As a River Flow into the Sea

I used to hear people say that the feeling that we have about life, is as a river trickles, gathers, navigates, rush, and finaly flow into the sea. I am coming into agreement with that sentiment. I paved for myself a difficult path. One that torments me further by parading my foolishness, exposing only scum of the supposed human intelligence. Not that i had expected that i was a genius, but i did have an imagination that i could at least be the better specimen of this category of existence. I have since been saved by the magnimity of the most dense of thick banana chocolate shakes, whose calories may prove to be the more superior in servicing the advancement of mankind than my meagre, quivering brain.

"It's strange but true, people just wake up one day, and for no reasons or apparent causes, simply made the decision to be a medic!" One of my colleagues once shared his observation on how people come to squander their time in the ambulance. Mine, started with a broken arm. I used to own this small piece of soft, yellow blanket printed with tiny flowers, that was absolutely the favourite of all my favourite things. The best thing about this blanky, was the squareness of its cut. In a stroke of serendipity, perhaps that was in the brew from all the cantonese soap opera i had been watching from TV, an idea formed in my tiny 5 year old head. I went to my father who was sitting quite comfortably in the living hall, decided that i now had a patient, and he most definitely had a broken elbow (even though he had to keep his right arm nicely in place for the whole procedure). That was my first self-taught skill of applying the triangular bandage, in the form of a yellow blanky which i am still proud to annnouce that it held my daddy's arm for a good part of the day (how much was assisted performance i will never know)!

Thus is how so many paths etched in their most primitive beginnings. I'm unsure if this decision of becoming a paramedic is made entirely out of this caramelised memory. To a kid, the boundless relief, and love that is borne out of healing meant the whole world. I started appreciating the idea that once people know they are ok again, it makes them smile, smile so bright, even if not seen from their lips. At the back of the ambulance, frankly, we rarely see people smile. Those are the privileges reserved for the surgeons, doctors and nurses who work with the patient until they are fixed and good enough to go home again; we would be lucky if our patients don't faint while on their way to the hospital. But these sun-lit smiles are, albeit imaginations, good enough for one to hold, and believe is my rightful part to share, even if i never get to see it.

Emotions, i have since surmised, offer a very convenient basis for making decisions such as a dream career. But it is also one of the hardest to defend. Without clarity as to how that moment of vulnerability supply the grounds for commitment, one may never toil enough to really find her way into that dream she thought she so very wanted in the first place. And i am starting to believe in greater magnitude, that this is what i'm here to do in Penang. To find a way to be comfortable in this skin of a healthcare person. To really decide in the course of my time here, that i belong in that dream i dreamed, no matter how i falter in the beginning, or how i feel out of place in my current environment.

My only solace (other than my good dog and cute colleagues, and a local coffee house), is the gift of thought and reflection. That at least in the midst f it all, there is a voice of literature, in the form of Anton Chekov, that had once taught me to understand "We shall wait, and we shall see..."

Not to Be Tamed

How a body and a soul yearns for rest,

the kind not tainted by dreams.

For the oars that run deep in and strong 

wades past torrents not stemmed by silence.

The eyes, shut and darken by any means

blinds not to an incessant track, playing the tunes 

of clamour

Absence of dance, is not the absence of choreography;

such, is the nature of movements

limp and lifeless thus strong impostors of calm

But only the soul understands what pins and needles

scatter under the smooth side of skin

Not pass any shortest mile of a clock's hand run

could the being still sustain from

tingles and bellows of an urge of old

or new, if that even matters

as though wind rises to the chest, all but trapped

and restless to burst free into the morning air

in a headless tumble too distinctly felt 

wants free...

Toil Another Day

A chef would look at his ladle and skillet
A farmer his reaper
A dreamweaver his wand
A mother her cot
A wolf his sled
A lion her empty cave
A casanova her photograph

Those eyes would look the same
If one could gently step into that very second
and foregoing all the rest.
Those eyes would look to a remembrance
would in a place long past, revisit a warmth
a grip in a deep recess in the lung a
heaviness just below the navel
once was so vivid, believable
a voice that had called, and they responded
a conversation that had brought them to their feet
a touch that had caused them to yearn
a suffocation that had made them breathe
yet in all that sullied and staled in a chamber of rot

Those eyes, would tell you they had not stopped hoping
they might say it to themselves even.
In that very second that we saw
their eyes that glimmer wasn't pretense 
just that which was once lustrous, rust made claim

Remembering the day after day of a disappointing kind
come sunset which no satisfaction endowed upon them 
return of a net with not a flake of sardine scales

and on this day.....
the eyes would not return to a gleam
the eyes would not be scrubbed clean
the breath would not be heaved with stoicism
but the scent of a dried out, burned pot of stew

they would surrender to a relenting eye lid
in a long blink pause to take note
hey...
lets just toil another day....

A Happy Sail

If i were to live as a frigate 
casting my destiny to the winds 
and so goes concerns and worries 
as nonchalant as the seagulls 
boasting of invisible valor to the sun 
never getting bored of the world.

I shall never know the burden of my weight 
casually bellowing on the sleepy waves
I shall never understand no depth nor height
neither any importance nor frivolty
No one needs to remind me of time
no lines or spaces no grids nor territory

Hum Bug! Oh how i will swear to land
i have no use of cares
you measley fellows on the dry
i will laugh at you,
oh yes i will
and you will never find out
for i am frigate, whose destiny
at the end of winds
through the far side of horizons
whose time is always tomorrow, and tomorrow
and tomorrow shall never come.
says the lonesome frigate.....

All Shall be Alright

Imagine walking through a tree lined path
of which covered end to end
leaves
gently rest
on crumbs, sun-baked sheets
crunched or seamless formed

Dried herbs laces the air, no wind
just a warm conversation started
tingling child to child of those who gather scents

Baskets upon baskets of loafs
tell a tale of bygones, laughter in an altered note
no more than an itch in between the ear

But though it is season for meadows wilt
Whither not soil nor sand stops my trudging upon
the very imagination of that faraway tree lined path
which i had found myself promising to me
a bowl of chicken soup
a hard boiled egg dancing in my palm
a head of dripping butter corn resting on ambered coals
a quiet sundown sareed in shades of purple and hints of pink
a tea
yes, a tea...

then all, shall be alright...

How to patch a punctured innertube?

ok, i need to put this to record or i might forget. And there are some ridiculously mistaken instructions out there which may lead people to patch tubes the very wrong way. so here goes, the correct way of patching tubes:

1: identify the puncture spot, and make sure its deflated before moving onto the procedure
2: check the whole tube for exact number of punctures
3. use sandpaper (360)
4: visually mark the puncture spot with 2cm in radius around it
5. rub the sandpaper at this spot - to flatten tube seams and remove the tube's dermis
6. observe as i work on sandpapering - surface turns lihgt greyish-then darkens
7. when the surface is roughened, apply a thin layer of rubber cement/glue around the area
8. while waiting for the gluing agent to dry a little, remove protective film from patch
<NOTE: do not blow at the gluing agent, lung-ed air moisturizes it and renders it ineffective>
9. when the gluing agent is 60% dry and appears sticky, apply patch onto the prepared spot
10. thoroughly conform the patch to tube by bending, pressing, flexing with hand
11. inflate tube to check for effectiveness

• • • • •

lesson credits: Keong Loh S.K. (Senior Bike Mechanic)

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published September 6, 2009
Sharon Chong
:0)

所谓－ 家

紅花雨（1）

詞: 小蟲. 洪宇 曲: 小蟲. Johnny Chen H.
演唱: 趙詠華， 胡德夫

紅花開 紅的心 紅的好美麗
為了你 等下去 我還在這裡
人不再 錯花季 雲濃月怎明
傷了心 不離棄 落成紅花雨
花若開 若有你 花才會美麗
盼望你 回頭看 我還在這裡

記得你 那一天 紅紅的眼睛
你的臉 你身影 笑容隨你去
在一起 流眼淚 一起看星星
能有幸 能相遇 永遠不忘記
漂著雨 迎著風 雨過盼風清
你牢記 我牢記 家就在這裡

我的家， 又在哪儿？





（1）http://blog.xuite.net/sinner66/blog/8338793

－ － － － －§ － － － － －
Sharon Chong