A Fresh Start

Greetings to a regular visitor and senior physician, whom I exchanged emails with recently.

I've made good on my promise, and spent the past week tossing around a number of ideas for that "project" I've been thinking about.

The good news is, I've settled on the subject matter.

The bad news - now I have to start putting everything down on paper.

I give myself a maximum of 2 years to complete it. I have to make a few judgment calls here and there, but hope they will prove beneficial in the long run. I believe it's a story that deserves to be told, and more importantly, shared on a global scale.

Wish me luck.


Yahoo!

Am ecstatic about MOH's approval of a HMDP expert application I submitted. This professor hails from Mt. Sinai Hospital, NYC, and is a highly respected, prominent figure in the field of evidence-based emergency medicine.

I have absolutely no doubt he will be well-received here. Something to look forward to in 2009. :)


Pass...

... on the upcoming Sting concert, featuring pieces from Songs From The Labyrinth. I hated the album when I first listened to it last year, and I still hate it now. No offence to Sting, of course. I think he's brilliant as a musical artiste. But I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars to sit for 2 hours and be put through the unbearable torture of John Dowland songs.
I'm just sad I won't be able to watch Sting again. Can't the concert organizer / recording company persuade him to do a gig comprising only jazz and / or his music from movie soundtracks?

... on Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. I wanted to see this film so bad, but the cinemas have stuck the screenings in tiny little theatres, reserving the bigger ones for stuff like Red Cliff. I'm not using my movie vouchers for a 100-seater hall, sorry. Guess I'll just wait for the DVD ( or Krisworld, heh ).


Errr

I totally disagree with a recent comment made by the chairman / president of the Singapore Kindness Movement, about locals becoming kinder over the years.

The question I'd like to ask him is: which part of Singapore do you live in? ( My mother asked what planet he hails from. )

Because most of the locals I encounter are bloody rude and nasty buggers. And this includes both males and females, though many tend to be below the age 60. ( My personal observation is that older Singaporeans are significantly nicer than the younger generation. )

Simple things like holding a door open for the person behind you is rarely performed; try driving on any major road / highway and you'll find yourself hurling vulgarities within minutes; and local kids -- I just assume they're all monsters, and consider myself lucky if I meet a nice one now and then.

Having had the opportunity to interact with people in the countries I've visited over the past decade, I would even consider New Yorkers more polite than Singaporeans. The natives of Seattle and Los Angeles give way to pedestrians even when it's the driver's right of way ( unlike S'poreans who barrel their vehicles through traffic lights and zebra crossings when they see that you're about to step off the kerb ).

And having witnessed my fair share of stubborn local drivers who refuse to change lanes when ambulances flash their warning lights or turn on their sirens, I'd like to express my admiration for the people of Seattle: on a busy weekday morning, cars at a 4-way junction all simultaneously came to a halt as an ambulance approached and turned into another road. And its siren wasn't even switched on. It was unbelievable!

The Japanese also deserve special mention. Sure they're uptight, but any society that strictly enforces the wear-a-mask-when-you-have-the-flu rule gets my approval. I just hate it when I'm eating at a hawker centre / walking around a public place, and some inconsiderate idiot decides to sneeze / cough in my face, before sauntering off like nothing happened, despite my look of disgust and occasional sarcastic remark.

But that's just my personal opinion.