Am in Alor Setar now. Am very glad that I am with Seow Voon again. Got myself a room, well furnished and very near to Seow Voon's house. TV reception here is excellent. Channel 8 and 9 are clearer than my house in Seremban. There are chinese foodstall near here also.

Tomorrow will be my first day in Hosp Alor Setar.

Will need to get used to friday and saturday being the weekend and weekdays start on sunday. I think it's pretty stupid, and Alor Setar is not like under PAS or something like that. The banks here dont follow this system, because of the obvious reason of being impractical... how can they make transactions to KL or the rest of the world on Sunday when eveyone is off. ..... getting sidetracked, let's go back to my main point.

So I was saying ... I will report to the pejabat pengarah negeri kedah tomorrow. Starting tagging during weekend will be a drag, because not all the staff will be there, and being a tagger, I will probably just run errands for the on-call person, and have to clerk most of the new cases. When Alan and I were tagging in medical, we clerked 90% of the new cases between us during the period. I probably wont see how things run regularly, u know like the usual weekday, until Sunday when everyone starts to come backand work. Wonder how many days they will want me to tag.

Spending the past 9 months in KPilah with Alan has brought us together like brothers. Alan, hang on tough. I understand how monotonous things can be there. Fight back by being among the first to pass MRCP Part 1 when you are a junior MO. Will contact you by direct email/sms.

Soon Hock's baby is probably due some time soon I would think. Any news anyone? Fab?

Ok, will sleep earlier today.

taking leave next week, taking up scuba next wk!

Sorry to see Lee Kien go... Kuala Pilah will be quieter than ever. Suffice to say I wouldn't have made it this far thru HOship if it weren't for him there. Feel like absconding sometimes...

Have purchased a new 21" Philips to break the boredom. Unfortunately can only receive 3 channels in KP.

Medical posting is really bad and will be worse now with a shortage of HOs. Keep myself afloat by thinking that the end of 1st year is near. 10 wks to go! Meanwhile have to go on battling severe exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and sugar addiction.

Have developed a gastric ulcer. Am starting Losec this week if my hospital is not too cheap to approve a 2-6 wk course.

Am renting the whole house now by myself in KP. Nice place just nice for 1-2 persons in a nice neighbourhood. However in the past 9 months have encountered all kinds of resident fauna including termites, spiders, centipedes, lots and lots of ants, a snake and a mouse. 2 months ago the electricity got shut off for one whole night when LK wuz in S'ban left me in total darkness with only my hp as a light source... would have gone insane if were still in my darkness-fearing younger years.

Am rambling think am developing Adeline syndrome. Where is that cow anyway not heard from her in millenia

Irritating Tony is basking in freedom in that horrible posting that is O&G. 32 HOs and they practically are jobless. All other departments are relatively short. It's coming to the point where whenever you go to canteen there's bound to be some jobless O&G fella there.

Today was my last day in Kuala Pilah. Sorry to leave Alan alone there. There will be shortage of housemen there, and it is probably going to be really busy.

I guess all of us are in the same situation- not having enough housemen towards the end of this posting. Sometimes I wonder where all those Ukrainian, Indian, Indonesian and Middle East graduates are. Looks like we will not get new recruits until the local uni grads come out.

Cheers to all of you.

Yeah, Lee kien. We heard the news. What a pity you can't come to O&G. Chee Foo and I are suffering here. This is the first time I'm back home since starting my O&G posting. There's only 12 HO in O&G now. We are doing EOD calls like crazy. Before this we have 5 HO on call a day. We had to revise it to 4 so that none of us will collapse. And there's still 3 months left! New people won't be coming in so soon. We don't have time to learn anything as we are just focused on getting our work done. And yet some of the specialists are not understanding at all.
Anyway, you'll learn a lot in medicine. They're short of people too but the working environment is not so stressful. By the way, where are you going to stay?

Effective April 1st, I am transferred to Hospital Alor Setar. I will continue Medical posting there. Seow Voon and I will be switching phone numbers. I will be using 012-6361850 and Seow Voon will be using 012-4103274.