Found this while packing up some time ago:

In which that doesn’t shake you
Out of things that seem likely so
That the powers that break the soul
Are the ones that you already know

It was etched on a wispy piece of paper. I can’t remember when I wrote it; can’t recall what it was all about. But that’s spring (or perhaps, summer) cleaning: you find pieces of yourself long forgotten.

That, and a mountain of DUST.

Of Hartmann’s and Crohn’s
Highly bouncy intestines
and broken gallstones
Faecal material I must endure
To get a taste
Of the Colo-Rectal cure

That talentless literary offering, my piece de commencer, is living-proof that I must now so solemnly swear to not nibble recklessly on the respectable foundations of Poetry. Maybe that’s why I am simmering rather comfortably in Medicine - it has a knack of tenderizing my articulatory deficits. Literature would only emphasize it through its coded phrases, highbrowed words and outworldly declarations.

I am at the fulcrum-point of Surgery - where these few days mark the end of my mindless joyride with the Colon, Rectum and Anus (laugh, you non-medical beings) and next week invites the welcoming fanfare of my tempestous affair with the Oesophagus, Duodenum, Jejunum and Ileum. And then my (retro)journey through the gastrointestinal system will end with much pomp with a 2-week (TWO WEEKS!?) break - my first and my last uni holiday before I God-damn finish 4th year. Somehow.

I am supposed to channel what energy I have left in my mentally exsanguined state towards my research on ‘A Randomised Controlled Trial on Fentanyl vs Fentanyl-Morphine for Spinal Anaesthesia in Caesarean Deliveries’, but my attention span is inversely proportional to the length of that research title. This journal has been left alone for too long; it needs the (brief) gentle touches of my motherly caress. Despite the overbearingly glaring truth that I am meeting my research professor tomorrow.

Two main things I’ve learnt in Surgery are these:
1. I will never, over anyone’s dead body including mine, consider the path of sutures and scalpels as my daily bread and butter. (This is oft-remarked, but I want to hop in the bandwagon: the progressively plot-ischaemic Grey’s Anatomy is a total joke)
2. Surgeons have very little sense of humour (and appetite). Somehow my Consultant (who adores teasing and grilling me mercilessly on the spot - which I find rather fun indeed!) narrowly slips through the filter, though I might be pushing my luck. I am otherwise creating my own bits of optimistic fluffness by laughing at myself to keep me sane.

I have little time to eat, drink, be merry and free. My waking hours are spent on reading, thinking and practising medicine. And yet, I am taking so long to get there.

(To be continued…)