huskies10's Xanga

Xanga my old friend

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:01:07 GMT

It's been a long time old buddy but I haven't forgotten you. It seems everyone and his dog has succumbed to the mighty power of facebook but sometimes you need a bit more space to express what you really mean. So now I turn back to faithful old Xanga. Sure you take a bit more time and effort, and you don't look so pretty but I love you because you can be so much deeper than FB. And we all know that good relationships need care and attention. Even relationships with internet conduits.

Right now I'm rejoicing in the goodness of God who is infinitely more wonderful than money or prestige or sex. Who is immeasurably more desirable than career, great friends or healthy family relationships. I am rejoicing in a God who makes life worth living and fulfill the deepest longing of my heart. I am being awakened to a God who created me to love Him and find purpose in magnifying His glory. And I am looking for ways to work it out everyday.

On the flip side, I'm burning up with hatred for the gospel that says that the reason Jesus saves is so you can be one of the "King's kids' and experience the "rights and priviledges" of financial blessing, better job, good health and freedom from trouble in this life. They make christianity some kind of holy country club endorsed by God! When did Jesus ever promise that? Which of the disciples ever believed it? 11 out of the 12 of them died as martyrs! They suffered shipwreck, physical illness, rejection, imprisonment and a whole lot worse.

And why did they do it? Why suffer? Because as Paul says "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ". How dare Joel Olsteen and Joseph Prince and Kong Hee and countless other elevate worldly pleasures above God! Taste and see that the Lord is good! Truely taste him and you will know that there is nothing else this world can offer that will satisfy.

I'm also working out how to say things right. John Piper does it way better. Just search john+piper+prosperity+gospel on youtube

Thanks for listening Xanga, I just needed to get that off my chest. I'll try and write more often.

L

Still studying

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:06:13 GMT

Dudes, I am soooo tired of studying. So I'm blogging instead...

Currently preparing for the 3rd and final part of my Surgical Membership exams and I cannot wait for it to be over! It starts next monday the 20th with the (feared) Viva. If I pass the viva it will be followed closely by the clinical exam on wed or thursday.

God has graciously provided me a generous chunk of study leave allowing me to escape from the emergency room for a little while. Let me just testify that God knows what we need a whole lot better than we do. If I'd have got my first choice posting I would never have managed to get this much time to study. Instead God provided what looked like a totally sucky posting in A+E but it's a posting that afforded me load of time to study. Not that I don't yearn to get back to the operating theatre.

Anyway, I'm sure that's really boring to most of you. Especially with all the exciting things happening around the world. Grace and Jons new little bub, PC and Marie and Justin and Denise recently getting hitch and Ed and Enqin about to do the same... Congratulations to all the happy folk. Looking forward to catching up with the London crowd in October...

5:26 am

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 20:38:46 GMT

Surgery in Singapore is fantastic. I just did my first emergency laparotomy and omental patch repair (making an incision in the abdomen and repairing a hole in the small bowel). Closely supervised of course. Even though it's 2 hours before anyone else starts work and I haven't slept all night I feel great... although I'm sure I'll totally crash out once the endorphins run out...

Remember the old days?

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 02:00:50 GMT

Caption competition anyone?

Studying for my Part 2 exam at the moment. That means lots of time to file through old photos. Look out for more installments!

Singapore

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:23:04 GMT

It's been almost 3 weeks since Mel and I started working at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and I have to say we're having a blast. We've both met a lot of very cool people and we're really enjoying working in a system that is ridiculously clean and efficient. Over the last 3 weeks a number of things strike me about working in Singapore:

1) Things happen crazy fast.

Sometimes we will request a CT scan on our morning ward round and before we have finished the patient has been downstairs, through the radioactive donut, returned glowing to the ward and the images and report are in our hands. Back in the UK we would still be trying to persuade the radiology dungeon master to squeeze the scan in before the end of next week, then when next week comes the porters would undoubtably be on strike. Once we'd have carried the patient down 3 flights of stairs (the lift is out of order) to the CT scanner it would have turned 5:01pm and the radiologist would be well on his way home and we'd have to wait until the next morning to find out what the scan actually means.

2) Food is central.

The hospital has it's own food court downstairs with a huge selection of malay, chinese, hokkien and indian food. Plus westernish food (pork chops and chips). Not a sandwich in sight. On our operating days there is a little canteen in the operating theatre. Our morning ward rounds end with makan (malay for food) and our meetings and tutorials are usually bountifully supplied. Back in blighty I was used to ending the day feeling hungry thirsty and needing to pee all at the same time. Now I just need to pee.

On the downside, the majority of disease seen in Singapore appears to be caused by roti prata.

3) Good English is hard to come by

I am strongly resisting asking collegues to "Off the catheter" or "on the light" (remove the catheter, turn on the light). The health system is also littered with abbreviations that everyone understands but no one can actually remember what the letters stand for. 'Please' and 'thank you' are generally regarded as superfluous and inefficient words that unnecessarily lengthen the sentance and therefore are not commonly used in Singlish . On the background of this, the English accent has an absolutely devastating effect on all within ear shot. Nurses listen carefully, Patients quit smoking, Consultants carefully consider your opinion (ok, so the last one isn't really true...) unfortunately English doesn't get you very far with all the old Hokkien/Mandarin Aunties and Uncles.

One buffet lunch and one chinese banquet later...

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:07:59 GMT

and I have neutralised the effect of last week's work out.

On a different topic, I have just finished reading "What Katy Did". One of Mel's favorite books that she has read about 15 gazillion times along with the (many) other books in the Katy series. It does not contain high speed action, spine tingling suspense nor eyebrow raising intrigiuge. Neither does it contain hobbits, wizards or jedi. It is thus not a popular book with boys. Despite having previously classified this a 'Girly book' I gave it a go and really, really enjoyed it. So much so that I find myself wholeheartedly recommending it to all the other hairy ape men out there who (like myself) had previously steered well away from anything more sentimental than the Usborne Book of Knowledge.

It's really is a wholesome and inspiring read and makes you want to be a better person. Yes, it's about 6 children growing up, but give it a go fellahs, and don't worry about shedding a tear in Chapter 11.

I'm off to find out "What Katy Did Next" ;)

02:08 Sleepless night

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:44:44 GMT

Still awake tonight, so what better to do than blog?

First up, congrats to mini Mel on her AAB which means that she will be HK bound next week. Wifey and myself have not started work yet and so we may take a little trip over to accompany her. It's a hard life...

Congrats to all the other A levelers too... I hope the hard work has paid off.. And if you haven't achieved the 17 A's you were aiming for, don't worry, Jesus is bigger than exam results. MUCH bigger. Something I've realised over the last few years is that Our Father equips up with all that we need to do the work He has given us.

Work out update: Abs still aching from the 7 sit-ups I did 2 days ago, we headed over to the Singapore Island Country Club (courtesy of Mum and Dad Tien). They have a 50m outdoor pool... Fantastic! I managed about 600m in an effort to convert my pear shape into something more like the kwokmaster's rippling physique. (keep it up leo!)

(P.s. Grld and Sar, you are also kwokmasters but in different ways)
(Re: Cookiefest's last comment: Your unruly chin hair is not illegal here, but probably should be)

Turning into a Pork Chop

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:32:14 GMT

I had my pre-employment health check yesterday and according to the singaporean cut off point, I am right on the borderline of a healthy weight. Which mean that one more roti prata and I would have been offically overweight. That's the weirdest thing I ever heard. I've never even been close to overweight. I also have 27% body fat apparently... although that seems like quite a lot. In schools here if you're a bit lardy they make you take extra PE classes to shift the weight.

Anyway, I figured I probably had let things slip a little so I decided to do some sit ups. Man.... they were a lot tougher than I remember...

Back in Singapore... just in time.

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:27:50 GMT

Turns out that we just made it back to Singapore before Heathrow descended into (further) chaos.

It's interesting to be back this time now that I'm in it for the long haul. Now that I'm a local (kind of) I feel like I need to pay more attention to where everything is and how it all works.

On a different subject I would like to rant about the spectrum interactive internet kiosks at heathrow. (see photo) They really are crap. 1 pound for 10 minutes. That's okay, I though. I can whip out a couple of emails in that time... Except that the stoopid keyboard takes about 3 seconds to register every keystroke. That equates to a maximum typing speed of 20 letters a minute. What a rip off! It took the whole 10 minutes to write a 2 line email...

Too many other things to do right now, so the letter of complaint will have to wait.

Mel's having her wisdom teeth out today under gen. anaesthetic. Therefore, no noodles for breakfast... Probably no noodles for the next few days... Poor thing...

I will attempt to update regularly to keep u all up 2 date with my integration into Singapore... la...

Flat tyre

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:36:19 GMT

1 1/2 weeks left in Australia. Looking forward to coming home for a while. That's right, London is still home! Woo hoo! Also looking forward to watching the world cup at a reasonable hour.

Got a flat tyre on the way to the night shift tonight. It's the first time I've had to change a tyre and it feels like one of those milestone moments. Like I've entered a new stage of life. Anyone had that?

It's gonna cost a few $$$ for new one, and just before we sell the car too! I think God provides these little niggles when we are being too money minded (like I have been recently) to remind me that he provides and he takes away. Therefore we should trust in him for our portion, not worry about money and be generous with all that he gives us.