marriage ...

... is probably the subject which I have been talking the most of this week ... it is emotionally draining ... I talked about it with my little sister, my friends, my patients ... sometimes you wonder how many "couple therapy" one can endure in a day ... it is strange in that those at the start of this life-long marathon sound so optimistic, so hopeful of what the future will bring ... next along the lines are those who have been married for a while, with their soles of sorrow, painful joints ... and at the end, there are those who have endured a quarter of a century together, with their broken promises, bottles of tears, glasses of misunderstanding shattered on the ground ...

... it does make you wonder ... but hey, some people do make it through intact and smiling ...

Jeff Buckley ...

... amazing version:

Well I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
Well it goes like this :
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah ...

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
And she tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah ...

(Yeah but) Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor, (You know)
I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah ...

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do ya
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah...

Time ...

... can be measured by the moving hands of a clock, as it ticks away the seconds, the minutes, the hours ... but what does one turn to when we reach the days, the months, the years ... do we refer to a calendar? or our diary? What is the mind map of our life on earth? If I ask you: "Where were you last year when they were showing the firework?", how will you search for that day in your mind ...

Some people may anchor it by their travels, "ahhh, I missed it as I was at the Big Apple"; or by their jobs/studies, "On-calls, on-calls, on-calls"; or by their relationships, "I watched it with my ex"; or by their feelings, "Very stressed out that day - can't remember what I thought of the firework"; or by our beliefs, "God seemed a distant memory then" ...

Maybe how we divide our lives, both in reality and in our minds, shows what has the uttermost prominence in our lives, but as C.S.Lewis said:

"The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is".

"read my mind" ...

... is a song by The Killers and probably one of my favourite songs at the moment - it always brings a smile to my face when it plays on my ipod as I walk up towards the hospital in the glorious autumn sunshine ...

... it asks this question "Can you read my mind?" and one of the classic questions in Psychiatry is "do you think people can read your mind?" (for the non-medics: thought broadcast is one of Schneider's symptoms of first rank for schizophrenia). Most people just look at me as if I am mad ...

But how would one feel if people can truly read your mind? Most people will probably shrink from such an idea, as no one wants their inner thought to be known to all, as it may reveal how shallow/deep/lonely/envious/funny/sarcastic we are ... It also renders conversations to be meaningless (as you can read everything off a speech bubble and the conversation will take on so many tangles, spreading like a spider web). We all have listened to people revealing their deepest fears/latest invention/new-found-absolutely-can-do-no-wrongs-other-half, when we are secretly thinking what to order from the menu ...

Yet, what if we can select whom we reveal our thoughts to? What will happen then? Will it make life easier, more bearable? When we can "tell" a passerby how much we love their gorgeous blue shoes, our parents how much we appreciate their sacrifices, our friends how much our lives have shined because of their lights, the person how much we have liked them since the beginning of time, those we have hurt along the way how truly sorry we are ...

But as Dana Gioia wrote,

"So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead."

flowers ...

~ by Wendy Cope

"Some men never think of it.
You did. You'd come along
And say you'd nearly bought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts -
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly bought
have lasted all this while."

Food ...

Today, I decided to write a really silly entries about food that I like ... to be honest, noone will be interested but it is kind of fun to make piles and piles of lists, which no one will read, except yourself a few years down the line ... always interesting to note how one has changed and the constancy in oneself can be reassuring too ...

So here it goes:
 sushi in any form, except Octopus ones ... (and also unsure about all the raw and exotic fishes which I haven't tried)
 tempura - how can anyone say "no" to that?!?
 pasta in pretty much any sauce ~ I haven't found one which I don't like, but my favourite is probably spaghetti wrapped in a paper, with seafood and tomato sauce (I should pretend to be posh and use its Italian name, but sadly, my Italian is limited to "Ciao") ...
 noodles - fried, in big swimmingly bowl, with way too much sauce (yep, some of you have seen me eating this one, and looked on in disbelief!), Pad Thai ... I can literally survive on noodles ...
 dim-sum ~ except chicken feet ... some people will say that I am not Chinesey enough, but I just hate that thing ...
 Shanghai cuisine & peking duck
 chips ... sometimes, I just have to have it, no matter what I am having for the main course ... I quite like steaks & burgers too, especially when it is cold and rainy outside ...
 chocolates, especially Green & Black Almonds ~ definitely saw me through finals!
 ice-creams; Hagen Daze ~ I love to indulge myself at Hagen Daze at Leicester Square (I think I have taken most of my friends there!) ... the thought of walking in there with soooo many ice-cream to choose from is just sooo comforting ~ it is a bit liked Tiffany to Holly Golightly, although that is way more classy!
 tea - absolutely adore it, earl grey, lady grey, strawberries, mint, mango, green, apple, jasminie etc etc, but I don't like Bush tea ... hmm ... and proper chinese tea (way too strong!)
 cakes, of course chocolates one, closely followed by carrot cakes, cookies, banana bread, flap-jacks ... I also like crumbles ... basically, I will never say "no" to desert, unless it is sour!?!?
 fishes - again, any kind, unless they are too meaty or bony ... also, love lobster, crab, prawns ... basically most seafood, except octopus & squid - I don't like chewy stuffs!
 soups - I really like Covent Garden ones ~ it has recently become one of my stable diet during on-call, for lunch, and if I am too tired to cook ...
 curries as long as it is not spicy; Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese ...

Basically, I eat everything ... just in case that you are planning to cook for me :)

May 2012
A slight update, as I have become a pescatarian since June last year.   I actually can still eat most food on the list, except for peking duck and certain dim sum ... These are some foods I have found along the way ...
 Butter squash and cranberries, courtesy of Whole Food
 Quinoa salad
 Frozen yoghurt with lots and lots of toppings
 A prawn dish at Gambia ... the chef at the hotel felt sorry for my pescatarian status and just cooked me this gorgeous dish out of the blue!

Is love enough?

... is a question I have been reflecting on recently ... if you have asked me about it a month ago, I would have echoed the whole room with a resounding "yes" ... but recently, I have had my doubts. One of the most fascinating aspects of psychiatry is that you are constantly confront with real life, but sometimes, the pains involved can be more than one can bear ...

I was on-call the other day, and at around 5am, I was bleeped by A&E about another overdosed patient (it is staggering the number of overdoses we see a day, so many unhappy people out there). Maybe it is the early morning - everything seems surreal in the hospital around that time ... but my joyful feeling zipped out of me the moment I laid eyes on her ... Yet, no matter how they make you feel, they are patients at the end of the day, so the psychatiry interview began ...

My patient overdosed on 40 antixiolytic, her 2nd attempts in less than 2 months. She adores her husband and children, and worries and loves were clearly written on their faces when they came to see her in the morning ... But all these are not enough to hold her back from the brim of darkness which has descended among her ... maybe sometimes, love is just not enough ... maybe William Somerset Maugham is right when he said "The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned." ...

understanding those around you ...

... are difficult and I was talking about it to a friend today (well, I was ranting and he was listening!) ... We all aspire to understand our friends, our families, our loved ones, but can we? The amazing thing about being a Psychiatrist is that you gain access into people's lives and minds; they will tell you things which no one else knows; good and bad things (although to be honest, it is mainly the latter) painful events which happened in the past, unrequited love, their fears, their dreams ... sometimes, you talk to those closet to the patients, and they would not have a clue ... the patient could be ill for ages, and they would not have noticed or knew ...

That is not because they do not care, but how much we understand someone depends on how much the other person is willing to reveal ... and also, depends on our past experience, knowledge and emotions, as together, they will affect our ability to interpret the other person's actions, ideas, and ultimately our understanding of them ...

Alas, "If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own . . . how much kinder, how much gentler he would be (~ William Allen White)” will be a good starting point.

Pablo Neruda ...

... I am going through one of my phases which I start to get obsessed with a poet ... this is another peom by Pablo Neruda which I love ... now I wish that I have paid more attention during my Spanish lesson, instead of getting a "D" in my GCSE mock and all I can say is "Hola. Me ilamo Carol. Vivo en Londres" ... it must be absolutely stunning in Spanish ...

"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

The Dead Woman ...

... by Pablo Neruda, is a poem quoted in "Truly, Madly, Deeply", which pretty much sums up this bittersweet film ....

"If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall go on living.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall go on living.

For where a man has no voice,
there, my voice.

Where blacks are beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory
comes,
even though I am mute I must speak;
I shall see it come even though I am blind.

No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things
you wanted me indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind."

Carol Ann Duffy ...

... is a poet who I read when I was a teenager, and I adored her ... But I haven't come across her again until today, when I found "Rapture" in a tiny bookshop at South Kensington. It was captivating, mostly in its simplicity and heart-aching beauty ...

World
"On the other side of the world,
you pass the moon to me,
like a loving cup,
or a quaich,
I roll you the sun.

I go to bed,
as you are getting up
on the other side of the world.
You have scattered the stars
towards me here, like seeds

in the earth.
All through the night,
I have sent you
bunches, bouquets of cloud
to the other side of the world;

so my love will be shade
where you are,
and yours,
as I turn in my sleep,
the bud of a star."

Give
"Give me, you said, on our very first night,
the forest. I rose from the bed and went out,
and when I returned, you listened, enthralled,
to the shadowy story I told.

Give me the river,
you asked the next night, then I'll love you forever.
I slipped from your arms and was gone,
and when I came back, you listened, at dawn,
to the glittering story I told.

Give me, you said, the gold
from the sun. A third time, I got up and dressed,
and when I came home, you sprawled on my breast
for the dazzling story I told.

Give me
the hedgerows, give me the fields.
I slid from the warmth of our sheets,
and when I returned, to kiss you from sleep,
you stirred at the story I told.

Give me the silvery cold
of the moon. I pulled on my boots and coat,
but when I came back, moonlight on your throat
outshone the pale story I told.

Give me, you howled,
on our sixth night together, the wind in the trees.
You turned to the wall as I left,
and when I came home, I saw you were deaf
to the blustering story I told.

Give me the sky, all the space
it can hold. I left you, the last night we loved,
and when I returned, you were gone with the gold,
and the silver, the river, the forest, the fields,
and this is the story I've told."

Albert Camus ...

... When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

~ one of the most intense philosophers from the West, but with some original ideas and to-the-point analysis of human natures (albeit towards the dark side) ...

The kite runner ...

... by Khaled Hosseini is a pretty amazing book. Every page spurs you onto the next, but it is an intense and emotionally draining run. It is about a Pashtun boy (Amir) and his relationship with his father (Baba) and childhood Hazaran "friend" (Hassan), set in the turbulent time of Afghanistan. It is about about love that doesn't count the costs, about the haunting nature of unforgettable memory, about the everyday sweetness of an innocent childhood, about years of hidden secrets, about forgiveness to others and yourself, about goods vs evils ... One of the most touching aspects of the book is that despite how flawed each character is, there is so much goodness in them, so much capacity to love, and how hard they try to love, to be good ... Some people think that it is a book about redemption (to rectify a mistake, "a way to be good again"), but if one bases the sole motivation of Amir bringing Sohrab back to America on that, it lessens the importance of the act. Ultimately, there is more at work than gulit in ones' live ~ our human desire for kindness and love, to bring joy and happiness to those around us, and maybe even a "for you, a thousand times over" person ...

Hope ...

... is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune ~ without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
~ Emily Dickinson

Sometimes, we all need something to hold onto ... but I adore the last sentence ~ hope never demands anything from us, but faith in those around you, in the world, in goodness, in love and ultimately, in God ...

being happy ...

... is kinda strange, or to be precise, people's perception of your happiness. This week, I got voted as the happiest house-officer at my hosptial and had a call from my old SHO (my immediate boss) who was really sweet and said that "thank you for being so happy". I was speechless on both occasions, as the last 7 months has probably been one of the hardest time I have ever experienced (those of you who know me will say that I have a easy life, but there you are). The interesting thing is that there is nothing I can pinpoint as the precipitating cause, although many factors can be identified as perpetuating factors ... somehow, I was just lost in the midst of my hectic life, drifting along, and not quite sure what is going on ...

... it is not that I am depressed, or sad, and most days, I am content, but deep within, a clouds has descended into my horizon, with rainy showers every once-in-a-while to obscure the view ... Yet, as one of my friends said that you only learn when you are challenged ... and I have gained alot along the way, about responsibilty, myself, my weakness, my faith, what matters, what I want, what I don't want, the reality, the world with all its goodness and sadness ... and there is still so much to learn ... In a way, some would argue that you can only truly embrace happiness, when you know what is on the other side of the rainbow ...

Reinhold Niebuhr says ...

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

... such a hope ... especially late at night, when you worry and worry, with regrets upon regrets about things you could have said, or done, or at least attempted to do, it is comforting to know that there is always hope of forgiveness ...

If ...

... I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.
~ Claudia Ghandi

Beautiful for a summer evening ~ let your thoughts wander as you walk and walk ...

Moon River ...

... "Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me ...

from "Breakfast at Tiffany" ... I have read the book and the film is kinda different to it, but still pretty awesome ...

Some of my favourite romantic films: Amelie, Annie Hall, Before sunset-after sunrise, Casablanca, Cyrano de Bergerac, Emma, Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, Manhattan, Notting Hill, Sliding doors, The English Patients, Wuthering Heights (B&W) ... & of course, Breakfast at Tiffany ... that is the list for now ...

5 Sept 07: I have to add "The science of sleep" and "Truly, madly, deeply". The later combines cello and poetry ... do I need to say anymore?

21 Sept 07: "Atonement, Atonement, Atonement" - absolutely gorgeous ... also, I forgot "Shadowland" ...

19 Jan 08: "Brief encounter" - British rail, doctor, honours ...

23 Feb 08: "An affair to remember" and "sleepless in Seattle" allow Empire State Building to take on a whole different meaning ...

26 Feb 08: "Once" - if you have ever wanted a piano, lived in the land of possibility, and having love so close within your grasp, you cannot not fall in love with it ...

8 May 08: "Serendipity" - with Love in the time of Cholera, the cube game and lots of coincidences ... but "Sabrina" is just awesome; Paris, falling in love unawarely ...

2008: "Wall-E" and Eve ... the scene of him holding an umbrella over her after she went "quiet" is so tender that is beyond words ...

31 July 09: "The Reader" - an intense love affair, with lots of hidden and unexplained secrets, but it does involve reading aloud classic literature ...

6 Oct 09: "Up" is a Pixar movie, a love letter from a husband to his beloved wife, illustrating Erikson's last stage of human development - "Integrity verse Despair" with balloons, dreams, and broken promises ...

11 July 09: "Bright Star" has poets, letters, doomed love affairs, English summer, lavenders ...

3 August 10: "Inception" is beyond amazing; dreams, delusions, growing old ...

18 August 10: "Ponyo" is an animation, and a little sugary, but it does have a mermaid, the sea, and innocence ...

8 Oct 10: "The secret in their eyes" (El Secreto De Sus Ojos) is beautiful with "Te Mo" to "Te A Mo" ...

30 Oct 10: "Secuestro express" is utterly compelling with its moral ambiguities, in a background of social injustice ...

4 Jan 2011: "Catfish" is an alternative sad love story in the facebook world ...

21 Jan 2011: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons" is about death, ageing, love within a paradigm, things lost and found along the way ...

21 Sept 2011: "Nuovo cinema Paradiso" is a homage to film, full of nostalgia for the past, as it views all that have been lost through a magical lens ... 

11 Dec 2011: "In the moon of love" longing to be loved, to be understood, to be held ...

13 Jan 2012: The scene of he and she meeting on the staircase from "The Artist" is breathtaking ...

4 August 2012: ""Umberto D" is not straightly a romantic film but for me it is probably a poignant love letter to a battered life in its own strange little way ...

18 November 2012: "La peau douce" (The soft skin/Silken Skin) is about the devastating consequence of an affairs of the heart ... 

22 Nov 2012: "De rouille et d'os" (Rust and bone) is about finding love within yourself, in others and at the most unlikely places when things seem hopeless ... 

a trip down memory lane ...

... was my experience at good old Cam the other day ... I think it was the first time I have properly visited Cam since I left four years ago ... I walked past so many places which held dear memories for me ~ Lensfield Road, Downing, Cafe Rouge, Christ's Piece; seeing my old anatomy tutor back in the dissection room, listening to his talk to prospective students in our old anatomy lecture hall ... the formaldehyde smell still hit you when you open the door ...

It really bought home as to how different you have become ... Changes happen subtlety; whether you want it to, or not. Revisiting places makes you realise what you have lost and gained. Ultimately, people come and go, but as the song in Wicked said;
"That people come into our lives for a reason,
Bringing something we must learn, and we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return"

We can only pray that we have been changed for good ... and for those we have lost, we can always remember all the happiness they have created in our lives, all the goodness they have bought into our worlds, and all the ideas and thoughts they have generated in our heads ...

One thing I do know for certain is that 6 years of medical school has taught me something, as I can finally understand and answer the anatomy questions my old tutor asked! (confession: they were really simple, but hey, it is a start! :)

To those of you who read my blog: A few of you have mentioned the depressing nature of my blog ~ thank you for still reading my little blog, despite the not-so-cheerful content. I don't know why it is so sad sometimes, but I have had a lot on my mind this year, and it reflects that. Writing a blog is ultimately self-indulging, as I can write whatever I like, and I know there is 1/2 people out there who will be reading it :) So, a big thank you to whoever you are ...

finding out ...

... stuffs is always interesting, but to find something out via an unexpected source (ie. A tells me about B) can actually be quite upsetting. The seeds of doubt are now planted, as you no longer know where you stand, since you cannot comprehend why the people involved never told you themselves directly. Your mind starts to wander and wander and wander ... and somehow you end up being so tangled up that the only course of action you can think of is to avoid them and to expect nothing in return ...

It is a protective mechanism and maybe, just maybe, there is a hint of punishing someone here, since cutting someone out of your live is blatant and cruel ...

So I am not sure what to do ... but to accept what we cannot change/turn the clock back, is one of the hardest things on earth ...