A Quick Update

It's been almost a month since my last entry, and I can't believe how crazy the past few weeks have been. Never mind the crazy shifts - I didn't have time to blog even when I took 4 days of leave! Just seems every moment of my life is spent running around. Either that, or I'm sitting / lying down somewhere, exhausted.

Anyhow, let's get started. I've got about 30 minutes before I need to get up and leave again.

Bravo, David Archuleta!

He gave such a spectacular performance this week, covering Ben E. King's Stand By Me and Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender. He took a big risk but won rave reviews from the judges, and is now in the Big Top 3, woohoo!

Jason Castro crumbled under the pressure, though I still feel he could've done better if he'd only put his heart and soul into it. He started out well initially ( remember his terrific earlier performances? ), but appeared to lose steam along the way, which began to annoy me after a while, since everyone else was fighting tooth and nail to stay in the competition and he just got by with his goofy smile and mediocre vocals.

I've developed a soft spot for Syesha, the lone female survivor within the boys' club. She's come a long way from being in the bottom 3 every single week. I know she probably won't win, but she's earned my respect for hanging on as long as she did ( like Elliot Yamin did 2 seasons ago during Elvis Presley week - you bet I still remember that! :)).

David Cook wasn't too bad, but he was obviously distracted, though he didn't say why exactly.

Here's a nice photo of David A during Love Me Tender, a rendition so beautiful it took my mom's breath away ( and I quote: "OMG, look at his EYES!" ).

Tom Cruise's Unauthorized Biography - completed

I'd write more about this if I could ( maybe next time ), but in a nutshell, I'm genuinely creeped out by what I read, and have decided not to watch any of Cruise's films in the cinema ever again. DVD rental - maybe. If it's on cable and free of charge - no problem. But I'm not going to fork out money or use my movie vouchers for the theatre.

If you're itching to know what the heck Andrew Morton wrote, get a friend to send you the book from the U.S.

Or you can wait another month for my next blog entry, haha.

Numb3rs

The Epps brothers are back! Season 4 just began 2 weeks ago, and now airs every Thursday at 10pm on AXN Channel 19.

Plotlines are getting a bit sloppy, and the witty rapport between the main characters is rather lacking. Reviews in the U.S. complained that the show now opts for flashy action instead of substance, and I certainly agree.

Still, I love David Krumholtz - sporting longer hair and some stubble this time round, but still spewing mathematical jargon and making it sound sexy - so I'm hooked. Someone please get rid of Amita, who serves no purpose as his hapless girlfriend.

The New Batch

A fresh group of MOs has just joined us, resulting in the usual mayhem. Whose great idea was it to have the MOPEX changeover on a bloody Monday?! It's bad enough having to contend with the crowds, but the situation becomes intolerable when you add blur MOs, a horrible lodger problem AND endless ambulance diversions from you-know-where to the mix.

For instance, on 5th May, there were 35 patients in the consultation area, and around 10-12 in Critical Care, AT 12 MIDNIGHT. I did the afternoon shift, and voluntarily stayed back till almost 2am to help clear the crowd. By Tuesday morning, there were almost 50 lodgers stuck in the A&E.

Most of us have developed a knack for sizing up new MOs quite quickly, and we've already flagged out a few, which is no fun.

For example, one of them actually expects all blood samples to be drawn by the A&E nurses. So she prints the blood forms, sticks them in the folders, then dumps them in the trays on the counter. Haven't had a chance to ask where she did her housemanship yet, but will hunt her down soon enough.

Another has been highlighted as pretty hopeless. Remember a certain MO I grouched about last posting ( for which I got whacked left, right, centre by various readers )? THAT MO has been flung to -- the irony of it all -- a medical ward ( his 5th choice, having requested medical admin as #1, which of course wasn't granted ), so here we have his replacement. I'm not the one issuing the label this time -- my frustrated registrar brought it up after vetting a few of his cases. Email address indicates an education overseas. Sigh...

3 days into the changeover, I had to send out a naggy email to the MOs, talking about nitty-gritty things like remembering to review xrays / blood results, update relatives, hand over all their cases ( including pesky lodgers who have a habit of dying on us ), clearing sharps, etc.

I didn't have to do this before. Aren't our younger counterparts supposed to be better than their predecessors? Why do I see a consistent decline in the quality of our juniors? Hello, NUS YLLSOM, can you answer my question please?

Right then, time to log off and do more work. More another day.