Number 1

It’s a scary thought knowing that in about a year, if everything goes out as planned (translation; If I pass every exam, God-willing), I will officially become a doctor, working in the wards and getting scolded and humiliated by the specialists on a daily basis. Boy, aren’t I excited.

So I guess it’s important for me to enjoy every second of this medical student life as much as I can. I don’t know about other medical students from other universities, be it local or overseas, but as for me, well……..let’s see……

If a documentary of my typical daily life was to be made, it would be something like this;

1. Waking up early in the morning for class, not knowing whether it’s night or day cause we’re living in a “box” practically. With no windows or air ventilation whatsoever. Though there’s airiconditioning, so that kind of makes up for the sucky place.

Kind of.

2. Then going to shower with freezing cold water. 

3. Getting ready, slinging my backpack over my shoulders and walking out of the hostel (should I even call it a hostel? A box with a door and aircond is more like it…haha) and into the dangerous street full of crazy people (literally), snatch thefts, homeless people, and those sleazy guys with greasy hands and like to go all “heyyy…nak pegi mana tu (where are you going)??” in this so-called flirtatious voice.

OMG. Barf.

Oh wait. Did I forget to mention about walking through the smelly alleyways filled with dead, flat, road-killed rats??? 

4. So the walking does not stop. It continues until we get to the main road, crossing the street filled with impatient city employees late for work and keeps on honking and honking. Then we finally reach our destiny. The hospital.

5. We follow the morning ward rounds, clerk and examine the patients, fool around with each other, attend class with the specialists, chase around the housemen to sign our logbook, fool around some more, go for lunch, attend any other classes available, chase around more housemen, fool around one last time before deciding everyone is tired and had a productive day and is time to take off our white coats, stuff it back in our backpacks and call it a day.

6. Walk through the same route as before except this time, even more crazier people are out since it’s late in the evening and crazy people always starts coming out at this time of the day. 

7. We go to the mamak to buy dinner. Fool around some more at the mamak. Or sometimes, if we’re really tired and just want to fall into our beds and sleep, we’d skip the mamak first and would go later in the night when we cannot deny the fact that we are NOT not hungry.

8. We shower again with cold freezing water except this time it feels good cause we had a long and sticky day.

9. We fool around a bit before we start studying--well, kind of--it’s kind of hard to start studying when there is already some fooling around beforehand.

10. We gossip. A LOT.

11. We hear sirens and people screaming and fighting and think we are safe in our unsecured box. NOT. 

12. If we go out at night into that dangerous street, we’ll see gay male prostitutes cruising around, searching for their next victims. No kidding, man.

13. It is already 1 or 2 am and we all are regretting the fact that we did not study much and gossiped even more but we all think, oh well, there’s still tomorrow so what the heck.

14. Then we turn off the lights and sleep in our darn boxes.

15. Or sometimes we accidentally sleep with notes and books all strewn around on our beds and with the lights on to wake the next morning and go all like, darn! Why did I fall asleep, dammit!

So that’s a typical day for me. Nice, right?

To say I regret choosing this life, sometimes maybe I do. Times like when the stress level is unspeakable or when exams are near and become these heavy burden on our shoulders or when we need to sacrifice fun for studies.

And, okay, I’m only 23 this year but things have changed A LOT. I used to just LOVE going to gigs and concerts. I would go practically like every month. But now, I would rather just sit in front of my laptop and watch Youtube than going out and jumping and dancing like there’s no tomorrow and waking the next morning to have every muscle and joints in your body aching like crazy. Now, just the thought of going to a place crowded with screaming and sweating people bumping into each other without another thought in the world while music is booming and banging in your eardrums, makes me shudder.

And I used to totally LOVE karaoke-ing. I could karaoke for 3 hours straight and still that wouldn’t be enough. But now, I can’t get through even 2 hours without feeling tired and bored.

Now, I just love the idea of staying cooped up at home, munching snacks in front of the television. I haven’t been able to do that in a long time and it just feels like a dream come true.

Oh God. I’m getting OLD.

But overall, I guess I don’t really regret choosing this life. Because then I wouldn’t have met half of the crazy people I now call my friends for life.