sangat tengok Health Equity Selective Kak Afiza masuk dalam blackboard. Malaysia boleh gitu!”

I laughed.

I am proud of my juniors too. I was proud whenever I see my Malaysian juniors were more well-adjusted and had assimilated better with other Australian students compared to us, the seniors. The juniors learned from our own mistakes and put more effort in making Australian friends. They experienced less criticism that “the Malaysian students do not mingle with people. They like  to keep  to themselves and don’t put in any effort to assimilate with the whole batch”.  As the years progressed and we started getting more Malaysian students among our junior batches, I thought, we were doing such a good job of portraying that Muslims were not as bad as what were shown in the media. Slowly but surely, I felt like the stereotype against Malaysian students were eroding. My heart burst out with pride when I saw how Malaysians were very heavily involved in our university Islamic Society (I myself was the treasurer of University of Newcastle Islamic Society at one time) and we were always the front-liners when it came to interacting with non-Muslims at the Islamic booth during Islamic Awareness Week. Compared to the Saudi or other Middle Eastern Muslims, Malaysian leadership shone bright in the Islamic Society. (Perhaps because our command in English was better than them). We could answer controversial questions about Islam quite well while guarding the booth. All in all, we were making pretty good progress.

But it could get pretty tiring. Always having to prove yourself over and over again is tiring. Whenever there were new incidents of terrorism and bombings in the Western world, I felt like all our hard work to prove that Muslims are good people were completely undone. And we had to do it all over again. Prove ourselves all over again. It was exhausting. Mentally and physically draining.

But I never regret any of it! Because the struggle that I had gone through made me who I am today. There is beauty in the struggle that we have to face in order to live up to our Muslim identity and Muslim ideals when we are living in a non-Muslim country. Looking back, I was my best self in spirituality when I was a medical student in Australia. Because of the struggle I had to face in Australia, I was more conscious of God and more connected to my religion than I ever was in Malaysia. I invested more time to learn about Islam properly (partly because I had to prepare answers for the questions that non-Muslims liked to ask). I was my most patient self when I was in Australia… because I was carrying the image of a Muslim and I did not want my bad behaviour to tarnish the name of my religion. In Australia, I had a purpose GREATER than my own self because I had to be a small ambassador to my religion! So despite all the struggles and the difficulties, I was very motivated. Our social support were the usrah-attending seniors who kept reminding us to be good, to do good, to strive for the hereafter and not just the dunya. (This is the part of myself that I miss the most, now that I am in Malaysia. I miss the Afiza who was nice. Because the current Afiza is not so nice! Hahah. Somehow, after coming back from Australia, I have retained my outspokenness but have not retained being nice. Perhaps because Malaysians are not always nice too….they are not always ethical…they don’t have values of respect or punctuality or cleanliness or efficiency…. they can be lazy…  they can trample on your rights… and if I am too nice and not outspoken enough, I will be oppressed. And I don’t want that.)

***

Allah had planned my life so beautifully, Alhamdulillah.

At 18 years old, I was grieving the death of my friend. Looking back, maybe I had an existential crisis at that time because I was so shocked by the fragility of life. That my friend could die at such a young age! I wondered, what was this life all about? For two years, I was wondering to myself about existential stuff, but afraid to vocalize them out for fear that they would label me “tak kuat iman”. And then Allah sent me to Australia where I met religious people who could answer all my questions. Alhamdulillah, my existential crisis resolved then. I became a firm believer. I came across someone in Melbourne who answered my questions patiently, systematically… scientifically, even! Suddenly, I felt a sense of spiritual awakening that I had never experienced before that summer, which was my first summer in Australia. I knew then that Islam is logical; that it makes sense! If things do not make sense, you must double-check whether it is truly religious in the first place. I was ecstatic and grateful for all that I had learned that summer.  It is nice to have real faith!  (I was so relieved! Finally, the horror of the Israilyat stories I had to swallow in KMB can be vomited out once and for all without feeling any guilt. That’s why I will always love Australia, the place where I had experienced an exponential growth, mentally and spiritually! There would never be a time when I think of Australia without a sense of nostalgia. It’s just not possible. Some of the things I had learned in Australia STILL influence my behaviour until now!)

I believe, some Muslims would have an existential crisis after witnessing this current heartbreaking incident. Some of the family members of the deceased might experience what I had experienced during the period of grieving. They would start questioning… why are there so many dreadfulness in this world? Why do people do evil things? Why didn’t God do something about it? Why didn’t He intervene? Why is this world so unfair? Why was I even created? What am I supposed to do in this life? Is Islam really the right religion? How do I know that? What if I am in the wrong faith… what will happen to me when I die, then?

They might have all these questions as they deal with the death of their loved ones. And hopefully, they will go through the cognitive process of finding the answers… and finally be at peace in their faith. You cannot bury these questions and silence your conscience. Repressing your doubts will not help you find peace. You must actively engage with your intellect and answer the questions that you have about the religion, about faith, about life after death. Otherwise, you will always be in doubt. And it won’t be real iman. You will not experience true peace that comes with firm belief. You will not feel confident to take any action, to speak up, to do what you believe is right… because you are not even REALLY sure if God is real and that He will help you out of any trouble.

So, don’t bury your internal existential crisis or your philosophical conflict. Answer them! Seek and you shall find! And believe me, what you find will be beautiful and priceless!

 

***

My Facebook status on the act of terrorism at the two mosques in Christchurch.

I have been busy preparing for my CASC exam these days. As usual, I am at my most neurotic self while preparing for exams, LOL. I would start thinking about how much money will be lost if I fail my exam. I would start thinking about “ah, aku dah tak larat nak study! I just want to be a chronic MO.” Hahha.

Sometimes, I mourn my lack of time for fiction reading. It is ridiculous how much I sweat the small stuff.

I forgot that there are other more important things in life other than being a nerd and passing your exam. I forgot that my fiction-reading are trivial, picisan stuff! Stuff of amusements and ‘main-main’.

In other parts of the world, people are fighting for their lives!

On the same day that the mosques in  Christchurch were attacked, Israel had also launched series of airstrikes across Gaza! We have thousands, if not millions, of our Muslim brothers and sisters in various parts of the world undergoing physical and mental suffering… all at the same time! And I am worried about exams? And about reading fiction? Gosh, Afiza… you are preposterous!

Sometimes, I have to admit, I can be really stupidly ridiculous. I am done worrying about trivial stuff! Because there’s more to life.

For as long as I can remember… everytime I was overwhelmed by my study, some sort of tragedy would be breaking news and made me realize that my struggle was not significant at all in the general scheme of things. For example, in 2010, while I was preparing for my final General Medicine exam, the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was a civilian ship bringing aid to the Palestinians, was attacked by the Israel Navy in May 2010. The attack by the Israel Navy was bravely resisted by the civilians on the ship; nine activists died and many were wounded. I was worried sick about my exam at that time. But after reading about what had befallen the Mavi Marmara ship, I had felt similarly ridiculous as I am feeling now for being too worried over small stuff when people are fighting for something greater than even their own lives!

I composed a poem for Mavi Marmara at that time entitled FORGIVE MY SCOWL which I had uploaded into the poetry section in this blog. I composed that poem after taking a pause from studying my General Medicine notes in order to clear my muddled head and to lift up the overwhelming heaviness in my chest.

This is also why I am taking a pause from my CASC studying and writing this post today. To clear my head. To lift up the heaviness in my chest. Because I just couldn’t cry. Because to compose a poem, it would take a much greater mental strength than I possess. Because I am too mentally exhausted by all the bloodshed.

I pray, that all Muslims would unite together and peacefully respond to this sad calamity in a positive way. I hope, there will be no revenge bombing by Muslims because it would only make matters worse for our brothers and sisters in the West. Trust me, I had enough experience of how terrible it is to be in the West when so-called Muslims commit an act of terrorism somewhere. (Nak masuk lecture hall keesokan hari pun rasa nervous! Rasa malu! Belum lagi rasa takut kena attack bila terpaksa jalan berseorangan.) Please, no revenge bombing targeting innocent people, be it Muslims or non-Muslims. Please, no more bloodshed.

***

I leave all my readers with a reminder to live in this world like a traveler or a stranger. Because, really… isn’t that what we are? Until we reach our final destination, we are only a traveler along the path of life. Hopefully, we will find something precious and beautiful along the way.

Dear Readers, Live Your Life Free!

It was a sad day for the medical fraternity in Malaysia when we woke-up last weekend to the breaking news of having a sex predator in our midst, holding the significant post of a HOD in one of the hospitals in the Klang Valley.

I could NOT believe my eyes when I read the article shared by one of our members in our forum. It sickened me! Not just for the fact that the sex predator is a senior doctor who has been using his high position to prey on vulnerable housemen for many years! But for the fact that MANY people in the department as well as in other departments in and out of the hospital had KNOWN about it and yet they DID NOTHING!

Some of these people were specialist and consultants too but they turned a blind eye and DID NOTHING!

I felt disgusted and nauseated by such cowardice.

***

I don’t blame the victims for not speaking up. They are vulnerable, after all. But I blame the specialists (even the MOs, when I think about it) who had known but kept silent. Anyone who has been secured in their position (confirmed in their posts/ sah dalam jawatan) not speaking up against injustice done towards vulnerable people in their circle (innocent, green HOs who have not been confirmed in their posts and IN NEED of the good will of others) are accountable, in my opinion!

This was EXACTLY the sort of shameful cowardice I talked about many, many times in my previous blog posts.

How DARE specialists scream at HOs for not presenting properly or for making some mistakes that they did out of ignorance…. but turned a blind eye when their own colleagues or their boss had committed a crime purposefully! 

All specialists in that department who knew this and did nothing are also accountable! Shameful!

Next time, don’t talk about low quality housemen! Look at low quality specialists who were as mute as they were spineless!  And look at the HOD of an outstanding criminal quality! Bravo!

What an amazing outcome of having been trained ‘during your time’, huh? (Yup, this is not a fair statement. Many other older specialists who were trained during that time are good. But I just want to demonstrate to you how it feels when the juniors have to listen to you huffing and puffing about ‘housemen these days’ as though none of them is good! Because THAT is also not a fair statement, isn’t it? So, let’s stop talking about your time and comparing it to the current time! Your time has passed! Move on! Our time is current… it is more relevant! Help us make the best of it, ok?)

***

It baffled me.

How could you NOT take complaints like this seriously when it was informed to you? When I was a HO, I won’t even tolerate unfair scoldings…I would speak up and defend myself if I knew I was right. 

So, it baffled me why SPECIALIST and people in the higher position can turn a blind eye to SEXUAL harrassment! 

Your higher position comes with RESPONSIBILITY….not just privilege! Think about what it means, for a moment, to be called a specialist and a consultant. Think!

You are at a MUCH better position to go against the HOD than anyone else. 

Who can we rely on to help the juniors if not you guys?

When I was a HO, I have heard stories of some of my colleagues who had been romantically propositioned by specialists too… but it was never up to molestation or sexual harassment (that I know of). Or else, I was sure people would have spoken up (of course, now I am not so sure anymore). I NEVER thought that any one who called themselves a doctor would just do nothing if he or she knew that someone was sexually harassed.

To think that MANY PEOPLE knew of this behaviour and DID NOTHING other than secretly warning the HO to be careful… why didn’t they go to the pengarah or lodge a police report instead?

Or maybe they did…. but THEY also did nothing?

***

“Hang boleh cakap lah, Afiza. Hang tak dak kat tempat diorang. Depa nak kena jaga periuk nasi depa juga. HOs semua nak kena pass posting. Master trainees semua depend on him. Specialists pun belajar dengan dia, indebted to him, depending on him. Cuba kau letak diri kau kat tempat depa. You were not there!”

Hahah! Damn! I couldn’t believe it!

Look, just because I wasn’t there, doesn’t mean I cannot talk about it and cannot have an opinion about it! (I wasn’t there when  the BN government stole the country’s money! Most of us Malaysians were not there among the BN kleptocratic circle when Najib committed so many atrocities against many people… but didn’t we TALK ABOUT IT? Didn’t we blame the whole BN party when they failed to stand up to Najib, and thus we had punished them in the last election by voting for PH? Heck.. yes, I wasn’t there but I am STILL gonna talk about it. This will serve as a lesson against anyone in the future who knows something like this is going on but keep their silence!)

Only people who don’t know me would ever think that I would do NOTHING if I ever find out about something like this! I have created havoc for even less than this, ok! So, I would have NO COMPUNCTION WHATSOEVER in creating a lot of chaos over something as serious as this. Mark my words! I will go against anyone who do this to my friend, let alone to myself or my family. I have spoken up for something even less.

Just because YOU are a coward, doesn’t mean everyone else is like you, ok?

And for that, I thank the tarbiyah that I got from my seniors in Australia. I thank God every day of my life that He put me in Australia and open my heart to be receptive to dakwah. I may not dress alim… but I know the basic tenets of justice in my religion! I fight when I believe I am right.

Against oppression, Islam told me to stand firm and resolute! Even against your own selves or your parents or your relatives (let alone your boss!!). Islam told us not to follow personal inclination (such as passing your master training, maybe?). Islam told us not to distort testimony or refuse to give it (by keeping silence like what we have done!) when it comes to standing for justice. 

O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is ever acquainted with what you do.

(Al Quran: An-Nisa 4:135)

My Prophet p.b.u.h told me to ALWAYS look out for the weak  and the vulnerable among us! That we are only supported and provided for by the Almighty if we support the weak and the vulnerable in the community. In our case as doctors, the housemen are the vulnerable among us! And we should look out for them! 

Abu Darda reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Seek out the vulnerable among you. Verily, you are only given provision and support due to your support of the weak.”

Source: Sunan al-Tirmidhī 1702

So, how do you justify your silence when you KNOW there is a sex predator in your department? How could you do NOTHING?

“Mungkin depa dah buat something. Tapi nak buat macam mana? Dia lebih powerful.” Said someone else in the forum.

Ah, I couldn’t BRAIN this kind of response!

“Oh, ok. Depa buat something. Bila tak jadi, so depa stop doing anything? That’s it? Responsibility done? So, pi kerja macam biasa? Bila tahi macam ni dah viral, baru tiba-tiba nak tunjuk concerned??!” I STILL couldn’t brain this!

For something as sinister and evil as sexual crimes, you should NEVER stop doing something until the bastard is convicted! Just because you have done something that didn’t work, doesn’t mean your responsibility is done! Not until you accomplish the mission… your responsibility is STILL not done! No!

Think about what you would do if these housemen were your wives? Your daughters? Your sisters? How could you have been SO SELFISH!!

***

I have a theory regarding why Malaysian are too timid in speaking up against injustice.

Everyone ‘kalut’ to please the boss! What is the worst thing that can happen if you speak up against anyone? You lose the job, maybe?

Well…

We have to live FREE… not tied to any ‘artificial’ sense of obligation or fear when we speak up for the truth.

By all means… respect your superiors and respect the system… but not beyond a certain limit. 

• Naik pangkat, naik gaji…. don’t upgrade your lifestyle just yet. Don’t increase your commitments just yet. Don’t start shopping for new cars or buying another house. Instead, save that money! Invest it! Have other source of income! Should something happen to you because you speak the truth against ANYONE, you have that money to tide you over until you can find another job or hire a lawyer against that person. 

 

• Some people said “you don’t understand.. these people are powerful.” But all it takes is for someone in the department (preferably the specialists who is already established and can always find other jobs in the private setting should something go wrong) to speak up, lodge a police report and if those actions failed, just viral it macam sekarang! Can’t you see the power of social media? The bastard’s immunity is gone because public sentiment is more powerful, thanks to social media! Why was it so hard to viral it THEN compared to now? Sure, the government had changed from BN to PH now, which might explain why it would be easier to go against the bastard NOW. But the social media has been around for many years and it was successfully used by the former opposition all these while! Heck, social media is one of the best factors of why we were able to change the government!  Why couldn’t it be used back then, against this predator, if push comes to shove? Why didn’t any specialist use this as the last resort if all police reports or any appeal to the higher authority have failed? Perhaps even the victims were too scared to use the social media back then because they perceived that even the people in that department, (her superiors who should have known better) did not lift a finger to help them. 

 

• Actually it wasn’t that hard to speak up… it was only hard because we all have our own conflict of interest against speaking up (takut kena target, I need my salary, takut training tak lepas, takut this and that). So we become selfish and we silence our conscience. 

When we start putting priorities on other things over principles/values/justice… that’s when it is so hard to speak up!

Live free! Live with REAL freedom! 

In order to do that, we must not be dependent on anything or anyone too much. We must be able to walk away and say “my career is not worth putting up with THIS injustice.” And you CANNOT do that when you depend too much on your work… and you depend too much on your work because you want to live a certain lifestyle that you used to be able to live without before. 

You used to be able to be content before you went for master training! But because you value your master training more, you won’t speak up against your  boss… even if he is a sex predator? You used to feel content with just a simple house and one small car.  But now that you have upgraded your lifestyle and have acquired a lot of loans to finance that lifestyle, you NEED the job too much now. Because you value your job more (the salary from which you get to afford your bungalow and your BMW), so you won’t speak up against your  boss… even if he is a sex predator?

Is that justifiable?

Real freedom can never be attained when you attach yourself to any artificial sense of well being that is material-dependent! Can you PLEASE attach your sense of well-being to having good principles? How about attaching your sense of well-being to freedom of action, freedom of speaking up your mind, freedom of movement, freedom of doing what you believe as right!

Thanks to the tarbiyah that I got in Australia,  I associate my well-being to freedom from any artificial attachment to material things that don’t guarantee happiness anyway.

I don’t depend too much on my work. I can LIVE not being a doctor. I can honestly say that if push comes to shove, I can walk away and do something else. I love my job as a means of contributing to the society, as a means of ibadah…but when all is said and done, there are other ways I can contribute to the society. Other jobs can also be an ibadah. I can downgrade my lifestyle any time! I can walk away from my job if my principles are violated. (But before I do, I will create a lot of shit! Since I am gonna lose my job anyway, I might as well exit in style and make sure the evil person pay for what he/she had done! If you put me in a position when I have nothing more to lose, then OF COURSE I will give you my best fight! Bring it on!)

A wounded lion is the most dangerous. I can be a lion when I have to.

I don’t depend too much on the good opinion of my boss, though all my boss now are nice (but who knows what sort of boss I will get in the future, right?) I specifically design my life that way when I choose the external pathway over master! Because I KNOW myself… I am not the timid type and I am quite abrasive against an unjust authority. But EVEN if I had chosen master, at the end of the day, I also know that I can live just as well not being a specialist! But I can NEVER live with myself if I let a sex-predator continue to commit heinous sexual crimes against my subordinates! I would have spoken up!

I also value freedom of movement! If I ever become dissatisfied with the injustice in my country (which was the case before we switched the government, recently), I can work elsewhere. Again, that is WHY I choose MRCPSYCH over master, so that my qualification is recognized everywhere. That’s why I had OPENLY campaigned for PH in my facebook and my blog… because I could walk away! Anytime! I was willing to  take that calculated risk when I became a PACA! 

I make certain choices in my life so that no one has TOO MUCH hold on me! I will never allow it! And I pray to God that He would never make anyone have any hold on me because I can never tolerate living that way. And in order to do that, I know I must lead a simple life.

No grandeur lifestyle that entangled my routine; no unmanageable excessive loans that would make me depend on my job until I cannot speak up against anyone; no unmanageable ties and relationships that become a burden rather than a comfort.

I will speak up! If I am wrong, rebut me! Debate me! Make me see… then I will follow you willingly. Otherwise, don’t force me. Because I won’t follow. And I am willing to pay the price.

To me, THAT is real freedom. To me, THAT is real happiness. And I would never give that up for specialty training or lifestyle maintenance.

THIS, my dear readers, is my life philosophy!  It has been my life philosophy since I was in Australia.

And I thank God that I live in the age of the social media.  It is a tool that all of us can use wisely against ANYONE who violate us unjustly, regardless of their position! Let the public sentiment decide!

***

Dear readers,

Live as free as possible. And one day, as you spread your wings, look up to the sky and say Alhamdulillah for the gift of freedom in your life.

 

Personality And Context

She was not that bad. She was actually quite entertaining. I was, to be honest, totally flummoxed by the fact that there was a side of her I found quite engaging.

I must admit I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed her talk on that day. When I first saw her as one of the relatives of my patient many, many years ago, she was, quite frankly, a long, sharp thorn on my backside.

But on that day, she was in her element. She knew her stuff. She took questions from the audience and answered them well, full with comprehensive explanation. Pretty impressive, I must admit. Far from the image of an overbearing, fussy and difficult-to-please relative that I have always associated with her in the past.

When I told one of my colleagues about her the day after, she was full of disbelief. “Split personality?” She joked.

I shook my head, after reflecting for awhile. “Different context yields different persona. In different settings, you put on different masks. After all, that is exactly what persona means.”

Persona means mask. And just as the actor may change his mask and costume, so does the individual ‘seems’ to change. Deep inside, she/he may be NOTHING like the mask she/he puts on.

It is a scary thought, isn’t it? Because how do we know, which one of the many different masks truly reflects the person underneath? 

***

During housemanship, I was with a bunch of HOs eating a late lunch when my friend had jokingly said, “I wonder macam mana husband specialist S ni boleh tahan dengan dia. Mesti husband and anak-anak dia depressed.”

Even when I was not yet a PSY MO, I knew that sentence was illogical. “Mana kau tahu dengan husband and anak-anak dia, dia akan jerit-jerit juga macam dia jerit dengan kita? Entah-entah solehah, mithali habis! Who knows dengan diorang, mungkin dia macam perempuan melayu terakhir.”

They thought I was being sarcastic, and they all laughed.

***

“My father behaved differently lately. He talked over the phone for hours at night and not sleeping. He started singing randomly. And lately he started buying that coffee for ‘kuat batin’. He is also divorcing my mother and plans to marry another person. You should have read his messages to his new girlfriend. It sickens me. I think he is manic.” Said one relative of a patient.

“Hmm…. but his so-called manic mood is not pervasive. He functions well. All his behaviour can be attributed to someone who is falling in love with another person.” Said the doctor who treated the patient but couldn’t see anything that can be attributed to any particular disorder. 

“But this is not the father that I have known all my life.”

Look, do we know our parents in all the different contexts that exist in their lives?

Come on! You probably started having memory of your parents starting from the age of 4-5 years old. Before that, you were babies and you couldn’t really remember anything much. If you are a second child, and your elder sister is 4 years older than you at 8 years old, it means by the time you were 4 years old, your parents had been married for 8 years already (and that is if they had conceived your elder sister immediately upon marriage. Otherwise, they might have been married much longer before you finally have any memory of who they are as a person).

You have missed how your parents were when they were kids, themselves. How naughty they might be, for example. You might have missed how your parents were as a teenager. Maybe your father really was the ‘gedik’, over-familiar, licentious type of a person when he was drugged by love. So his whatsapp messages that sicken you now might simply be part of his premorbid personality. You don’t know how your father is among his friends and colleagues. (For example, an elderly mak cik was surprised that her elderly husband had belonged to a whatsapp group consisting of all his male ex-classmates. And the contents of the whatsapp group, said the makcik, was shameless and overtly sexual. She could not believe her husband and his friends could talk like that and when she confronted her husband, the husband just laughed it off by saying “orang lelaki memang cakap macam tu!” What the hell?? Won’t the mak cik’s childen be shocked if they knew? See? The kids do not know their parents in other contexts!)

Even a wife does not know how her husband behaves at his workplace! Her husband might be the flirtatious type who talks to all his colleagues and staffs inappropriately and when the wife finds out that her husband has an affair, the first thing the wife would usually say is “I never saw this coming!”

You see, she only saw her husband when he puts on the ‘husband’ mask at home. He has many other masks; one of them might happen to be  ‘the one that saja suka test market’ mask, for example. (A lot of guys like putting on this particular mask. An intelligent woman will never fall for it. It never fails to amuse me when I saw such mask being put on!)

I was a HO when I saw a married person in a superior position speaking inappropriately to his subordinates (in case, you are wondering, that subordinate was not me! I don’t think anyone would dare. I have that malignant vibe that scares everyone. I always make sure my boundaries are clear! I simply put on my ‘bitchy’ mask and people know to stay appropriate. This is actually my favourite mask, LOL.) And I remember thinking, “My God, aku ingat doktor-doktor ni busy, dan tak mungkin akan ada affair. Shit happens even in the hospital. Poor his wife.”

I learned to ignore such occurrences and thought to myself “this is none of my business. As long as you guys don’t do anything more than a verbal banter in front of me, I will ignore it and pretend I don’t know.”

But believe me, behind your back, people do talk. 

My bitchy vibe!

***

I was impressed with my mother when  I saw the sort of respect she got as a senior midwife when I was in my 4th year and had followed her to her workplace in order to observe how Malaysian labour room worked. I went with her when she was doing her night shift at the hospital and I saw how hardworking she was and how knowledgeable. Before that night, I never knew that she was one of the trainers for midwifery and also an exam invigilator for midwifery exams. I saw how the junior midwives all consulted her, asking her to verify their VEs.

I saw my mother in a new light that night.

I was so used to thinking of her in the context of her being my mother. I loved her. I knew she loved me. She cooked delicious meals for me. She made sure I had everything I needed to be a good student. She worried for me when I fell ill. She pushed me to toe the line of etiquette when we had guests at home. Sometimes, she nagged at me when I didn’t do my house chores properly. She could be real fussy but still adorable. That was how I thought of her.

I never thought about her intelligence and competence as an experienced midwife. I knew my father is an intelligent person because he was the one who taught us our academic stuff when we were growing up; he was in charge of our academic discipline. My mother was not in-charge of our academic. She was in charge of cooking and cleanliness and shopping and stuff like that. Somehow, my mom’s intelligence was not something I consciously thought of, before that night. Whether or not she was an intelligent person, was neither here nor there because it wouldn’t change anything, in my short-sighted opinion at that time. She was just… my mom!

But that night, I saw her in a different context. I saw her in the midst of enjoying her conversation with her friends. She didn’t talk with them the way she talked with me and my sisters at home. At her workplace, she was the most senior midwife, someone with a level of authority (that didn’t show much when she was at home because my father was more dominant) and she was also someone’s friend. She was more light and carefree. Their conversation could turn silly too… and at times, my mom was downright hilarious. I never saw her as someone hilarious, before.

I was like, “Damn… I don’t know my own mother. All these times….” It was like I had been blindfolded before and now, someone had released my eyes from its oppressive covers.

I was glad I saw this side of her that night. I felt proud of my mother in the context of her as more than just my mom. I saw her as a person in her own right regardless of whose mom or whose wife she was. And that night, I truly saw her as an intelligent, competent and incredible woman.

Since then, I believe that a woman must contribute to the society to remind herself that she is more than just a wife and a mother. It might not even be a paying job… she might just be volunteering at the local surau or at any soup kitchen. But she must do something for the society in her own capacity. Even if she has a rich husband, she must do something to feel worthy in her own right as a person. Otherwise, people around her may underestimate her and do not truly SEE her… even as they love her.

No one can ever make me give up my work. I might not always be a doctor later… I might take an early pension or do something else.  But I will always work in one way or another. It is what God created us for… “memakmurkan bumi, isn’t it?”

In a way, this is how you fulfil your purpose of life. By working!

***

When I was just a junior MO, I was upset by a talk given by someone in MMA regarding ‘housemen these days’. The talk was mainly about how the flexi hours would make HOs incompetent as an MO and they would be a burden to specialists later and so on and so forth. *rolled eyes*

When I was a HO, flexi hours were not yet implemented in full. I worked in on-calls for most of my Housemanship training. So, I didn’t feel personally attacked by the talk.

But in principle,  I just hated “senior budget bagus”. Hahha. I have issues with seniors like that.

So I wrote a blog post entitled “Practicing Medicine In The Age of Doom and Gloom” and it went viral (unintentionally, of course). Some specialists had written on their facebook comments about my arrogance. I read that comment and I laughed out loud.

Such silliness!

Sometimes, I wonder whether or not people really understand what the word arrogant really means. Do they just use the word to describe anyone who disagrees with them or anyone who retaliates to their own arrogance?

You were the one who had said that the juniors would never be as competent as you were because of the flexi hours system (isn’t that arrogant too?), and yet we were the ones who were arrogant when we defended ourselves against YOUR arrogance? (In psychiatry, this is called projection, ok!)

You were the one who shouted at HOs, enacting histrionic drama in the ward, and bullying HOs unnecessarily, (one particular specialist actually commented on HO’s clothing and make-up, deliberately embarrassing her in the rounds. How does her make-up or clothing in ANY way related to her work, you tell me. And one MO had said to another houseman, “You tak payah mai kerja kalau macam ni. Kenapa? Husband you tak dapat tanggung you?” How does her husband’s ability to support her become a topic related to her work performance? Ridiculous!) And when one HO decided that such unacceptable conduct should not be tolerated and then wrote about how she felt on her own blog, suddenly you thought the HO was arrogant?

Give me a break!

Why don’t you connect with her in a different context and behave better yourself, then maybe you will find her humble and nice. Maybe, she just refused to be nice to bullies! As simple as that!

It was Plato who had said, “the measure of a man is what he does with power.”

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. So, you can judge whether or not a person is arrogant based on how the person treats someone below himself/herself. Is she nice to staff nurses, other HOs, other PPKs? Does she say thank you to her subordinates who had assisted her on-call or does she simply complain about HOs non-stop and didn’t bother to thank people who had helped made her life easier?

Some people can be polite to their superiors. And that is not surprising! Of course, a self-serving kaki-bodek would do so. But the same person can find so many things to complain about HOs in whatsapp groups non-stop, blowing things out of proportion. 

If  you want to know who is arrogant, ask people of the lowest position in an organization. Don’t take the word of the highest echelon in the organization who might feel easily offended just because other people don’t meet his expectation of  how much he should be respected. Sometimes, people don’t respect you out of your own doings and your own faults. 

***

Who exactly are we?

If we take off the many masks that we put on in our daily life, who are we?

Depending on contexts, the person I am dealing with, how closely connected I am to that person, how annoying a person is (and many other factors), I too have masks.

Indeed, everyone does. It doesn’t mean we all have split personalities! It doesn’t mean that we have some sort of personality disorders or are manic or whatever.

When I was in my 5th housemanship posting, one specialist had said to me “You look so quiet! But in your blog, you seemed so outspoken.”

In my heart, I was like, “If you give me enough reason to attack, I can be that person in my blog, too. Give me enough reason… then watch me.”

Instead of saying that, I didn’t make any comment. I just laughed.

She asked “Did you write about me?”

“No…” I paused. “Not yet.” I added cheekily.

She laughed and said, “If you write about me, make sure you let me read it first. If I say ok, then you can put it in your blog.”

I never wrote about her. She wasn’t a bully.

I was just a houseman. Of course, I would pick my battle… and my main target in my daily houseman life was just to finish my job as soon as possible so that I could go home as soon as possible. I didn’t pick a fight for every single thing that annoyed me… I only picked up the ones that had crossed the boundaries into abuse of power and bullying.  I didn’t seek unnecessary interaction with MOs or specialists. I only talked to them regarding work-related issues. I had no desire to socialize with them beyond  that. If I seemed quiet, it was because I had no reason to be noisy. Not yet.

That was my persona (my mask) as a houseman when dealing with MOs/specialists. The mask of quiet, reserved, not-excellent-but-good-enough-not-to-be-extended HO.

But among fellow HOs and friends who I already knew and felt comfortable with, I could be loud and opinionated (just like in my blog) and I could be the life of the party too.

And among fellow HOs or people I wasn’t really comfortable with, I would be back to being quite reserved.

But try crossing my principles (unnecessary bullying, unfair treatment of subordinates, unjust accusation, unreasonable demand for me to do something that goes against what I think is the right thing to do) you will be surprised at how fast I can change my mask. This is what my siblings say, “my lioness mask”.

Don’t wake the sleeping lion (or was it the sleeping giant? Well, something like that… you get the drift.)

Now as an MO, I maintained the same masks and the same boundaries between me, my HOs, fellow MOs and my superiors. I am friendly but firm with my HOs…. I have never shouted or unnecessarily scolded them. My instruction towards them is straightforward and easily understood. There is nothing I hate more than being nagged when I was a HO, and likewise, I refrain from nagging them. Among the many phrases that I refrain to say to them (no matter how tempting) was “during my time… (insert your budget-bagus sentence)”. Haha.

Even if I were to do that, it was not done in a way to patronize them, but more in a way to reminisce about how ridiculous some of the rules were when I was a HO. I am not jealous of their shift system. In fact, I look forward to improving working conditions for everyone and this is a good first step towards that.

With my superiors, I can take reasonable scolding especially if it is my fault. But if it is not my fault, I will certainly speak up and defend myself. Depending on the types of superiors I have to deal with, I mirror their attitude towards me. I can be friendly, polite, indifferent or even hostile, depending on how they themselves treat me. I am not an ass-kisser and never will be. If I am nice to my superiors, it must be because I genuinely like them as a person. Otherwise, I will give them basic level of politeness; just enough in order to work with but nothing more.

When it comes to my patient, since I am the one who see the patient first and clerk the patient fully at the emergency department, I know best whether or not my specialist made the appropriate decision regarding my patient (whether to admit or not admit the patient, for example). If they disagree with my judgment, they can just ask me the appropriate questions to ascertain whether or not the patient should be discharged or admitted. And if my answers all point towards admission, yet they still don’t want to admit the patient, then I would be quite upset. In my opinion, if I distrust the clerking of my HOs, I will see the patient myself and re-clerk the patient myself (my control issues, hahah). So, I expect that if anyone were to disagree with my impression of my patient, then rather than nagging non-stop over the phone, asking the same question over and over again no matter how clear I have been about my judgment, they should see the patient themselves. In fact, I think that is what being on-call is all about regardless of whether you are a HO/MO/Specialist/Consultant.

If a HO distrusts a SN’s report, the HO must go and see the patient herself rather than just ordering the SN to do something over the phone. If an MO distrusts or disagrees with a HO’s assessment, it is the most responsible thing for the MO to see the patient herself (and I always do that. Otherwise, I will put my trust in my HO! Rather than nagging non-stop to assuage my own anxiety). Likewise, if a specialist feels unsettled and feels dissatisfied with an MO’s assessment, I believe it is the responsibility of the specialist to see the patient herself! Why not? Otherwise, just trust the assessment of  your MO, because she is the one who actually gets up from bed, drives to the ED, clerk the patient for a long time and facing the aggression of the patient and educates the family members for hours. If you are not willing to go to the ED yourself, then you really have no choice but to trust your MO’s report and manage the case according to her report.

No matter who you are (HO or MO or specialist or consultant), always remember that “No trust = go and do it yourself.”

This has been my mantra ever since I started working in 2011. That’s why we are on-call! (I will always remind myself that if I ever become a specialist, my MOs are not my sounding board to release my anxiety of my indecision. If I cannot decide, if some bits of the history are still not clear, I will do it myself!)

***

So my personality would seem different to anyone who knew me in a different context or in a different setting… and depending on how annoyed or benevolent I feel towards that person, I would of course behave differently. For a person to make an arbitrary inference of my whole character based on the limited context that the person had known me, would be inaccurate and sometimes, quite foolish.

So to my blog readers, do not expect me to behave the way you think I might behave in person just because you have formed an impression about me based on my writing. Just because you read my blog, it doesn’t mean you know me. You only know me in the context of me as a blogger. This is my blogger persona. In real life, I might not talk the way I write.  So, don’t be surprised (the way the specialist in my 5th posting were surprised. Haha. She is one cute lady.)

You do not know me as a daughter or a sister, or a doctor or a friend. I choose what I want to write and what I want to share. It would certainly skew your perception of me. I might not tell you all my weaknesses and my flaws. But at least, you know my life philosophy, my principles and my thoughts.

No one really knows anyone, really! When you say you can get along with someone, you are actually getting along with his/her mask! One aspect of his/her personality was harmonious with yours. And that’s all. Nothing more than that. One day you might be surprised when you saw the same person in a different setting and find yourself unable to accept how she/he has behaved in that particular context. (Trust me, this is why the rate of divorce is increasing everywhere in the world. Because you find out later that you had married a persona.)

At the end of the day, you are not a sum of your many personas. Deep inside, you know who you are.

The only One who knows you truly and deeply is Allah. 

He is the best of Judge. Other people’s judgments of your personas (your masks, really!) do not matter all that much. 

So, let’s pray that He favors us on the day of judgment.

Post-Exam Promises

Warning: this post contains exam rants and regrets. Please don’t read further if you cannot take some whining! Because this one contains a lot of whining! 

 

Okay, the real title of this blog post should be The Post Exam Promises That I Always Break. 

Yup…. I made the same darn promises over and over again since I was a kid every time I finished an exam, but I always ended up breaking them after some time. My consistency and reliability in breaking my post-exam promises is so impressive, the chance that I will break them again this time will be almost 1.

P(event) = 0.9999999

The event here being: Afiza breaking her post-exam promises again.

My post-exam promises always consist of:

1. I will study consistently and be prepared as early as many, many months before my next exam. I will not rely on study leave alone in order to cram everything. Study leave duration is NOT ENOUGH to really learn everything I should know. I will not repeat this mental torture ever again and will be more committed and consistent from now on. Please God, just let me pass this one and I will behave MUCH better for my next exam.
2. I will only read commercial fiction once a week. For the rest of the week I will make myself study and venture out into other necessary life activities. I will be more community-oriented and sociable and I will go out with friends and  ACTUALLY socialize with REAL people rather than with imaginary characters of  a book. I will learn to be nice and tolerant with other people when I socialize with them (which is something I don’t have enough practice doing because I always spend time with books). I will not let reading fiction monopolize the bulk of my time to the extent that I ignore the more important aspect of my life such as my academic learning and my relationship with my friends, and neighbours and my own family. I will keep in touch with all my friends after this exam and will not abandon them the way I did during my study leave. I will be NICE. I will reply whatsapp messages promptly. I will return phone calls straightaway.
3. I will read more religious books and non-fiction. I will spend my time wisely. I will have more self-control regarding the frequency of my fiction reading.

You have no idea how difficult it is for me to keep those promises. And like I’ve said before, I always break those particular promises. The lure of new books from my favourite authors and new stories from new authors… they will ensnare and entrap me in mid-resolve and I lost myself.

***

It is ridiculous how much time I arrange my activities around my reading habits.  The problem is, it is so hard to change the habit of a lifetime.

When I am exhausted, I want to read stories to relax.

When I am already relaxed, I want to read books to maximize this pleasant feeling of relaxation.

When I am sad, I want to read stories to remind me of happy endings.

When I am happy, well, I thought I should multiply this happy feeling by reading. It will make me even happier.

When I am angry, I read stories to calm down.

When I am calm, I read stories so that I can absorb them better.

See? I can find many excuses and various reasons to read fiction for every occasion and every emotion.

But these stories are junks! They are pure entertainment! They are not real! I didn’t gain any earth-shattering insight or ground-breaking information from them. In fact, my hobby is correctly termed as ‘lagha’. While it might be okay for me to indulge in them once a week, but to do so for MOST of whatever free time I have….day in and day out… that is like a sickness. I know that!

And while I was struggling to cram everything I had to know during the one month study leave, I gained an insight regarding the debilitating nature of my condition. “If only I had started studying earlier! Kalaulah aku guna semua masa yang ada waktu aku baca buku cerita dulu-dulu dengan membaca dan menghafal my academic material, I won’t be suffering this much. Why do I always do this to myself over and over again? Orang lain ada free time, buat locum! Dapat juga duit! Otherwise, they do something very adult like cooking for their family. You? You read stories! When are you gonna grow up?”

Yes… you have no idea how many times I berated myself.  But like I said, I had done the same self-scolding in the past, but I always forget and relapse into my addiction every time the exam is over.

During that one month study leave, I hardly went out of the house. When I finally came out of my cave for some much-needed fresh air, it was because I was so tired of eating my home-cooked nasi goreng/ bihun goreng/ Maggi over and over again that I just HAD to eat something else and therefore I had to go out. Otherwise the only fresh air I enjoyed would be from the balcony of my house. Towards the end of my study leave, my mother actually brought me food because I just couldn’t be bothered to get out of the house anymore. She was probably worried I was not eating well. (And she would be right)

And I totally blamed myself. Because time is so precious and I have been wasting them by reading fiction all these time and simply relied on study leave to cram everything.

The problem with me is that, I will only do something I dislike when I absolutely have to do it. And study leave and exams force me to study when all I want to do is to read fiction, write my book reviews and occasionally exercise with hiking, jogging and an occasional weight training. Those are ALL I want to do during my free time when I don’t have exams. I am absorbed in them and I think those activities are more than enough to keep me fully occupied and satisfied. So you see, without exams, it is so easy for me to allow myself to drift away in the clouds of my fantastic tales. My parents had been saying to me since I was a child, “Kak Ngah, cuba kalau Kak Ngah baca buku sekolah macam kak ngah baca buku cerita. Mesti lagi pandai. Buku cerita tu tak bagi faedah satu apa pun” My mom said that every time I finished my ujian bulanan when my results was not as good as it should be. And I simply told her,  “Nanti periksa akhir tahun, angah buat betul-betul lah.” And I always delivered that promise. During my final end of year exam, I made sure I did well enough to maintain in the first class. And in all my national big exams, I got straight As… because I was able to cram in the last minute.  I was happy to push myself and went all out during those final moments as long as throughout the year I can enjoy my hobby.

And this pattern of last minute cramming persisted throughout medical school.

But I think, it must be the ageing process in me. I cannot cram as well as I could when I was younger! I think the recent exam was the hardest exam of my life! I am not kidding! Not joking! Not exaggerating! It was HARD!! I fear for my result but knew that it is too late to regret. I must learn from this lesson and do better next time. I hope I will pass even though I knew it would take a miracle.

This time, I cannot break my post-exam promises. I know now that my brain is not as good as it was before.

Below is the findings on how our memory and learning evolve as we age:

• IQ peaks at 25 – plateau until age 60-70 , then declines (maybe my brain declines early.  Hahaha.That was how I felt during my recent cramming fiasco)
• Simple recall becomes difficult as we age (darn right!)
• Working memory shows a gradual decline and worse with increased complexity of task and increased memory load (Yes…there was a lot to remember and my memory load was overloaded! My hippocampus simply could not take it anymore!)

I cannot afford to waste my time with fiction anymore. Cramming doesn’t work as well as it used to.

I am aging! *sobs sobs*

I told myself, that I have to do what I have to do. This time, what I HAVE to do is stop being so absorbed in fiction and grow up into a responsible adult who does what she must! And that is painful. Like making over my life.

It is a life makeover. *sigh*

I hope, I don’t break my post-exam promises this time. God knows I cannot afford to break them.

 

P/S: I just finished reading Dan Browns’ latest book entitled Origin that came out just a few weeks ago. But that was not exactly breaking my post-exam promises. I specifically wanted a break after the exam, so I read the book to reward myself after the crazy tough exam. But my next reading will be next week. I will try to stick to the schedule. Once a week. No more! Yup! Wish me luck, won’t you?

 

 

The Art Of Socializing

“You Have To Do What You Have To Do.”

That is my maxim in life. Regardless of your feelings, if something must be done, then it must be done.

I am a problem solver. I don’t allow problems to continue wreaking havoc in my life.

I might not like certain things, but if there is no getting around the problems/issues, then I will make myself deal with it.

I used to dread socializing. I couldn’t make myself do it as a child. I always pestered my mom “Mak, bila nak balik rumah kita ni?” whenever we were out socializing at other people’s houses. My mom had to excuse herself early than she intended to because it would not take long for me to start causing tantrum. 

I didn’t think I had any social anxiety or social phobia. I just felt awkward having to pretend that I was interested in other people when I actually didn’t. I felt awkward having to suffer the painful silence as the conversation dried up with no one having anything to say.

I was just bored. And could not make myself put the effort. 

But I recognized that I had to overcome my inability to make small talk. I have to do what I have to do, I told myself. I couldn’t hide away in my room every time guests came to our house. My mother would  have my head! “Tetamu mai kita kenalah keluar, Kak Ngah. Semua tanya kak ngah dok buat apa sampai tak keluar bilik. Very rude lah.”

I always had some excuses. Tidur. Baca Buku. Tak perasan orang mai. 

I am not shy. I never was shy. I am just an introvert. But when it comes to things I am really interested in, I can be chatty enough and sometimes downright vocal. I am a vocal introvert. If a topic interests me, you will have a hard time shutting me up. But if a topic does not interest me (let’s just admit that small talks are crazy boring and we just do it socially in order to be polite) or I am meeting someone for the first time, I would be very reserved and awkward and therefore I would try my best to avoid having to deal with such a situation.  

But I knew I could not get away with excuses for long.

So, I solved my problems when I was in my early 20s. I observed how people make small talk, I analyzed how they carried themselves during social events and then I imitated accordingly. And now, I am quite good at faking my comfort at making small talk (while deep inside, I cannot wait to get back into my private sanctum sanctorum; the innermost of my private world where stories are enthralling and mysteries are beguiling)

So when one day my patient came to me and told me that she was a very shy person (but her shyness is not yet a disorder of any kind) and she didn’t like that shyness (she is a shy extrovert. Yes, there exists a shy extrovert; just like there exists a bold introvert) I was very sympathetic with her plight. She reminded me of my younger self. Like me, she has problems coming up with something to say to keep the conversation rolling and ends up not saying anything and then the whole awkward silence embarrasses her. 

This inspired me to write about tips on how to make a small talk for this post. I would share with you what I do to make small talk appear effortless. (I am not always spot on and successful in how I do it. But at least, I no longer feel agonized when I have to do it) Hope it helps everyone out there who has the same problem as me and this patient of mine. All these tips are the result of my reading, my observation of other people’s conversation and from my own extended practice at small talk. I am very proud of these tips because I think it’s been working great for me. Maybe you can practice them when you are attending the many open houses throughout this month of Syawal. 

So, here they are:

1)Be approachable. Just smile.

-Ok, my sisters would laugh their heads off at this. Because I am actually not approachable at all. My colleagues and my own close friends had told me of their first impression of me so many times in the past for me not to have a good insight of my unapproachability. They said it was my bitchy-resting-face that scares people from trying to approach me. But that is because I was not trying to be approachable at that time. I was not making any effort to seem approachable because the situation didn’t require me to do so.

-But what if you are attending a social function or you yourself is the host for a kenduri or a family event? You have NO CHOICE but to mix and mingle. In THAT situation, I MAKE myself approachable. The simplest thing to do is smile! And talk about food. And keep asking them to “tambahlah lagi,” or “makanlah lagi”. You know, things like that! Over and over again. So bosan, but you get the idea. 

-Or if you are the guests (instead of the host), you can comment on the deliciousness of the food. Or exchange recipes on how to make some of the delicacies (even though you KNOW you are not going to cook any of it. But just show that you are interested in all the ingredients and how to prepare them. The point of the whole thing is just to keep the conversation rolling. Yes… we have to suffer the boredom! But you have to do what you have to do.). 

-The point is just to keep it superficial and light. 

-Avoid talks of politics/race/religion. Again, keep it light and superficial. (unless you are lucky enough to find that rare deep thinkers among the guests with whom you can talk about any controversial topic that strikes your fancy. In that case, go ahead and show your true nerdy, geeky colours. Hahhah). 

 

2)Go to an event with a friend(s) who is more outgoing and extrovert than you. 

– This is my favourite trick! And it works every single time! 

-This friend can do all the approaching and all the talking with the host and you simply comment and interject every now and then. Whatever it is your outgoing friend said, you simply confirm it and elaborate on it. That way, you don’t need to rack your brain trying to come up with things to say because your bubbly friend will do it for you. 

-I see how great this works every day between my mother and my father. My mother do all the talking/ ice-breaking and my father do all the nodding and brief elaboration. It’s like watching a beautiful dance. But you must see my father when he is talking politics/business… THEN, he can really talk! Hahah. 

 

3)People like to talk about themselves. So, ask them questions about themselves. And elaborate and respond accordingly based on their answers.

Ask them about their children. People love talking about their children (something free, single people like me might not be able to relate yet). This is something I notice in almost everyone. 

I memorized the names of my neighbours’ children. Whenever I bump into my neighbour, I would ask her about her children and she lights up when she talks about them. When I was a teenager, I would not bother asking these type of questions because I was not interested to know, anyway. But the main point of socializing is not for extracting information that you want to know. That is not the point. The point of socializing is just to be nice and to establish a connection and not looking awkward doing it… I think. (Actually, I don’t know what is the point of socializing. Hahha.) 

And please, appear interested with their answers. When they give their answers, you follow it up with further questions. 

When I was a teenager, my conversation was very short and awkward. Because I didn’t yet bother to learn to solve my ‘small-talk problem’ at that time. So my conversation always turned out like this:

My neighbour: “Anak Kak N yang bongsu tu dekat UITM la ni. Dia dok buat engineering.”

Me: Oh. Hmm…Okey. 

(Hahhaha. Yes, pathetic gila! Because, I was just not interested to know. So I would just say “oh, ok.”)

But now I have improved. *proud silly grin*

Me: Oh, buat engineering. Dah tahun berapa dah (really, I don’t care tahun berapa. But as I mentioned before, socializing is not about getting any information that you really want to know. It is just about appearing interested even if you actually aren’t)

Kak N: Dah tahun tiga dah. 

Me: Oh, tak sampai setahun lagi dah nak grad la. (yup…. saying the obvious is part of the socializing game. Hahha. When I was a teenager, I would not bother saying something like this. I mean, if her son is already in 3rd year, OBVIOUSLY there would only be one year left until graduation, right? So, why bother saying something like this, I thought. But now, I know the reason we bother to say things like this… it is to fill up our quota of the conversation. Seriously! That is the whole purpose of saying the obvious, and now that you know, just do it even when you think it doesn’t make sense!)

Kak N: Tu lah… lega lah. Tinggal dia sorang ja tak habis belajar lagi. Lepas ni Kak N tak gaduh pikiaq dah. 

Me :(Because I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I then introduced another related topic… which was, her OTHER children, of course).  Fatin pula dok buat apa la ni? (of course, it requires you remembering the name of the other children. LOL)

Hahha. Yes, I have sooo mastered the art of making small talk! Now, I can do it almost automatically! It was painful at first. But I did it! 

So the tips is simple: Keep the conversation rolling by asking questions about themselves because people love talking about themselves and follow up on their answers with appropriate comments (even when you have to say the obvious, and feeling stupid for saying such an obvious thing). And when you have nothing else to say on one topic, introduce another related topic with another question. Do NOT abruptly introduce on an unrelated topic because that would’t look or sound smooth. ‘Related-ness’ and ‘smooth transition’ of one topic after another, after another and after another…. that is the trick!

 

4) Don’t Avoid Social Situation. Practice until it becomes part of your skill. (this is easier said than done, I know! Our first instinct is to avoid and run but we have to resist the urge to run if we are serious about improving our socializing skill)

We can all learn a lesson from this dialogue between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (this reminds me why i love reading literature. It makes you pause and think):

Mr. Darcy: I do not have the talent of conversing easily with people I have never met before.

Elizabeth Bennet: Perhaps you should take your aunt’s advice and practice?

Elizabeth Bennet was being sarcastic but quite accurate! 

Back in form 4, I hated Add Maths… but I wanted to get straight As, and therefore Add Maths must be mastered by me no matter what. So I practiced Add Maths in every spare moment I had leading to SPM and I made it happen, thank God!

Socializing is just like Add Maths! If socializing was made an exam subject, I bet I would bother to master it ever since I was a child. But unfortunately, it was not an exam subject. I didn’t feel the importance or the need to master it the way I had to master Add Maths. I thought that socializing involved a lot of discomfort and play-pretend and I would not stoop to that level, I felt. I should be myself, I thought.

But I had my paradigm shift, thanks to Elizabeth Bennet! Haha. She made me realize that socializing is a skill… some are natural at it and some require practice with it. Just like Add Maths! It is not about not being yourself and being pretentious…. you practice it because it is a life skill! If you can practice Add Maths, why can’t you practice socializing? Right? 

I didn’t go around saying “Practicing Add Maths is like being fake and pretending to like Add Maths.” No! I STILL don’t like Add Maths. But I had to do what I had to do, remember?

Just like we shouldn’t think “practicing to socialize means we are pretending to like socializing and not being ourselves”

 This is not a question of ‘liking’ or ‘being ourselves’. It is the question of having the skill so that you can do it in a situation when it is not avoidable. Because we are problem solvers! We just have to do what we have to do! Being good at socializing, is unfortunately, a coming-of-age skill. Part and parcel of becoming an adult (because you can no longer depend on your parents to do it for you.)

 

5) Try to be as genuine as possible even though  socialising  requires some amount of ‘faking an interest’. 

Just because socialising does require an amount of faking your interest (by asking questions you don’t really actually want to know), it doesn’t mean you cannot be genuinely yourself. What do I mean by this?

Well…

For example, when people ask you questions, you can answer those questions honestly. They might ask you back the questions you have asked to them. 

For example:

You: Anak hang Aidan buat apa sekarang?

Acquaintance: Dia buat engineering la ni. Alhamdulillah, results  okay. Pointer four flat baru-baru ni.  Alan pula buat apa la ni?

You: Dia major sains politik. Minor in literature. Dia memang minat social sciences. (this is an honest answer, right? Don’t say your son is doing medicine and also has a four flat pointer if it is not true! I mean, there must be limits to bragging too!)

Socializing is not something we introverts are naturally good at… so it does require an effort to fake an interest and to ‘seem’ like we are enjoying ourselves. Our general demeanour might be jovial, but inwardly we might be longing to get home and get started on our reading. We have no choice but to fake this general happy demeanour in order to maintain politeness. (it would be rude to have people think we feel bored by their conversation, right?)  But that is where the faking stops…. the actual content of the conversation must be real and true. 

 

6) There are online social skills guide

Yup! There are a lot of articles and books written on how to socialize. I have read them myself (in the course of trying to solve my problem with small talk)

But I don’t suggest you to buy any books for it. Internet articles will do. 

Because like Add Maths, you cannot just read on it! Practice is key! 

But reading on the theories would come in handy too…. so just read off the internet on that subject. And then go out to practice. Practice, practice, practice. 

***

I have mentioned before that the ‘self’ is fluid and changeable. That is why I always say ‘we do what we have to do’ regardless of our discomfort or real feelings about it. If that is our responsibility and it is expected of us, then we have to learn to adapt.

Instead of having a ‘fixed mindset’, we must have a ‘growth mindset’.

What do I mean by that?

The concept is a bit like “nature vs nurture”:

When you have a fixed mindset, you believe that you either are or aren’t good at something, based on your inherent nature, because it’s just who you are.

Whereas people who have a growth mindset believe anyone can be good at anything because your abilities are due  to your actions.

And personally, I think having a fixed mindset is harmful and one of the perpetuating factor to depression and anxiety. If you believe that you cannot change even when what you are doing is not working in your favour, then what else is there to do but to give up?

This is what I always tell my patients. To have a growth mindset!

Remember Elizabeth Bennet? She told Mr. Darcy to practice! Practicing is something that those who have a growth mindset will do.

So, all the best to all aspiring socialites out there! We can do this! 

****

Last but definitely not least, Selamat Hari Raya from the Azmee family and Maaf Zahir Batin. Taqabballahu Minna Wa Minkum.

Below are some of the pictures that we took on the first few days of Eid (some of the pictures do not contain my Kak Long as she didn’t make it back until on the 3rd day of Raya). There are a lot more pictures in Facebook and Instagram but I decide to only post a few here. I think my blog deserves a bit of colourful spicing up in this blessed month of Syawal.

 

Our formal Raya picture. Look at my father… so serious! Hahah.

Our silly free-style picture

More silly free-style pictures without our father because he is not into taking pictures/selfies like all his vain narcissistic daughters. Haha

And even more silly pictures…

Just the girls and the mom…😍😍😘

 

Sisters Bonding Time was on the 2nd and 3rd day of Raya. Tak sah raya kalau tak ambil gambar kat halaman rumah dengan baju raya. LOL. We missed my youngest sister because she was not around at that time. And my eldest sister was also not here because she was stuck in traffic jam on  the way to balik kampung here. So just me, Izati and the heavily pregnant Alida.

 

 

On the 3rd day of Raya, we went for our usual sisters-coffee-time at Starbucks. They left their husbands at home, because, of course! Who would want  husbands to tag along when the sisters are gossiping? Right? They would only feel excluded by our loud voices speaking on top of each other as we tend to do every single time.  Haha.

We missed Alida here because she was very, very pregnant and didn’t feel like going out and we missed my youngest sister Wani as she had gone back to the uni to start preparing for her final exam in dentistry. Their absence was deeply felt but it didn’t prevent us from having a great time. (LOL, sorry Wani and Alida.)

And on the 4th day of Raya (my last day of cuti raya, sobs sobs), I brought Kak Long to Gunung Keriang for hiking because she said she wanted to give it a try. I was happy to do it because I had started feeling guilty about all the calories I had consumed in the past few days. At the end of the hiking trip, my Kak Long learned to respect the level of my fitness to be doing this activity so very frequently. Hahha. She learned that she needed to increase her fitness level ASAP. “Tunggu aku balik next time… I will be fitter,” She said.

I laughed at the hilarity!

Healthy life-style.. KONONnya!

 

Until next time, my dear readers. 🙂

The People Not Worth Mentioning

#RamadhanReflection

Whenever Ramadhan arrives, my heart deeply misses my Muslim sisters in Newcastle. They made me realize something I would always be grateful to them for.

They made me realize that all the Israiliyat stories I had questioned in the past….well, I was right in questioning them. They opened my eyes – widely! – that religion IS logical.They made me realize that religious people are not weakly passive, terribly soft-spoken or yawningly dull. Because THEY were not dull and  yet they were one of the most religious people I have ever met.

They made me realize, that in matters of religion, there are rooms for people like me…. the ruthlessly logical and aggressively out-spoken people like me are also acceptable in Islam. That I was not un-Islamic when I questioned things I really didn’t understand. In fact, they were delighted by my questions and when they in turn answered my questions, I was delighted by their answers! Because now, it makes sense! Finally!!

They made me understand that my concept of religious people as people who “asyik cakap lemah-lembut, pakai baju besar dan tudung labuh, pijak semut tak mati… tapi asyik suka bagi orang rasa bersalah bila kita tanya balik kat depa benda yang kita rasa langsung tak logik!” was so wrong! I was wrong to stereotype ‘religious people’ and I was delighted about being wrong, at that time! I knew then, that there did exist outwardly religious people who were also inwardly Islamic in their principles and worldviews. 

I was intrigued by the sisters when I went to Melbourne for the Summer in my first year of med school (initially just to have a fun holiday for a month) and the Melbourne sisters then took me and my friends under their wings and taught me to understand my religion beyond its mere rituals. Because of them (supplemented by YOU TUBE videos of Nouman Ali Khan, Yusha Evans and Dr. MAZA) I understood the core principles of my religion and I stick to it as much as I can.

Some of them were one of the most energetic people I have ever met. And all these while I thought “Orang agama ni mesti jenis jalan menunduk all the time.” Well, not them!

Listen to this clip by Dr. Maza about how ‘kewarakan’ and ‘kesolehan’ has nothing to do with you “jalan lembik-lembik menunduk, konon soleh”. (Gosh! I get really irritated by pretentious people like that. *rolled eyes*)

Let me recap on the main point of the video. Sahabat-sahabat menyatakan “Sesungguhnya kami telah melihat Umar Ibn Al Khattab. Bila beliau berjalan, dia cepat. Beliau bercakap, ianya jelas. Bila beliau pukul, sakit. Tetapi beliaulah yang paling warak dikalangan kami.”

So this is to me, an image of a Muslim I could relate to! Cergas! Cerdas! Kuat! Tegas!

Our religion celebrates differences in personalities and habits as long as they are not against the syariat.

In fact, they told me “Saidina Umar Al-Khattab was very outspoken. When others made the hijrah in secret, he had boldly said, “Whoever wants his mother to mourn him, his children to become orphans and his wife to become a widow should meet me behind this valley to try and stop my Hijrah.” And no one dared follow him out. He had such spunk!”

Since then Saidina Umar is my favourite figure in religion, after Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Not because I think Saidina Abu Bakar and the rest of the companions are not as great. No! But I can RELATE with Umar. Saidina Abu Bakar might have diplomacy and patience…. but I am weak in those aspects and I couldn’t relate to him the way I could relate with Saidina Umar. How am I supposed to be patient when something really unjust is happening right before my eyes? I couldn’t relate why I could not simply call it out and tell them frankly to their face that what they are doing is wrong, regardless of who they are in the society! While I admire Saidina Abu Bakar just as much, it is with Saidina Umar r.a that I can relate the most.

Saidina Abu Bakar made the hijrah in secret together with the prophet, being so patient in facing the adversities and the terror of being chased by the enemies of Islam. Whereas Saidina Umar R.A had boldly challenged anyone to try to stop him from making the hijrah. And BOTH of them made it to Madinah at last. Even though one had patiently travelled in secret, while the other had boldly travelled in the open, BOTH of them reached their destination and their goals. So, BOTH are equally admirable… but I am more likely to do what Saidina Umar did, because I can relate to that. In my mind, I would be so angry that the people of Makkah was trying to stop my basic human rights to move wherever I wanted. That kind of nonsense would spark my temper and I would go, “Apsal pula kau nak halang-halang  aku ni? Kau siapa? Apa hak kau nak halang aku? You are not making any sense. Nak halang juga, cubalah kalau berani! Jangan cabar aku, okey!” 

Thats’ my fi’il… my tabiat…don’t force me, don’t cross my principles, don’t violate my boundaries. Because I will fight when it matters enough! You don’t get to me by force. You get to me with kindness and patient reasoning. The way the Newcastle and Melbourne sisters did. 

They taught me something I have always known: Sabar itu bukannya merelakan diri kena tindas kemudian menyatakan “yang aku ni sabar.” Sabar itu adalah menentang semua kezaliman yang ada kemudian bersabar dengan akibat yang kita terima disebabkan kita berani menentang kezaliman itu. They confirmed my belief that sabar in Islam is not something passive the way the Malays were doing it when they were being a coward!… but Sabar is an ALIVE, ACTIVE struggle. Saidina  Abu Bakar made the journey to Madinah with patience too…. and then He succesfully arrived in Madinah. His patience, just like Saidina Umar’s boldness, yielded the SAME result. He arrived with Rasulullah in tow! That kind of Sabar is productive! The concept of patience in Islam is NOT “biarlah kita bersabar kena tindas di Mekah.” (This concept of Sabar is always being adopted wrongly by Muslim Malays. When they used the word Sabar, what they usually really mean is ‘jadi penakut. Jangan cakap apa’.Haha)

I was so impressed by the things I was taught in Melbourne that summer. This!! THIS is the version of Islam that was never taught to me in Malaysia. This version of Islam taught us how to live and live well! And live honourably! And live courageously! 

They also instilled in me the concept of speaking up against injustice. Speak up… not because you think you can change anything by speaking up. But speak up because it is THE TRUTH and on the judgment day you can AT LEAST say to Your Lord “Ya Rabb, I spoke against that injustice when it happened!”

They told me to learn and internalize the lesson from the Quranic verse surah Al-A’raf 7: 163 -165

Dan tanyakanlah kepada Bani Israil tentang negeri yang terletak di dekat laut ketika mereka melanggar aturan pada hari Sabtu, di waktu datang kepada mereka ikan-ikan (yang berada di sekitar) mereka terapung-apung di permukaan air, dan di hari-hari yang bukan Sabtu, ikan-ikan itu tidak datang kepada mereka. Demikianlah Kami mencoba mereka disebabkan mereka berlaku fasik. (7: 163)

Dan (ingatlah) ketika suatu umat di antara mereka berkata: “Mengapa kamu menasehati kaum yang Allah akan membinasakan mereka atau mengazab mereka dengan azab yang amat keras?” Mereka menjawab: “Agar kami mempunyai alasan (pelepas tanggung jawab) kepada Tuhanmu, dan supaya mereka bertakwa.” (7: 164)

Maka tatkala mereka melupakan apa yang diperingatkan kepada mereka, Kami selamatkan orang-orang yang melarang dari perbuatan jahat dan Kami timpakan kepada orang-orang yang zalim siksaan yang keras, disebabkan mereka selalu berbuat fasik. (7: 165)

“Cuba tengok, Afiza. Dalam ayat-ayat ni. Ada tiga golongan di sini. Golongan pertama, yang melakukan kejahatan. Golongan kedua, yang menghalang kejahatan. Golongan ketiga, yang berkecuali … malah golongan ketiga ni siap bertanya kepada golongan kedua, kenapa nak sibuk-sibuk bagi nasihat? Kemudian dalam ayat 7:165 Allah memberitahu akan nasib golongan pertama yang melakukan kejahatan itu….. yang mereka ditimpakan azab. Nasib golongan kedua yang menasihati dan menghalang kejahatan, mereka ini diselamatkan. Tapi apa jadi dengan golongan ketiga ini… golongan yang berkecuali tadi? Apa nasib mereka?”

Hmm… I had no idea. The Quran didn’t mention what happened to them. I shrugged my shoulder at the naqibah and shook my head. 

“Bila Allah tidak sebut nasib golongan ketiga ini… maksudnya mereka adalah golongan yang tidak layak disebut.”

I was stunned.

“Jadi, ketika kita nampak kezaliman berlaku, jadilah orang yang berani menegur “Ini Zalim!”. Janganlah jadi orang yang berdiam diri, yang berkecuali, yang akhirnya nasibnya jadi tidak pasti. Neither here nor there. Not worth mentioning!”

Desmond Tutu was really wise and quite Islamic (whether he realized it or not), when he said “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

***

Believe me, there are times when I really miss how I was when I was in Australia. I think my behaviour was at its best when I was there because the environment there made it easy for me to be nice. I was not exposed to much injustice that would disturb my psyche at that time. I surrounded myself with nice, and intellectual people who could satisfy my thirst for knowledge and could sooth my insistence for things to be fair and logic.

Then I returned to Malaysia as a houseman. I was shocked.

“Hang pun tau, aku dah inform MO yang patient tu punya Blood Pressure low and Pulse Rate tachycardic. Dia kata suruh observe dulu. Run fluid fast apa semua. Sekarang patient ni bleeding teruk… tiba-tiba dia kata aku tak inform. Padahal dia yang tak attend.” said one of my fellow HOs to me when I was in my first posting. I told her to report the matter to the specialist. That I would accompany her to do it! She didn’t want to. Since this incident involved her, I couldn’t do anything much if she herself didn’t want to fight for herself. Takkan aku pula nak lebih-lebih involved?

But what I did was, I told as many HOs as possible about what had really happened. So that among HOs, we knew she wasn’t guilty. But I was ashamed of myself because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do… to internalize the Al-A’raf concept and speak up LOUD that the MO was the culprit! I didn’t do the most I could have done. Instead, I gave myself petty excuses by saying “I am just a HO… what can I do? Sekurang-kurangnya aku benci benda ni dalam hati… tu dah kira selemah-lemah iman. Yang paling aku mampu buat setakat ini adalah benci dalam hati.”

 

But my weakness haunted me for the rest of my first posting because I felt that I had fallen short of my own standard that I had nurtured for 5 years in Australia. I could not get over my boiling anger at the injustice and at myself… so that when I finished my posting, I wrote about things that had happened in the department that disturbed my sense of justice! I needed to let that out and purge it out of my system. Sue me if what I said was wrong! (I didn’t intend for it to become viral. But it became viral when I was already in my 3rd posting… by that time I have done all the major posting including surgical and medical… I was already a senior. They couldn’t do anything to me. I was ready to face anyone, anyway. My father said, “Don’t worrry. Jadi apa-apa, kita ada lawyer.” But Alhamdulillah, nothing actually did happen. I wasn’t even called to explain myself even though I was ready for it.)

In Malaysia, people don’t reward being nice. Instead, being nice gets you bullied. Bullying is something I have never experienced until I became a houseman… even then, I didn’t tolerate it for long! By the time my blog became viral, no MOs dared to bully me anyway. “Takut masuk blog.” they joked to me about it. (Hahha) Most of them were simply curious about me and I ended up becoming friends with most of them. Instead of being targeted and my life being made difficult (the way other HOs had predicted), my life became even more smooth after my blog became viralled. I thought that… maybe, hopefully… it was Allah’s reward for me because I wrote the truth. Maybe HE rewarded me because I finally returned to the principle of justice I had lovingly nurtured when I was a medical student in Australia. I was a coward just like any other housemen when I was in my first posting. Allah taught me to never again be like that! To maintain my outlook in life and let Allah handle the rest.

In Malaysia, you can request for one tiny reasonable thing in the most gentle tone you can muster, but it would get rejected as long as they think they can get away with it. By the time you raise your voice and threaten to take some action, only then you get what you want. So, the Malaysian culture rewards me when I am being my loud, rude self. The culture doesn’t reward me by complying to my reasonable request when I am being nice.

So I then learn that if I want what I want, I will have to be tough and fight with my bare hands until I get it because with you guys, diplomacy doesn’t work!  Even my younger sister had experienced the same thing once she started working. By the time she threatened legal action against the PPD in Sarawak for withholding her husband’s BKLP (Bayaran Khas Lokasi Pedalaman) allowance, only then they decided to comply to her demand. And so she won! PPD gave her husband back his rightful BKLP money.

My father looked at me and Alida, and he said “Alida dah mewarisi perangai Kak Ngah.” (In my family, I was called Kak Ngah Singa. Singa jadian…that is me. Hahaha.)

Then we looked at our father who was also just like us and said “Di mana tumpahnya kuah kalau tak ke nasi?” 

(I asked Alida to do a personality test once. Turned out that Alida is also an INTP. Go figure! I too, always tested as an INTP and sometimes INTJ.)

Some people said “Alida, buat apa hang pi cari  lawyer tu… lagi mahal kau kena bayar lawyer daripada duit yang kau akan dapat balik. Buat rugi jer.”

These people… they don’t get it!. Their priorities are not the same as us, the INTPs/INTJs. Our priorities are truths, justice and principle. Money comes second. Preserving harmonious relationship comes second (sometimes last!) It is okay if you have different priorities than me…. BUT!, don’t push your misguided notion on me! As long as we can afford our principles, we will go all out for it, khalas! If you are the sort of person who don’t have principles, you would not understand.

Initially, Alida wanted her money because it was rightfully hers! She requested for it reasonably. But when people were being unjust, difficult and refused to do the right thing, suddenly her priorities changed. Suddenly, this was NO LONGER about the money! She didn’t want it anymore! Now this was about justice! And she was willing to spend money to win against the PPD because they were being unjust! Let Alida be the lesson the PPD would never forget! And I supported her all the way by encouraging her to play their unjust game to the end by hitting below the belt and threaten them with not just legal action but ‘viral action’ too. My father supported her by offering to pay for the lawyer. And viola, suddenly it was so easy for the PPD to give her back the money that was rightfully hers.

See? See how they reward our frank, hard ways instead of our initial reasonably nice, soft ways? *shakes head*

When Alida got her money, only then the parasites who had told her “Hang pi lah fight. Tapi, aku rasa tak dapat punya” came to her, seeking her guidance. They asked her for a copy of what she wrote to the PPD so that they too could claim their money by using her letter as an example to write their own. Sheeshhh..

What sort of respect do we feel for these kind of people…. who didn’t want to do the dirty work of fighting in  the first place… but when winning is finally assured, only then they came running, asking for how to get it done! When Alida had first asked them to fight together with her, they didn’t want to move their lazy bums to do it and in fact, had discouraged her from fighting! But afterwards, their behaviour went exactly the opposite!  Isn’t their behaviour the perfect epitome of shameful cowardice? 

***

Dear adik-adik (medical students, HOs, junior MOs)

Allow me to impart you an advice I always believe in. Giving this advice is part of my civic duty and social responsibility as a senior MO (now that I am already in my second year of UD48 Hahaha. Senior la kan?). When you see injustice happens, call out on it.

Because Al-A’raf!

Because that is  the most Islamic thing you can do!

Because that is ACTIVE Sabar!

And don’t give yourself excuses that ‘at least, aku benci benda ni dalam hati.’ (I tried that excuse when I was a HO; it didn’t sit really well with me and I could not respect myself).

If you were a HO, maybe you can be forgiven to still be in the ‘selemah-lemah iman.’ To just ‘benci dalam hati’.

But if you are already an MO, or one day a specialist, a Jusa, a Dato, a Tan Sri, a Pengarah here and there…. there will always be someone higher than you who would tell you to do something your conscience says is wrong! Even when you become a DG, you still have someone else higher than you who would dictate to you things that are so unfair and so wrong that your blood boils because of it! Jadi, takkan sampai ke sudah hanya nak benci dalam hati dan berpuas hati dengan hanya memiliki ‘selemah-lemah iman’? Hanya kerana ia adalah arahan orang atasan?

Come on, por favor!

By the level of MOship, you should set standard for yourself… that I will speak up. As an MO, dah sah dalam jawatan, takkan masih selemah-lemah iman? Speak up! By the time you are a specialist, the standard should be “I will  speak up AND take action in the best way my position allows me to when I see injustice happens.”

For example you can say, “I refuse to allow my staff to oncall if you don’t want to pay their mileage claims. It wouldn’t be fair for them. The MOs can oncall by themselves if my staff cannot claim their mileage.” 

Or say, “Apa kata kita potong pengarah dan penolong-penolong pengarah punya elaun, potong orang-orang management punya elaun… korban sorang sikit bagi pada staff yang nak claim! Gaji staff lagi kecik daripada gaji korang kan! Gaji diorang lagi kecik daripada gaji orang management yang asyik nak potong claims orang padahal orang management tidur sedap kat rumah. This is not fair to my staff! How can you justify doing this to staffs whose salary are much less than you… but when there is financial constraint, it was THEIR claims you decided to cut first. Ini zalim!”

Say, “Everyone is innocent until proven guilty… so how can you devalue him by putting him in a department where he cannot utilize his excellent skill? Why not put him in Ortho/districts/Klinik Kesihatan where his skills can be put to its optimal use?Inilah ketidakadilan…. tidak meletakkan sesuatu kepada tempatnya. Tidak meletakkan staff yang kemahiran post-basicnya patut boleh diletakkan ditempat yang lebih memerlukan skill tersebut. But instead, you put him in my department? How could you do this to him… devalue him like  this… when you said he is innocent? And how could you do this to my department… to only place someone with a tainted reputation into our department time and time again! How could you devalue our department by always sending us staff of questionable calibre? In this case, you had created a lose-lose situation for him and for us! Your management is zalim! And I am calling you out on it!”

***

One of my friends told me, “Kalau kita speak up pun, kena ikut arahan juga. Orang management memang macam tu! Buat penat argue ja.”

I frowned. In my head, I reflected, “I know… I know that most of the time, kita speak up pun takkan dapat apa-apa. Buat kita rasa frust saja. Sebab at last, mungkin kena ikut arahan juga. Tapi can you imagine kalau yang speak up to ramai dan bukan seorang? (Like Alida’s case. She spoke up alone, she won! But how easier it would have been if ALL OF THEM had spoken up together in the first place) Tapi katakanlah dah ramai-ramai speak up pun, masih kena ikut arahan yang zalim, so what? The reason we SHOULD speak up is… because Al-A’raf. Remember? We speak up so that  we can say…. for the record, I oppose your injustice. For the record, I have made absolutely clear what I think of you when you made that decision. So that I can stand before God, and say ‘I have spoken, Ya Rabb.’ Because for the record, I can say that YOU KNEW you were wrong… I have made it so clear to you… now, the guilt is on you! It’s on you! I speak up because I am NOT content to always be in selemah-lemah iman like you.”

Because Al-Araf 7:164. 

Because I don’t want to be among people who are not worth mentioning.

Inspired!

Assalamualaikum to all my blog readers.

I hope it is not too late for me to wish all of you, my dear readers, Ramadan Mubarak and happy fasting.

May Allah grant us our best Ramadan yet. Amin. 

I have been so busy that I haven’t had the time to write these days. I think I am about to burn out. But never fear; if I am still reading (even when I am not writing), then my burn out is not so serious. 

And at the moment I am reading a book written by one of the most inspiring person I have ever had the fortune to know. Dr. Azlan Kamalludin is an emergency physician who I first met as a houseman in the emergency department of HSB. During my first few months of being a houseman in the ED, I had no idea who Dr. Azlan was because at that time, he was in Makkah being part of the medical team for Malaysian pilgrims. But a lot of senior housemen told me that Dr. Azlan was very good and very efficient and I was told that he was so inspiring to listen to when he taught housemen and MOs during morning rounds. 

And days before Dr. Azlan returned from Makkah, HOs/MOs were already talking about how much they missed Dr. Azlan’s teachings. So, of course, I became even more intrigued to know who was this Dr. Azlan. On the day he finally returned from Makkah, I found out that what they said about Dr. Azlan was not an exaggeration. Not at all. 

Me and a few of my friends had our end-of-posting assessment with him. In that short session, he shared his experience as an MO fighting for his patient’s rights. I have always been inspired by that.  

The day when I had my end-of-posting assessment with Dr. Azlan was the last day of my housemanship. I went to psychiatry after that. (But I added him on Facebook. Haha.)

Dr. Azlan had talked about wanting to write a book a few years ago and through Facebook he asked my opinion about what to write. Him, his wife and I met at Coffee Bean a few weeks before he got posted in Langkawi 2 years ago and we talked about his wife’s cancer being in remission and about things in general. I told him that ED HSB has suffered a great loss by him going to Langkawi. (But then, Langkawi ED is very lucky to get him.) 

On Monday last week, it was a very pleasant surprise for me when he and his wife came to the Methadone clinic to see me and present the book that he had been writing since working as an ED specialist in Langkawi. The title of the book is ‘Three Cancers in Ten Months: When Doctor Becomes Caregiver.”

He had autographed the book with a personal message for me on the first page. It was such a great honour to be receiving such a gift from him. A book given for free, and delivered into my hands by the great author himself! I was very humbled by all his effort. ( Furthermore, I have always loved having books that are personally autographed by my favourite authors.)

My facebook status on the day I received this gift of a book. 

As my readers probably know, there are not many specialists (or anyone in the position of authority) that I actually find inspiring. I respect any specialist who is nice… but not everyone who is nice is also inspiring. He is one of the few that I actually do find inspiring. In general, I am impressed by anyone (regardless of their position in the society) who can speak up their minds and say what they mean and mean what they say. No deceitful diplomatic crap is ever going to impress me. I like people who have strength of conviction and will do what is right no matter how hard they have to fight. No matter WHO they have to face! These people will always earn my lasting admiration. 

I am now half way through his book, and so far, it is such an inspiring read. It is highly recommended.

Below, is my Amazon review of his book.

I have mentioned before that after housemanship, I was placed in ENT. But I have zero interest in ENT. My interest has always been in psychiatry. I fought so hard to get into the field of my interest. I went to see the Hospital Deputy Clinical Director, initially. Then, I went to see the Hospital Director herself! I wrote an appeal letter…. then, I wrote another! Deep inside, I know no other department will do for me other than psychiatry. After not getting into law school (because my scholarship was for medicine), Psychiatry was my SECOND CHANCE to do what I actually love! I was not going to give it up! Not that easily. 

But even so… I had written in my appeal letter that “If you can’t give me psychiatry, place me in Emergency rather than ENT!” Because in the emergency department, working with outstanding specialist like Dr. Azlan will inspire you to be better too. To fight for your patients to be admitted when all specialties reject your referrals! To be outspoken and bold “fine, I will call your specialist myself!”. To NOT BE AFRAID to fight for your rights and for your patients. 

I can do that! I can do it! Arguing and debating… well, that’s my second nature. I love psychiatry, but I wouldn’t mind being placed in ED even though the department is busier than ENT. ED would be my second best choice after PSY. Because I can sense that Dr. Azlan has the same kind of work ethics I have always respected in anyone. Because other than real interest in the field you choose to practice, working environment matters too. And if Dr. Azlan is in the ED, then the working environment should be fine, I thought. More than fine, in fact. 

I am thankful that I became a psychiatry MO. The environment in my department is quite good. Everyone is so nice. But being too nice sometimes makes for a perfect condition to be bullied by others! 

And my one absolute abhorrence is being bullied by unjust authority in the position of power. They hide their real agenda behind various circulars and ‘surat arahan’. And we have no choice but to do what they ask. 

I hate that! It violates my belief system! Because deep inside, I believe we always have the choice of fighting. The only problem is, are we willing to do it?

 I don’t like being bullied! 

So in this month of Ramadan, I declare, that I will NEVER be too nice! I will always ONLY be just ‘nice enough’… but no further. If you push my bullsh*t button, you will witness my massive retaliation. 

It just makes me SO BLOODY FURIOUS when I see injustice happens. 

Or maybe most people just have a passive personality. Maybe the world cannot accommodate too many people who are aggressive and abrasive… because then there would be wars happening every few minutes. Hahah. 

And now… even though it is Ramadhan and I am supposed  to have nice, benevolent, charitable feelings…but I cannot deny the truth. My feelings at the moment is far from nice….

In fact…

#AkuBengang!

But then, it IS Ramadhan.

So, I took a deep breath in and let it go. For now.

“Positive vibes, please come to me stat!” I craved silently.

But then I remembered that I still haven’t finished Dr. Azlan’s book. That’s the positive vibes, right there, waiting for you! 

So I smile and continue my reading.

And the world is right again. For now.