Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Rocking around the dead and feeding the living
Well, school has started, but i realised i forgot to blog about last friday, one rather busy, yet most poignant day of my holidays. It started the week before, when HH dropped into the library chair across me, and wondered out loud," I wonder what I have gotten myself into..." Logic told me to just give a weak grin and continue to nose around my pathology book, but curiosity got the better of me. Well, like they say, curiosity kills the cat. I had gotten myself a booking on Friday to go to HH's church to cook for 20 odd refugees.
So there I was, on a lovely, hot friday morning, sitting on a bench outside victoria market and feeling my black boots melt in the sun, which contemptously played peek a boo with me. After removing my jacket and putting it back on for the umpteenth time, I spotted HH popping out of Mac's. We waited for the rest of her Overseas Christian Fellowship ( OCF) group. HH had to drag me away from a busker who was putting on a magical performance with his old guitar. SHe managed to get me to the veggie shed as I strained to hear him launching into a spirited rendition of " something stupid." We wondered around the market buying veggie and then meat. HAlal meat. Wait, there wasn't any here. We approached a middle eastern lady for help and i nearly collapsed into to giggles when I realised we had asked a catholic nun where to get halal meat.
After exhausting 3 chicken stalls, HH and I went up to brunswick for the meat while the rest started cooking. We met up in church to storm the kitchen. After running around for 1 hour plus and sweating it out over 3.5 kg of chicken ( eeks) we were ready to go. I had to go off to school early for my practs in the anatomy room so I left. Perhaps I never got to meet the refugees, and never got to see the fruits of my labour that morning, but a weird sense of euphoria took wind in my heart, knowing that I helped to do something meaningful. Faith had nothing to do with it. I was a lone buddhist admist devout christians in a church, but it didn't matter. My HH told me later that the lunch was fascinating. She was trying to hold a conversation with a family from brazil which mostly consisted of wild gesticulations and doodling. And a russian scientist gave her a blow by blow comparision of nuclear missles in the US and russia. I wished I could have been there. I definitely will make another lunch. :P I think it'll be an unforgettable experience.
I bought myself a chicken burger and tried to scuff it down. THe wind was blowing the lettuce into my face. After that I rushed to the anatomy lab. Most ppl have a morbid fascination with cadavars. When I get questioned about the course, lot's of the conversation is centered on the cadavars. Guess pple have a morbid fascination with death. Personally, i think the living scares me a lot more. I rather stare at the cadavar than look at a operation. Contrary to belief, the anatomy room looks nothing like the freaky morgues in the b grade horror shows. Ok, yez, the white walls, clinical looking atmosphere are standard. So are the few hundred bodies lying on tables, covered in white sheets, the blunt, stained surgical equipment, the brains floating in the tub with bits of disintigrated liver and the metal tanks full of torsos and preservatives. But the bleak picture ends there. As few ppl as there were today, there was never an eerie feel about the room. A radio blared J lo's Let's get loud in the corner, ppl chatted and joked over the cadavars. Perhaps the worst thing about the cadavars was the awful smell. It wafted into the room beyond, a mixture of lap chiong and char siew. it took me ages to be able to cook and consume lap chiong again after my first pract. Yes, it smells like food. A sickly sweet odour. Not very good considering i just had my lunch. . Think rotting smell mixed with sweet .. not really eu Du cadavars. My tutor arrived with me and Va, his hair dyed a brilliant red. Red? " I had black hair, " he lamented, patting his hair. " I change the colour everyweek. Do you like it? "
We spent a good 3 hours with the body parts, which he hauled up from the tank. After the session, he insisted on giving us a treat at the cafe at the union house. So there we were, a motley little group who came reluctantly back to school during the hols, with our tutor, sipping hot coffee and stoning at our anatomy books. The tutor lamented how his circle of frens had diminished ever since he started working. It was the awful truth, medicine would invade our life and that's the way things went. We shook our heads, the prospect of working seemed light years away. But looking at things now, i realised that time had flown by real fast. I was nearly a year 2 med knob. A tad closer to entering the world of doctors. FREAKY.
Well, school has started, but i realised i forgot to blog about last friday, one rather busy, yet most poignant day of my holidays. It started the week before, when HH dropped into the library chair across me, and wondered out loud," I wonder what I have gotten myself into..." Logic told me to just give a weak grin and continue to nose around my pathology book, but curiosity got the better of me. Well, like they say, curiosity kills the cat. I had gotten myself a booking on Friday to go to HH's church to cook for 20 odd refugees.
So there I was, on a lovely, hot friday morning, sitting on a bench outside victoria market and feeling my black boots melt in the sun, which contemptously played peek a boo with me. After removing my jacket and putting it back on for the umpteenth time, I spotted HH popping out of Mac's. We waited for the rest of her Overseas Christian Fellowship ( OCF) group. HH had to drag me away from a busker who was putting on a magical performance with his old guitar. SHe managed to get me to the veggie shed as I strained to hear him launching into a spirited rendition of " something stupid." We wondered around the market buying veggie and then meat. HAlal meat. Wait, there wasn't any here. We approached a middle eastern lady for help and i nearly collapsed into to giggles when I realised we had asked a catholic nun where to get halal meat.
After exhausting 3 chicken stalls, HH and I went up to brunswick for the meat while the rest started cooking. We met up in church to storm the kitchen. After running around for 1 hour plus and sweating it out over 3.5 kg of chicken ( eeks) we were ready to go. I had to go off to school early for my practs in the anatomy room so I left. Perhaps I never got to meet the refugees, and never got to see the fruits of my labour that morning, but a weird sense of euphoria took wind in my heart, knowing that I helped to do something meaningful. Faith had nothing to do with it. I was a lone buddhist admist devout christians in a church, but it didn't matter. My HH told me later that the lunch was fascinating. She was trying to hold a conversation with a family from brazil which mostly consisted of wild gesticulations and doodling. And a russian scientist gave her a blow by blow comparision of nuclear missles in the US and russia. I wished I could have been there. I definitely will make another lunch. :P I think it'll be an unforgettable experience.
I bought myself a chicken burger and tried to scuff it down. THe wind was blowing the lettuce into my face. After that I rushed to the anatomy lab. Most ppl have a morbid fascination with cadavars. When I get questioned about the course, lot's of the conversation is centered on the cadavars. Guess pple have a morbid fascination with death. Personally, i think the living scares me a lot more. I rather stare at the cadavar than look at a operation. Contrary to belief, the anatomy room looks nothing like the freaky morgues in the b grade horror shows. Ok, yez, the white walls, clinical looking atmosphere are standard. So are the few hundred bodies lying on tables, covered in white sheets, the blunt, stained surgical equipment, the brains floating in the tub with bits of disintigrated liver and the metal tanks full of torsos and preservatives. But the bleak picture ends there. As few ppl as there were today, there was never an eerie feel about the room. A radio blared J lo's Let's get loud in the corner, ppl chatted and joked over the cadavars. Perhaps the worst thing about the cadavars was the awful smell. It wafted into the room beyond, a mixture of lap chiong and char siew. it took me ages to be able to cook and consume lap chiong again after my first pract. Yes, it smells like food. A sickly sweet odour. Not very good considering i just had my lunch. . Think rotting smell mixed with sweet .. not really eu Du cadavars. My tutor arrived with me and Va, his hair dyed a brilliant red. Red? " I had black hair, " he lamented, patting his hair. " I change the colour everyweek. Do you like it? "
We spent a good 3 hours with the body parts, which he hauled up from the tank. After the session, he insisted on giving us a treat at the cafe at the union house. So there we were, a motley little group who came reluctantly back to school during the hols, with our tutor, sipping hot coffee and stoning at our anatomy books. The tutor lamented how his circle of frens had diminished ever since he started working. It was the awful truth, medicine would invade our life and that's the way things went. We shook our heads, the prospect of working seemed light years away. But looking at things now, i realised that time had flown by real fast. I was nearly a year 2 med knob. A tad closer to entering the world of doctors. FREAKY.
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