Dear Diary.

Hey, I guess it's just you and me here now. Which is cool, because I don't have to worry about people judging me.

I realize a lot of things I said here are repetitious, and if one reads my blog entries back to back one would notice it. For the most part this is due to my being very forgetful (wrong career path, much?), but I wonder if it's because I type things to convince myself that it's true.

The best years in my life were my Naim years and KMB years because I met some of the best people in my life there. ZS was hell for me, and MRSMPC was too much to handle.

University? It has been a crazy bumpy ride for me so far, but it forced me to grow as a person. Sometimes I go back to my old ways (especially in Twitter...people who keeps in touch with me only via Twitter will probably think I'm an egoistic bitch, which is partially true), but I would usually quickly realize this and give myself a hypothetical slap to snap out of it.

Sometimes I think the reason I drag (a few) boys in my life despite my best efforts to stay away from them is because their friendship feel safer to me.

No backstabbing, no bitching behind my back. Well, at least that's what I think.

xoxo
Atiqah

I forgot to tell you : I have summer tickets!

Hello? Hi. This is a life update entry.

I don't know if anybody checks this anymore, but sisters, I'll be going home on the 10th of June. All the way to the 5th of September, which was a mistake because I thought it was a sunday, but apparently it is a monday. I wonder if anybody would be available to send me to KLIA that monday morning...? :/ Arih said I could check-in at KL Sentral, so if nobody can send me all the way to KLIA, I guess KL Sentral would have to do.

I decided to go home this summer despite circumstances because my fyp is based in Malaysia, and the fact that I'd learn so much more if I did my electives in a Malaysian hospital, AND, MOST OF ALL, I can RAYA at home this year! Well not really...I'm skipping a whole week of college to achieve that. Well make that a week + 1 day because I bought a monday ticket :/

Who can blame me though...I've been away for so long, that I lost a grandfather in that time frame. I've been away for so long, that my youngest sister take my absence as default and normal. Lagipun dah lama Atiq tak raya dengan mama, bangun pagi ada makanan raya atas meja...walau macam mana perit pun drama beraya kat rumah, takde orang akan faham perasaan Atiq selagi dia tak melalui lima tahun makan cereal di pagi raya...lima tahun raya tak salam dengan tokwe, dengan tok ayah...sampai dah takde lagi tokku untuk Atiq salam tahun ni, hanya tinggal nisan untuk Atiq siramkan...

Distance hurts, a great deal.


xoxo
Atiqah

EDIT : ATIQAH KALAU TAK MELODRAMATIK SAYALAH-ORANG-PALING-MALANG-DALAM-DUNIA MEMANG TAK SAH. MAAFKANLAH BELIAU.

This one's for you.

I'm like a black hole to the human soul
If one comes too close I shall
Drain the life out of him
I require hard work and an
Illogical amount of patience

When that rain comes down my chimney
And it keeps my fire from burning
I still just sit here, turning over the coals
And the ashes as they’re dying
Slowly flickering and flying
Tell me stories of the love I used to know
Where did you go? Baby, where did you go
And sweet baby I’m sorry that I purposely broke your heart
I never meant to rip it out of your chest
And tear it apart
It’s just a silly old habit that I seem to have formed
Whenever I fall in love
And honey I know I should’ve warned you
But other than that fact I’m really not that bad
Baby come back I need to get this out of my system
I need to shatter some glass
You know it’s hard for me to focus
Without breaking everything in my path
But if you stay by my side
You might be out of my range
Honey, I swear I'd change, I swear I can change, I swear I can
I sat with the ashes all night
My eyes were bloodshot
I couldn’t sleep or sit still
So I went to the doctor
And she says that I’ve got a disease
But baby please it won’t apply to you
I’ve been diagnosed as a crazy maniac
But what’s so wrong with that
Nobody deserves to be alone
Even if there is some sanity they lack
So forget my little issues
Your emotional scar tissue
And baby, please come back

Out Of My Range - Callie Moore

Tactless/Tactful

One thing I notice about Malaysians is we're very hostile people. We get mad easily, we jump to conclusions like it's our job, and we're very presumptuous.

Maybe I'm over-generalizing.

Today we had a meeting with a representative from medical school, along with a MARA officer, a JPA officer, and Dublin's Education Attache. In this meeting, we were given an opportunity to raise any particular concern about the medical school to the representative, with the hope for change.

The poor lady got bombarded with questions and requests, some of us practically ATTACKED her. Maybe they didn't mean to, but man, their tone of voice were sometimes just downright unacceptable. In my opinion, no matter how much we think we deserve the help, as long as that person is not clearly denying us our rights and especially if that person is trying their best to help out, we should never, ever, raise our voice or use an accusing tone.

Being Irish, I wouldn't be surprised if that smiling, calm woman would call a friend or colleague within two steps out of the lecture hall to bitch about how she had to stand there in front of nearly a hundred malaysians for more than an hour to listen to their demanding complaints.

Also, call me a stuck up or over skema or whatever you like, but I think people who talk about trivial things with anything more than a whisper during events are disrespectful and have no manners.

Ya, saya memang banyak protokol. My grandfather taught me well.

Kisah Hari Khamis

MULA.

Malam semalam aku tidur dengan perut yang sakit dan badan semerbak bau minyak Mestika. Aku ingat, kalau aku tidur, bangun-bangun esok kot tak sakit dah. (Kau ingat semua sakit pun sama dengan sakit kepala keeee Atiqah?! Penat je rakyat bayar duit suruh kau belajar medik)

Pagi ni bangun-bangun, perut cakap 'SURPRISE, SAYA SAKIT LAGI TEE-HEE'. Maka atas nasihat orang-orang di Twitter, saya ponteng my morning lectures. Satu pagi cirit-birit sampai setengah lembik. Setengah je lah, takde la lembik sangat.

Bila dah tengahari, perasaan panik mula muncul sebab perut sakit lagi. Kelas banyak lagi dari tengahari sampai petang, takkan nak ponteng semua? Banyak cantik muka aku. Kalau pandai takpe. Maka dengan perasaan yang berbelah-bahagi aku pun bersiap untuk ke kelas despite mulut rasa kelat, kepala rasa nauseous dan perut rasa what the hell.

Sebelum melangkah keluar, capai Blackberry. Ada msg tanya 'Are you okay?'. Setelah menaip 'I'll be fine' aku melangkah keluar rumah, hati penuh harapan agar bau minyak Mestika dah hilang dari badan.

Walaupun lewat 5 minit, berpeluh dan rasa nak pitam sebab tak sihat tapi jalan laju nak mati, rasa lega sangat bila sampai tengok kelas tengahari tak mula lagi. Tapi masuk je dalam kelas terus ada suara malaun yang memang hobi dia cari pasal dengan aku;

'Had a late night out last night, Atiqah? *gelak sarkastik*'

'*rolls eyes* I'm not hungover, Sheehan' ...aku cirit-birit la bengong. Sambung aku dalam hati. Tak ganggu hidup aku tak boleh ke, gergasi 6 kaki 2 ni?? Tampar karang.

TAMMAT.

the beautiful childhood memories that was, and still is.

• playing outside Ketani where the well-trimmed jejarum bushes were my fort.
• pretending the huge swing at my house was a spaceship.
• channelling a very agile monkey on that same swing, doing various extreme acrobatic tricks.
• staring at the high up water tank, wishing I had the guts to climb it.
• building a fort from cushions in Ramadhan with my sisters, waiting for 'ore mitok sedekoh' to come and then when they come, ignore the ringing bell and pretend they were serial killers out to get us.
• playing 'Dr Geletek' in which one person becomes the doctor who would examine her patients and the treatment for every single diagnosis was tickles.
  
• help my good-looking neighbour/boy buddy hide from another neighbour whose ultimate goal in life was to marry said boy.
• hitching a ride on my sister's bicycle while she cycles around the kampung, with the sister usually pissed off at me for making her do it.
• playing hockey behind my house with my neighbours, using planks of wood and a tennis ball.
• mengaji Al-Qur'an at the local surau near my house with the rest of the kids in my kampung...somehow I am very fond of this memory.
• riding a beca to and from taski with my cousin, reading out loud every single billboard we can see because we were obnoxious and loved being the smartypants in the taski.
• standing at the back of said beca where we usually put our backpacks in, and then randomly jumping off it (while it was moving) and then waiting for it to move a bit of a distance away from me. Then I would run after it with all my might and jump right back on.
  

That last one was my favourite game ever. I obtained many minor injuries on my foot because of it (pakai selipar je pegi taski), and eventually my pakcik beca worried we might get hurt playing this lets-see-if-we-can-run-faster-than-the-shaw game so he told us he got in trouble with the police because of it, so we had to stop. Well, I HOPE he lied.

xoxo
Atiqah

cool story bro.

When I was doing Psychiatry I got downright depressed because I couldn't handle all the negativity around me, I worry too much about the patients, and I couldn't detach myself from their tragic stories. One thing four weeks of Psychiatry taught me is that no matter how shit you think your family is, it is shiny unicorns and rainbows when compared to these people's families. Seriously. There's a whole different level of awful in families that you won't know about unless you talk to a psychiatry patient.

But now I'm doing Accidents & Emergency rotation. To those who can still remember ER, that's probably the closest picture of A&E I can give you. I thought I would like the adrenaline rush and the hecticness that is the A&E but I forgot one thing; busy medical staff don't give a crap about medical students. I REALLY had to push through to get my long check list of tasks (provided by the lovely medical school) done and signed for.

Today I was strolling in the A&E sighing because there really wasn't anything much to be done, and wishing something would happen. I stopped a nurse to ask if there was anything I can help with, and what she said really shocked me:

'Well no, not right now. But there's a plane crash and there'll be plenty to help with in a minute'

I immediately went WTF A PLANE CRASH DURING MY A&E ROTATION NO WAY in my head but then I realized how crazy it is and immediately regret wishing for unfortunate events for other people just so I can have something to do. BAD Atiqah.

So yeah, if you saw/read the news, I was there when it happened. Nearly punched a few people in the face because (OF COURSE) four of my selfish, kiasu classmates came down (along with FOUR freaking SECOND years WHAT THEF) to A&E out of nowhere and so I had to compete with them to do things. I was downright pissed because I NEED TO DO STUFF TO GET SIGNATURES GODDAMMIT. Competitive people have no respect.

Anyway. Okayokay sorry this entry has too much anger and caps lock. I actually ended the day crying in the theatre changing room because I felt like kepala and self esteem kena pijak-pijak and then kena campak dalam api (heh over kau Atiqah), because people kept ignoring me despite my best efforts to push through, and just thinking about having to do the same thing for the next week and a half just kills me.

I don't know. You have to be there, asking about 7 nurses and 7 doctors if there is anything you can do and whether you can do this and that and having them reject you over and over and over again, to understand my pain. It's difficult to fight the desire to not waste time and just stay at home and read books. Books don't reject. Books ALWAYS teach you.


Hugs
Atiqah

p.s. I started this entry wanting to write about the cool things that I saw and how one of the doctors asked me to take pictures (and how the nurses and paramedics and garda and management tell me to stop T__T ) but I digressed in a way that there is no turning back. Sorry!

maybe it's time to grow up

So I went to Bantry to visit a friend who's working at the hospital there (she has no friends there, poor thing). Bantry is a pretty little town which somehow manages to be both by the sea AND at the top of a hill. I'm glad I went there, it was therapeutic, getting out of Cork for a while.

As most of you probably already know, my housemates and I housed (twenty two!) friends who are studying medicine in Egypt and came over for their winter holiday (and got stuck here) for a few days. Watching them reporting to their family, the embassy, and their respective scholarship officers that they're safe in Cork living in a friend's house felt really...surreal.

I don't know if it's only me, but. I feel like I'm living through history. I know it sounds stupid because sure, history is written every day. But the sort of history that happened on 25/1 in Egypt is probably one that would go in college history or political textbooks, and I'm right there, giving food and a roof to actual people stranded from actual Egypt. It's just...weird.

And in the midst of it all I got a phone call from my friends in Poland who was travelling to London and booked rooms at the Malaysian Hall there. It turned out Malaysian Hall cancelled all their bookings to make room for the stranded Malaysians from Egypt. As a consequence of this, my friends ended up homeless for the night with no place to stay, and called to ask me if I had any friends in London (homeless friends seeking me for help seem to be a recurring theme here...).

You know what I realize from all this?

What I have, ALL that I have, is loaned from Allah. He can take it all back for all He care.

You're studying medicine and aiming for a degree in over a year?
Screw that, a freaking REVOLUTION will happen and you will have to go home not knowing when you'll be able to go back to college again.

You have a guy you plan to marry?
Screw that, you think he's a saint and put him on a pedestal...but he's going to go ahead and freaking cheat on you.

You have a pretty face that brings all the boys to the yard (LOL sorry can't help it)?
Screw that, you're getting an accident and end up with a distorted face for all your life and drown in a long bout of depression and self pity.

All true stories.

We take things for granted and kufur kepada nikmat Allah on a daily basis, over and over and over again. We make decisions to please people despite knowing it will cause Allah's wrath over and over and over again.

What if one day, Allah takes one small nikmat from us. Just a tiny bit. Like a finger. Our index finger. Damn, won't we be screwed for quite a bit.

But do we think to be thankful for all the things He gave us? Do we stop and think what we SHOULD (or shouldn't) be doing with our money, our time, our pretty face (??).

Some do. But most don't.

xoxo
Atiqah

(maybe it's time to grow up)

when dates are in the form of

Skype.

Laughing our heads off watching wayang kulit on Youtube because we're awesome, singing the same songs we've been singing for the past five-six years, discussing upcoming projects and ending with you yawning at about half past five in the morning after I made you listen to a Barbra Streisand song.

Distance is a bitch and Time becomes a significant variable when it comes to this girl called Atiqah because she's an indecisive prat.

In the end I'm just glad I have you as a friend.

x

30/12 Brussels - Can you speak English?

Conscience : Yo, Atiq.
Atiqah : What?
Conscience : You still have two more entries of the Paris trip to finish.
Atiqah : Meh. Not feeling inspired.
Conscience : Lazy bitch.
Atiqah : DID YOU JUST CALL ME A B...WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!
Conscience : Your conscience.
Atiqah : Dammit. FINE. I'll write one tonight.

* * * * *

Hey! I'm writing this on the Thalys train, on my way back from Brussels, Belgium. We started today earlier than usual because we had to catch our train to here from Gare du Nord at 9h01 in the morning. I find the aerodynamic shape of the Thalys train rather futuristic, and watched in amazement at how the departure status board change (it flips to the right letter one by one...you have to see it, its great). Either I am easily amused, or very jakun. I reckon I'm both.


Looking out the window of the train on the way to Brussels was a bit nerve-wrecking because everything was covered in snow and fog, I was so worried Brussels would be freezing. At first it was indeed very cold, but it was at 5 degrees towards the end so all is fine.

To be honest our main goal for coming to Belgium is the chocolate and the waffles, and not so much anything else. But we did go for a visit at the EU government building seeing that it is the center of EU. It was unfortunate that the visitor centre was closed for the holidays though, it could have been way more meaningful than just a few pictures.


We then went to Palais Royale and Grand Place, a complex of 400 year old buildings with stunning architecture. From there we went hunting for lunch. We got very, very, lost.

Edit : aaannd then I decided I was too damn tired and fell asleep on the train. Hi! This is the present Atiqah typing this blog from now on.

Being lost wasn't much of a problem in Brussels though because, unlike Paris, LOADS of people speak English. However, this fact was unbeknownst to me when we first got there, and the fact that the bus driver referred to the monitor bolted at the top of the bus as the 'flying tv' did not help at all.

So when we were lost in the middle of the city near Grand Place I walked up to a (young and very good looking) police officer and asked;

'Excuse me, Sir...can you speak English?'

To which he replied with a bemused expression on his face and he bent down (he was at least one foot taller than me) and bobbed his head left and right, in what appeared to be a mockery of my question. After laughing at me for a good bit, he answered 'I sure can, miss.'

His directions weren't very helpful, so we decided to ask a few of the many (and I mean many) Muslims roaming the streets. They were very happy indeed to direct us to the Halal restaurants. To our absolute delight, the one we chose served the most delicious briyani I ever tasted in my life EVER, at a very reasonable price. This restaurant was the place where it became obvious to me that Belgian men are gorgeous.

(Side note : I left the restaurant for a bit to find a place with internet and print our return train tickets. I spent 20 freaking minutes trying to type the right password with the stupid European AZERTY keyboard to log in to my email)

We then prayed at a Pakistani mosque; the story of how we found the mosque was indeed very amusing, but I won't type it here, this entry is already too long. After that we split up to pursue our personal missions; mine, obviously, was Belgian chocolates and waffles. I managed to get both alhamdulillah,


...but not before getting lost yet again. And being Atiqah, I was slow to learn from experience. I stopped a couple of pedestrians to ask for directions, and started with - you guessed it -

'Excuse me...can you speak English?'

To which the guy replied (with a grin), 'Yeah I definitely can,' in a very obvious American accent.

*facepalm*

Markah memalukan diri sendiri sepanjang di Brussels : 873.


xoxo
Atiqah