saying bye to my cats

As I am approaching the end of my journey here in Medan, one of the things that bothers me is what am I supposed to do with the four cats that I have. We adopted Ubu our first cat in 2010. She was a small kitten shivering somewhere near Pringgan, Medan when we first found her. We stopped our motorbike and she got on my foot and stopped crying. So we took her home to become part of our family.


Ubu, the mother.

Since then, she gave birth couple of times. Demok, her first child is (now) really a huge cat who was also my fluffy pillow at night. This morning someone came and asked me to adopt him. Although it was such a sad thing seeing him taken away but it's for the best.


Demok, he just loves to stare.


He also loves to stand in front of computer screen to get some attention.

Abu the youngest one died two days ago, ran over by our neighbour who also has buried the cat without telling me. I am very sad as he was really manja and not scared of anything or anyone cause I never hit him even once, but I think that costs him his life as he not even scared of car! But my friend said maybe it's for the best that he's gone during my very last day in Medan. Is it..


The late Abu.

I sent one of my cat to Dr Rosdiana's house. She is such an amazing cat lover. She has lots of cats in her house, I mean a lot! like around 100 cats. And she spends Rp6,000,000 just for the cats' food.

She adopted her first cat in 2002 when the cat she called Nenek Unyang came playing at her house. Since then her very productive cats producing even more cats some of them new ones from the outside.

She is the example of a good cat lover. Well you know not in a kind of annoying way. As we know some cat-people tend to humanize their cats, cutting their nails, bath them every day even dress them up. But not her! And none of her cats have been sterilized. She really thinks it's their right to keep on breeding and producing new off-springs. Though I'm not totally agree with her on sterilizing cats, but it shows how pure her love is towards cats.


Dr Rosdiana with one of her cat who has just underwent surgery!


She has so many stories about her cats to tell.


My cat, Dubuk that I've given to her as a new owner.


Looking at her for the last time.


Some of her many cats.


Super nice of her as she invited us to have some kuih jala and Surabi. yum yum!


Her first cat, she called her Nenek Unyang. haha 


Me in front of her practice.

Cats in some way have contributed to my well-being as I tried to keep myself sane from the stressful and crazy world and being such good companies when I was lonely. Cats are simply awesome. they are innocent and their behavior is actually the reflection of how we treated them, really!

crossing the finish line.

The much awaited time of.. my entire life maybe? is finally arrived. I've finished my medical study a week ago. Now I have 2 more days left before going back to Malaysia for good.

I feel very much relieved after all these years of stressful works, exams, not to mention complicated immigration stuffs and financial problems but I've done it all! it's time to say bye bye.

But this week I feel quite sad, almost everything I see around me makes me realize that I'm gonna miss them. I've lived here for 5 years and a half, that's definitely quite a long time. Lots of places I have been to and lots of things have happened to me here.

Now I realize there's gonna be a lot of things I'm gonna miss. Honestly I feel quite sad now as I type. I woke up this morning and immediately thought 'how many days left? Is today gonna be the last day I'm here?

During my 5 years and a half here, I learn about freedom, friendship, self dependency, trust and having fun. yeah really! I also got the chance to see my country from the outside, far from those biased government controlled media in Malaysia, I got to meet new people, to understand their feelings, cultures and what they really think. Oh, also learned about hardship ones has to go through in their life and all the inequalities in the world. Looking at children begging/working is the most difficult and heart wrenching.

the most precious that I'm gonna miss forever are friends. It is here that I know how a friendship can help you to live in this world, how they ease your hardship, or how much fun they add into your life!

smoking is idiotic

The first thing that disappoints me when I first got here in 2006 was the fact that there are quite a number of medical students who smoke cigarettes. Some of them smoke openly in the no-smoking area like inside campus.

Not only locals, Malaysian students also seem like enjoying the 'opportunity' given as many of them are smokers, some have just picked up the habit here.

Not only that cigarettes are available almost everywhere, these young smokers are also influenced socially plus with the fact that big tobacco companies are still allowed to advertise their products widely here.

I really think that those young people born in the late 20th century, growing up and living with a well known fact that smoking scientifically proven to be fatal, are totally idiot to be smoking. There are also massive campaigns warning about the danger of smoking. Yet they let themselves addicted to the nicotine that comes with other carcinogenic substances.

Smoking is forbidden in Islam. Off course those addicted to it will come up with many excuses to justify their 'harmless' or 'beneficial' habit.

What happened to me earlier today triggered me to write this. I was in a air-conditioned room with several people smoking in it. I felt like a guinea pig, put in a closed box filled with cigarette's smoke to see the how many ways I can die. I'm not exaggerating.

If you still choose to be a smoker, please at least think about others who are not, have some considerations and ethical values.

"Do no harm, yourself or others"- Prophet Muhammad pbuh.

that rainy sunday morning.

I woke up early yesterday on that rainy Sunday morning , 16th Oct 2011. I have no alarm (or phone equipped with alarm) so I depend on my biological clock to wake up every morning for the past several months.

after done getting ready for hospital, I stood outside of the door looking at the rain and thinking how was I suppose to go to the hospital. I tweeted:



I couldn't call taxi, rp10,000 was all in have in my wallet. I have some friends who had to go to the hospital too but they're going with bike so I didn't think I should trouble them. I decided to walk and wait for angkot, just outside of my residence area.

I had already walked halfway out when I noticed that my pants got so dirty. No thanks to the Japanese slipper that I was wearing and to that wet watery road. I turned and walked back home, changed my pants, put extra pants for change later and wore a shoe instead.

I waited for angkot no. 24 by the road side. Thank God the rain wasn't that heavy but still I went to a nearby shop selling fresh chicken for some shelter. it was a mistake. other than its super strong foul smell, I also happened to stand on soil with chicken poops everywhere on it. Few minutes later the angkot arrived and took me to jalan setia budi, where I had to change to angkot no. 62 to take me to the adam malik hospital.

I yelled (yes you have to yell) "pinggir pak" to stop the angkot. It didn't take long for me to realise that I left my wallet. it's in my dirty pants that I wore earlier at home. shit! hoping that I have some rupiahs in my bag to pay for the angkot, I searched my bags. Embarrassingly I dropped some of my stuffs on the road, like my toothbrush! No, I had no rupiah at all. The bapak just drove the angkot away disappointed. sorry pak!

then there I was. alone stranded. on a not so beautiful Sunday morning. penniless. and late for hospital. I texted some of my friends for help but to no respond. well, post Saturday night, with rainy cold Sunday morning, pretty sure they're still in deep sleep under their warm cosy blanket.

then I got a crazy idea. All I need was rp3000 to get me to Adam Malik Hospital. there were some people waiting for the angkot, a shop selling mie balap for breakfast and a shop selling cleaning stuffs like broom and mop, which apparently opened on Sunday.

I couldn't believe with what I had in mind. Asking people for rp3000? haha. Are they gonna believe me. and it's gonna be very embarrassing surely. I decided to try my luck at the mie balap shop but then I guessed, the few customers they have waiting for the food won't make it any easier for me. I turned to the broom shop instead and took a deep breath. it took me quite a few minutes and finally I forced myself into the shop.

Mama Trisno, as I know her name later looked at me in kind of disbelief look and told me to wait as she called her husband. I waited for few minutes and later she came out and hand me rp3000. I was so grateful and thanking her unstopping. Some part of me was in disbelieve as to how easy it was.

then I got into the angkot 62, grateful. later I got some reply texts from my friends, but by then I managed to handle it myself already. yay.

p/s: deep in me, I'm really angry with myself for always being too careless. I lost my ID cards for several times, my phones too, I went to the wrong airport a month a go and now this? sigh.

anyway, Thank you Mama Trisna!!

blackouts

it's raining heavily outside and I'm in the dark. No thanks to the blackout that happens very frequently nowadays.

I've blogged about how stressed I was due to this problem before in which I suggested that maybe they should allow a foreign expert to tackle this.

 

I was just started to find some info on the net about fractures in children when it went blackout. I tried to sleep but there were too many blood hungry female mosquitoes biting every part of my skin and there's a probability that some of those are transferring their infectious saliva into my blood stream. I covered my whole body under the blanket then it got too hot.

it's stressful as I just got back from hospital and want to spend the time as optimal as possible before going to spend the next day and night at the hospital again.

same thing happened two days ago when I was in the hospital. it was raining and suddenly, blackout. Normally the generator would be started to generate electricity for the whole hospital, but this time something went wrong as the electricity went on-off many times to the patients and their family members annoyance. The ward was totally dark. I also heard a doctor complaining how this has disturbed the operation that was going on during that time. Maybe this has not happened frequently but i think a place as important as a hospital just can't afford a power outage even a minute.

But as a foreigner in this country, i can't complain much as i afraid some people will take it wrongly as if I'm trying to find flaws and be critical of this country or that they will be offended.

so i silently hope that this problem will be gone and be the thing of the past soon.

i remember when i came here in 2006, some said this power problem would be over in 2006. then later 2011. well now as we are already in 2011 i really hope the authority or the government is not waiting for another year to act.

Medan as the biggest city in Sumatra island which is bigger than the Malay peninsular, need a continuous undisturbed electricity supply to grow. with the current growth of this city with its 5-star hotels and big malls, Medan can grow faster if the electricity problem is overcame.

Okay, it's already maghrib time in here, Azan is in the air calling people to pray and to achieve success. it's a total darkness in my house, so do my neighbours and many other people in this highly populated city. to people like me here all we can do is to pray for things to get better.

parents visit

this post has been written 1 week ago before being posted here.

it's 2.30am and I'm on a night shift duty as a co-assistant in surgery dept. it's my turn to receive a surgery patient, and my other friends are all asleep as they're done with their patients. I've been waiting since midnight and it seems like no surgery patients coming yet, the ones that come mostly medicine patients.

so here I am writing in my 'batik' book (as it has a Javanese batik motive as cover) that normally I used to jot down notes during meeting or bed-side teaching or ward round. now, being abnormal, I wanna write a bit about my parents visit last week and later post it in my blog.

my brother's message in facebook a months ago really taken me by surprise. he who is now in UK told me that he's buying flight tickets for my parents to come visit me here, in medan Indonesia, for the first time since I started studying here more than 4 years ago.

they scheduled to arrive in here at 1.20pm on saturday 16th July. as i was in my final day in anaesthesiology, I supposed to sit for post-test and not gonna be able to pick them at the airport. but I was glad when a friend, Afiq said he can do that for me. so the night before, i made a sign using a cardboard with my parents names on it so that my parents will notice that afiq is waiting for them. Syaf also later agreed to go with him. I was so glad for their willingness to this. on saturday i finished my exam early, so we all went to the medan's polonia airport together. as there were many people coming out of the arrival gate, i asked my friends to guess as which ones are my parents. Afiq has made quite a number of wrong guesses while Syaf, being very careful, got the 1 guess correct. ten marks for him!

we took my parents to ayam penyet and it seemed like the food were tad too spicy especially to my mother. then we took them to our house as my parents were just gonna stay in my room. my mother quite alarmed by the number of cats I have at my house haha. though she doesn't like cats, she tolerated with the cats well. as long as the cats not going too far haha.

few hours later we started our long journey to lake toba. the journey which normally takes 4 and a half hour took us almost six hours. no thanks to the massive congestion on the way there as there was a bridge being build somewhere along the way and no proper temporary road or lencongan was made.

we stayed in Siantar hotel in Prapat and we could see a breathtaking night view of lake toba and feel the breeze through the windows. as it was already late, my parents went to bed while me, syaf, afiq and also ridzuan went out and enjoyed the refreshing lake night breeze. Ridzuan and syaf were busy taking photos of danau toba using their expensive DSLR camera. haha

it's already quite late when i woke up on the sunday morning, syaf and ridzuan already awake with their camera on tripod near to the window, taking the sun rise view I guess.

we decided to bathe at the beach for 1 hour before going to samosir island. yes, toba lake is so big that it has beaches at it's side. 1st we went to the lake-bathing place we'd been to few years ago but unfortunately it was closed. there was only i public bathing place opened nearby but it was super crowded that made it impossible for us to bathe. so we went to samosir island right away.

Lake toba is one of the most beautiful place that I've been to, but sad to say that the management of the place is quite disappointing.

Even the ferry we boarded took longer than it supposed to to samosir island, the boat went around near the prapat hotels, the same place again and again looking for more passagers. suach a waste of time. and it moved so freakngly slow that it took 1 hour toreach tomok in samosir island. and we were given only 1 hour to shop in tomok, off course we 9or my mother to be specific) needed more than that.making a long stody short, we missed the ferry to go back to prapat. haha.

and on the road way back to medan, it was jammed again. it makes me wondering why can't they build a better road to such a high-potential place for tourism.

on monday i could not hang out with my parents as i was in my first day in surgery dept. spending all day in hospital and only be back at home at around ten o'clock.

uckily dearest friend, tipz voluntereed to take my parents to a pajak ikan, a famous shopping heaven for kain telekung and other txtile products. not only she brought my parents there, she also spent her time with them untill nght. shopping with tips would be the most wanted experience for everybody as she knows how to get the best stuffs with the best deal. haha. she also made my parents tasted several local delight like bakso, pempek palembang & others.

and in the morning before i left for the hospital on the same day, i bought the famous lontong and nasi gurih for my parents to taste the indonesian breakfast. alo bought a few risol, a cylinder shape kuih with raw chili in it! be carefull if u're to try it later!

i came back home at ten, and fauzan suggested that we borrow hanim's car and take my parents out for the medan night sightseeing. so that night we went to the majestic raya mosque, and also to the Maimum palac,the only remains of the melayu deli sultanate which now has perished.

we had supper at warung pak Im by the roadside in Pringgan (the place for cheap malaysia's teh tarik) and before heading back, my parents wanted to see the adam malik hospital the place where i'm doing my clinical.

we reached home at 2am and we only had 2 more hours before going to the airport. at 5 am my parents went inside the airport leaving me in medan, homesick than ever.

my parents visit was okay i think. and i wish they stayed longer as there are still many places they haven't been to, food they haven't tried and most of all, i wish we had more money to spend on. haha!

and 1 thing I can say when looking back into this, I am so glad and touched with the help of my beloved friends who have helped me a lot in many possible ways.

the malaysia-indonesia open debate

Like always, I was going for burger as dinner rather than.. another plate of rice. Tonight I cycled, out to a burger stall not really far from my house, alone, because my friend who I always have dinner with, he’s already started his tight diet programme. (haha)

Once there, the lady asked me, 'like always?' And I said yeah. She knew that I would always order a burger without chilli sauce, just mayo.

While waiting, I had a little chat with her husband who has worked in Malaysia for 15 years. He admired Malaysia very much, the place, the people and their working attitude. I’m glad he had a good time working in Malaysia.

But tonight a guy from the next shop interrupted our conversation by started asking, why Malaysian always treated Indonesian as a second class human? Wow what an intimidating question. He looked mad. I was shocked by his sudden anger lash-out, though it wasn’t my first time, really. But the guy who has worked in Malaysia defended and be in Malaysian side. Then there went a quite heated-up open debate regarding issues between both countries.

I’m not going to write here what were the exact points they made, just like the same boring points that came up like any other debates or writings about the Malaysia-Indonesia issues. The different is that the guys who defended Malaysia has worked in Malaysia for 15 years and the other guy has a sister still working in Malaysia as maid.

What impressed me is that their openness to such open debate. Though both are Indonesian, I don’t feel scared or threatened, because they actually just expressing their opinions and thoughts based on their experience and what they heard/ read. It's a healthy way of channelling ones' anger or dissatisfaction over something, and such open debate is actually a good thing.

At least it’s better than a lady in a car who lowered her car’s window while me and my friend on a bike next to her car, waiting for the traffic light to turn green, and she said in a harsh tone, ‘hoi Malaysia! Awas ya, kalo tertabrak dikit aku hajar kau!’. And we’re like... what the?

Okay now.. I’m going to eat my burger. It’s getting cold.

power outage in Medan.

The electricity went off twice today! so stressful. Wrong timing. I was really in a middle of something in front of my desktop computer. Got lots of work needed to be done before tomorrow.

I've been living here in Medan for four years but seriously there's no improvement!

It's always went blackout just like that. It can be more than once in a day and never never expect any prior notice about the coming power outage.

Why can't something be done about this. Other than making the people to pay more and more every year of course. I feel like saying, if you're unable to handle this problem, why don't you use foreign expertise instead. Let them come, invest and teach us how to do it. For the benefit of the people and country in a long run.

And we, the consumers too, should do our part! Like stop wasting energy. I tweeted in twitter about my disappointment this morning. I was in room with plenty of windows but the lamps were switched on instead. I drawn the curtain open to let the bright natural light come in but somebody closed it back later. And we used the lamps to light up the room till we went back. talking about irony.

I hope the local government is doing something about this, and we the consumer, get used to minimise our electricity consumption and stop wasting it. for the benefit of all.

Malaysia-Indonesia

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The previous tensions have not even fully subsided yet, but now it seems to be heated up again. There was a demonstration by an extreme group calling themselves as bendera, in which human faeces being thrown to the Malaysian embassy. I’m honestly sad with the news. They also said that Malaysian companies here in Indonesia will be their target, to ask them to “pack up their business and go home”. What scared me the most is that they threatened to detain Malaysians on the streets and shave their heads before sending them back.

But I know they do not represent the whole mostly peace-loving Indonesians. I’ve been studying here for 4 years. They are many Indonesians that treated us Malaysian here nicely, putting aside all those tiffs between these two countries.

But of course there are people who hate Malaysian so much that it is obvious. But I honestly don’t blame them. Media here loves playing with the issue and sensationalizing it. Just like how they did to the celebrities. Most of the info they aired were merely baseless allegations and they played it again and again as it were something need to be planted deep in the brain. Hatred been planted.

Please people! Be you Malaysian or Indonesian, please handle with whatever crisis wisely. As in this latest case of sea-border trespassing or whatever, solve it accordingly, sit down and talk, show proofs to support your allegations. Most of us are Muslim. And a Muslim is brother to one another, right? And we are not allowed to prolong fight with each other more than 3 days.

And ironically it happens in the sacred month of Ramadan!

P/s: if somebody throws faeces at you, you give him flower instead. Or else you are just like him. don't' you think.