Tempestuous ;;

and when she speaks

Friday, March 19, 2010

Dinner with Mariam and her husband in Devon Street :)
They were both amazing hosts and very generous people. Thanks for the dinner!

Dinner at Portillos with my two girls :) Yvonne and Zoe. A night out for girly fun and chitter-chatter :)

Dancing out over last weekend when Brian and Karl's CMU friends (Cadrian and Jaspar) came to drop by for a visit. Checked out the green river (dyed green for St Patrick's Day), went shopping along Michigan Avenue, ate really good Mexican tacos at Big Star, went club hopping from Geisha Lounge over to Chaise Lounge then over to V Live where they really showed off their dance moves! Chai Ling and I also had some pretty good moves ;)
Onto dim sum the very next morning despite only 5 hours of sleep ;)

Salsa on a Friday night- first up, was a salsa intro lesson by dear Ani at Gaurang's crib- then off to showing our newly learnt sexy salsa steps at Alhambra Palace =)

Had Swedish breakfast and the guy gave me a free cinnamon pecan roll :) *yay*

Watched Alice in Wonderland in 3D!

Walked 3.5 miles in the rare, warm weather from home to downtown for two days in a row! :)

Have been feasting at work thanks to the pharmaceutical reps generosity! :p

Made my travel visa for China already *yay*

Was given another oatmeal chocolate chip cookie on the house at Potbelly's :)
I think the smiles really do get you returns :p Please note; this was all UNINTENTIONAL :)

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12:32 PM;;

Thursday, March 18, 2010

The attendings at the clinic whom I've been working with have been extremely nice and I'm really enjoying myself here :) Dr Zavala is always reminding me to eat. I'm really well-fed here too with all the pharmaceutical reps bringing in a feast every breakfast and lunch! The croissants, banana nut muffins, bagels and assortment of flavors of cream cheese, cinnamon rolls for breakfast --- isn't going to do me any justice. Especially with my feeble attempts at resisting the lure of those mouth-watering delectables.

One of my previous General Medicine attendings wrote me a super evaluation and that made my entire week :) I e-mailed mum what he wrote about me; and I couldn't have been a happier girl :)

Also; my patients have been behaving really well in clinic these past 2 days. One of them whom I've been following regularly has lost 20 pounds in the past 2 months. I'm impressed and encouraged her to keep doing what she's been doing right. Ah- it's fulfilling when you see results and your patients improving their quality of lives and feeling better about themselves.

I told Dr Koko and Dr Zavala sometimes all they need is just that extra push in the right direction and plenty of reassurance and encouragement. And with just that little bit of assistance from you; they'll do all the rest because you've fueled their engine. It's amazing to see all these before your very own eyes- each time they come back to you; they're doing better.
I am so proud of them.

This morning; I had a new patient who spoke only Mandarin, scheduled to see me.

My Mandarin is conversational- but it's definitely not as strong as my grasp of Cantonese and Hakka.

That said; I did employ the use of the Mandarin interpreter via our interpreter services by phone- when I had to translate words like 'degenerative joint disease' etc... I had to explain the results of her X-rays to her- and that is WAY beyond my command scope of Mandarin *lol*
The interpreter said my Mandarin was pretty good- but deep inside, I wished I had a stronger command of the language- I know I can converse in basic Mandarin; but it would have been nice if I knew more- if I could explain the medical parts to her. That would undoubtedly make my job easier but more importantly; help me reach out to patients who were only Mandarin/Cantonese-speaking.

Dr Lauderdale, my clinic attending; who is really nice and who springs a funny joke at you when you least expect it; was pretty amazed at my Mandarin skills. I could see it from his face and I laughed this morning. I told him, Malaysians can generally speak at least 3 languages and I also explained how our education medium in Malaysia is the Malay language; and mum was British-educated; and that daddy could speak 5 differrent languages- just by being schooled in a Chinese and then an English school later on.

He was super-impressed *laughs*

On that note; I need to take more initiative in learning Mandarin from now on... :)
Chalk another one up on that to-do list ;)

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10:49 AM;;