I’m not in the habit of doing things like this, but since this questionnaire affair has turned out to be quite the craze, I must not be left out! Honestly, it’s just the perfect excuse to be narcissistic. And I only have time for 9.

1. It seems quite absurd to me that people like generic bread. No, not that warm buttery scent of toast (for which I do love once in a while); that sodden plasticky excuse that comes packaged in the supermarkets is never ever palatable! My best friend says I’m starting to become a food snob - in which I will attempt to bring you back to my humble beginnings when we used to eat generic bread daily - for I have reverted to the belief that added chemicals are not tasty. And to complicate matters further, I still consume them (for my housemate buys it)…though it doesn’t mean I greatly enjoy them.

2. I don’t like fat patients. It doesn’t mean I crack fat jokes (although some of those ‘Yo Momma so fat..’ ones are GOLDEN) because I understand how difficult it is to lose weight. But seriously, a girl with a BMI of 60 getting impregnated by a boy 1/10th of her size? An overtly chubby woman who says she can’t mobilise because the nurses won’t give her a frame? It’s not me, it’s water weight?! Give me a break.

3. The perfect man for me would: have Italian blood, be able to prepare Japanese food and have a British accent. It is reasonable to assume that I have yet to meet him, though the closest contender so far has a seriously wicked British accent.

4. My mother once told me that if I were in Antartica, the first frozen body part to fall off would be my nose. I thought about it as I experienced my first winter in Australia; it made me laugh out loud when I was stuck in sub-zero temperatures in Tokyo Disneyland. Now at least, it’s still intact as I breathe.

5. I am really quite a clumsy person with a questionable attention span. The Singlish term that would suitably describe me is ‘blur sotong’ - loosely translated as ‘unaware squid’. People have used it to up their Cuteness Factor, but I find nothing advantageous. It has occasionally stunned me to confused silence when asked questions; often it presents as bruises when my toes accidentally hit the IVT metal pole in the wards. And sometimes, during boring meetings, it makes me imagine what I would look like if I had 8 arms.

6. I own 6 pairs of black leggings. They all look similar, they’re mostly in perfect condition and often I re-use the same one that’s just been out of the wash. Despite me using them fairly regularly, I don’t know why I have a fistful of them. This is the perfect introduction to what my wardrobe looks like.

7. I am known to have steady hands when I play Jenga; I have used that to defend my interests in Surgery. I also love to do Jelcos, intubate the crap out of my patients and play Sudoku (in pen) in my spare time; Jimi agrees I should be in Anaesthesia. I have a huge crush on an ED Reg, so I gullibly believe that doing Emerg would give me a chance to score. These are the immature things that run through my head when a Consultant asks me what I want to do in the future.

8. My Silat (an Indonesian form of Martial Arts) instructor says I have a powerful punching/kicking technique. I attribute it to a growing need to vent out some Ward Politics Frustrations. I aim for the head and neck when I attack; he says hitting the chest is better. Being Medical, I know there are so many easier (and quicker) ways to kill a human being; the problem is, you need the assailant to be drugged up and dependent, which is not the likely case.

9. I have an unhealthy obessession with smoked salmon. The reason why I think it will eventually kill me is - save for it’s high sodium content (hypertension!) - is that I have yet to find a packet that suits my tastebuds. They’re not incredibly affordable, which makes taste tests an occassional affair, but I believe that out there somewhere, a dying salmon would be perfectly prepared, waiting for me. I love it so much that I sometimes dream of being proposed with a ring stuck in the orifices of a slice.

Perhaps we must all one day experience suffering for the sake of art.

The first few thoughts on my mind, as I was walking home in the chilly winter evening, fresh-faced from yoga class, was of how light and airy and bouncy it felt. I don’t know - it could be like shopping; the idea of spending a certain amount of cash for a product, or in this case, a service, could somehow snowball into an immense weight of satisfaction. Of vanity.

Some people copped a few stares along the way - either because I looked like a freak or was shamelessly acting like one. Oh, if I could explain to you the euphoria, the intense joys of what a worthwhile haircut would feel like, it would be an essay worthy of a mention. But skill is not on my side.

Or maybe the skill points had tipped over to my stylist’s (oh, I love how that word slips off my tongue, as opposed to the common term ‘hairdresser’). He is after all a style director; mother of all stylists. The top dog; the big papaya.

Before I sound like an outright pompous piece of arse shit, it must be noted that since forever, my haircuts have usually bordered around RM60 (yes, we’re talking Malaysian moolah). Long have I grown up waking to those sunlit memories of walking down obscure corridors, off the beaten path they would say, to search for that elusively cheap-o hairdresser. My image had been in the hands of countless Mak Nyahs and nyonyas. Mom thinks that a haircut is just a haircut, and that all haircuts need only the holy trio of eyesight, fingers and (sharp) scissors to flourish into art.

So when I told my stylist that I trusted him, I effing meant it. Italian in flavour, trained for 20 years in all the major capitals of Europe, he was such a genius when he did my hair. That intense stare he gave as he fingered through my pathetically mundane locks just spelt: Innovation, Change, Style.

Plus, the salon had a $20-off discount, which made it really within my range.

*hee*

Oh, piss off. Stop staring at me with those steely judgemental eyes of yours. It’s going to be the last time that I make use of such brilliance. Well, until I start earning my own dosh that is.

In the spirit of literary education, the generous pitter-patter of scurried feet down the great halls of happiness, it is my pleasure to share with you the one very uplifting poem that never fails to pull my heartstrings and shoosh my fears away whenever desperation entraps me underneath its smelly, hairy feet.

And so the session will begin this way:

ooo..look at me!

–**–

Stain Boy by Tim Burton

Of all the super heroes,
the strangest one by far,
doesn’t have a special power,
or drive a fancy car.

Next to Superman and Batman,
I guess he must seem tame.
But to me he is quite special,
and Stain Boy is his name.

He can’t fly around tall buildings,
or outrun a speeding train,
the only talent he seems to have
is to leave a nasty stain.

Sometimes I know it bothers him,
that he can’t run or swim or fly,
and because of this one ability,
his dry cleaning bill’s sky-high.

–**–

If for any reason you feel that life has given you the dumps, that your destiny is bereft with lumps, it’s somewhat comforting to think that no matter what has happened to you so far, you life will not be as predictably pathetic as Stain Boy.

For just look at him (picture above) with his wide-eyed fear and notoriously darkened eye-bags. Isn’t he such a remarkably sad little creature?

And that wraps up today’s session. As you may not have noticed, I’m currently suffering from the aftermath of watching Harry Potter 5 on screen. It is understandably not related at all to the poem, but my actions are somewhat skewed by what little thought is left. The paucity of depth that the movie has managed to portray, the existence of Cho Chang (urgh!) or the mere fact that I have not reserved Harry Potter 7 yet just leads me to the precipices of insanity.

Either that, or the overdose of sugary-sweet cough syrup has fumbled with my mind and left imprints of it on the muddled canvas.