Beginning of Jolin Tsai's Sydney Concert

Good Weekend

Work sucks right now so I wont dwell on it other than to say it's only 10 more working days till I leave Gastro and farewell my reg (who's renamed himself G-Astro Boy because a nurse commented on his gelled back Asian hair)

So on to more fun things. Like the weekend.

As I watch the medical students dissolving into frenzied sharks, I realise the beauty of working life. Time off.

Not to say that as medical students we didn't have time off. But there was always that lingering prospect of impending exams that necessitated study. Although we wasted many hours, they always fell under the shadow of those final exams.

But now how things have changed! The shackles of assessment have been loosened and although we are not as free with our time, it is time free of anything else. And so the weekend takes on a new meaning. It gives refreshment and an awful lot of enjoyment.

So this weekend began after a late afternoon ward round with the Professor which then evolved into a trip across the road to the local publican's house for refreshments with workmates (and even an invite to some random perosn's farewell party). It was good to just chill with the other doctors (all of whom had similarly awful weeks) and just relax.

Then it was off ot the city to join my mate A* for dinner with him and some of his Asian posse. I was ordered a whopping huge plate of ribs cooked to perfection and got to meet some really cool new people (I know some of you read this - haha) The it was off to score another 'sugarhit' at the Swissotel overlooking the streets from on high. It was sheer exhaustion that prevented us from kicking on to karaoke (probably to the benefit of those who DID go).

Saturday kicked off way too early with an early morning church breakfast of pancakes and prayer. I struggled home afterwards to rest for a short time before heading off to meet my sister for a late lunch and shopping trip. I had rashyl promised to buy her a birthday present for her 21st and so I was finally being held accountable to my promise and made to endure some 'quality' time with my sister as she talked and walked her way through 4 levels of shops to find what she wanted. Was good to hang out though and just spend time together amidst the busy-ness of life. Seems like only yesterday we were making cubby houses in our lounge room and fighting over the trampoline. Now we go on dinner dates and fight over who should pay. How I long for those old times when life was simpler.

Then it was off to eat some quality Japanese and catch up with some friends. The food was excellent as always and the conversation was so encouraging. Got back too late though after watching DVDs but this afforded me the oppurtunity to catch up with friends in Singapore and Taiwan who were still up (due to the 3 hour time lag).

Sunday was another early start due to a combined church service with our Asian sister congregation. But what really topped it was the Yum Cha with old college buds who turned Asian eating into a comedy routine**

It wasn't one thing that necessarily defined the weekend. But a whole lot of little enjoyable things that make you realise that life isn't that bad. That you will be able to keep persevering through the rubbish of your job in order to see the next weekend.

*of Jolin Tsai concert fame - I've been humming those diva's tunes all week.
** "English is the best language ever ... in Asia the word for pork is ju-ro but in English the word for pork is pork! How great is that!"

"Ladies and Gentleman... Welcome!"

So began the first words of the best 2 hours of fun I've had in a while.

But first, one must set the scene.

It was a unusually scorching spring day where I didn't have to go to work. Got up late and put on a music DVD to get myself ready for the evening to follow. Had a casual lunch on the beach with a workmate and then went home to get ready.

Gave myself a haircut (yes it does need to be cut!) and picked out my fav pink polo tee and polished my head till it shone. Donned my redstripe Nikes and hopped on a bus into the city to meet my Malaysian mate A.

He was waiting with his SLR camera in the CBD and we highfived each other as we headed down the main drag to get some food. We exctiedly chattered about the upcoming night and planned ways to meet our object of affection in person. We travelled via Chinatown to peruse the CD stores and look at new DVDs.

We arrived at the Entertainement Centre with 30 minutes to spare. All I could see were short black haired fans of Asian extraction piling into the doors and chattering on their phones with excitement. We were definitely in the right place.

The security guards gave me a confused look as I passed through, triumphantly clutching my ticket. Upon entry, we were endowed with plastic fluro-cloured whistles and blow up 'banging sticks' (you blow them up and hit them together to make loud noises - go figure?)

We hurredly found our seats and realised we were in the main section 3rd row from the floor. We had a good view and were right in front of the stage. My mate A began to turn around and play the "Spot the white person game" (he counted a total of 3) and over the next 30 minutes the arena became packed with 6000 screaming Asians. As we waited nervously, big screens played advertisements for Taiwanese tourism, projecting images of places I'd long forgotten I'd visited.

And then it began.

The sounds turned down and the lights went out. A roar from the crowd heralded the imminent arrival of the Princess of Pop*. Suddenly a deafening minor chord blasted from the front and a lone female voice I knew all too well called out:

"Ladies and Gentleman... Welcome!"

A silhouette formed at the peak of the stage pyramid and next thing I knew the lights flooded the arena and there she was.

Jolin Tsai!


She launched straight into her latest album's first song and I began to shake with excitement. It was everything I had imagined and more. The dancers poured onto the stage and the spectacle began. It ws a nonstop action packed routine. Not only was she doing a full choregraphy routine, but she was singing live thru a headset microphone too (as evidenced by when it stopped half way thru the song cos she pulled it out accidently) Flamethrowers and fireworks routinely set themselves off from the stage and the crowd started going wild.

I found myself completely stunned. It was her! She sang fluently whilst dancing better than most of her support dancers and still managed to smile the whole time. In between sets she would chat with the crowd ending with a resounding "Hao, bu hao?"

Then the familiar chords of "Upup" started and I rose to my feet dragging A up yelling "This is it! This is the first song of hers I ever heard 2 years ago!" Yes that's right... 2 years ago I first heard her voice on Taiwan's MTV singing about an MP3 player and since then it's been sealed... I'm a fan!


In all there were 7 costume changes and enough warm smiles to reaffirm her title as the "teenage boy killer". Some random dude from 'F4' (Jerry) got up and sang as her support act, but thankfully only for 2 songs and then it was back to Miss Tsai.

And then it came, the penultimate song... her title track that took 10 months of dancing practice to master... the "Dancing Diva"... the Middle Eastern melody and harmonics came to life and next thing I knew there were moves that would put Olympic rhythmic gymnasts to shame.

And then to finish off, she welcomed the crowd down the front and what ensued could only be described as a massive Asian mosh pit as the Queen farewelled her Australian fans.

I rose to my feet with the crowds as we sang in Mandarin.


It was awesome!

And then she flashed us one last smile... took her final bow and said "Xie xie! Zai jian!"

And with that it was over. But the memories** will remain for years to come. Man it's good to act my age once in a while and be young!

"Jolin, wo ai ni!"

* well at least in Asia
** well not JUST memories. The disputes between A and I about who will marry Jolin will go on forever! As will the permanent hearing loss I now have from the excessive decibel usage. Haha!

Editorial

Every once in a while it's good to have the opporutnity to respond to reader's comments and get some 'dialogue' happenin.

So after persuing through old posts indefinitely just wanna say the following:

# No I'm not chasing after girls of 'unequal' yoking. It was jus a comment that even if that person was, it prob wouldn't be a possibility anyway. However on that note, this week I had morning tea and lucnh with the pharm chick and another docotor and pharmacist. It's nice to have lunch with non-doctors once in a while. They're not as 'boring' as you might think! (haha - this is a joke, I don't want a tirade of "Stop being so up yourself Dr J" comments)

# Our callings in life are not static but dynamic. Just cos I have the ability to do something doesn not mean I should. I know this flies in the face of Western thinking which staets that if you have the ability, you should. But under that argument I should go and be a film director cos I'm ok at that too and enjoy that too and that helps people by conveying messages and helping them relax.
Please don't get me wrong. Medicine is a fantastic profession in what it achieves. It touches many lives and Jesus himself called himself the great Physician (I'd hate to see what his FRACP exam would look like). To want to alleviate suffering (either in palliation or cure) is a good and right thing, it shows that suffering in this world is not random meaningless chemical reaction, but a painful result of the curse we live under. However for me personally, I have decided that my time would be spent better elsewhere. I would encourage my fellow doctors to work hard in their jobs too and I will always hold a soft spot for med. But I have not made this decision lightly. It's taken me 6 years to decide and only after much talking with others.

# In terms of updates with my Dad, he's slowly pottering along. Part of his frontotemporal dementia is that he is disinhibited in his feelings and thoughts. And so where he once would keep his opinions on our lives to himself, he now becomes more open and tells us what's on his mind. And so it's become apparent over the last few motnhs that he is quite (well 'extremely' would be a better word) keen for me to get married. He keeps blatantly asking me EVERY phone call whether I've got a girlfirend and whether I'm talking to any nice girls (whereas he never used to ask) and telling me he's put away some money to help pay for my 'new family'. I feel kinda bad because this is what he really wants for me and yet it's kinda not something I can 'make' happen. My great grandfather died before my grandfather got married and my grandfather died before my father got married and it seems like now my father will die before I get married. I know it's not in my control, but if I 'could' give him his final wish... it'd mean so much to him. Sometimes this world sucks... big time!

Shuffling off this mortal coil

Today I had the rather unpleasant expereince of telling a 40 yr old man's sisters that he was going to die.

It was needless to say unpleasant.

Put in this position by my registrar being too busy, I was left to exaplin to these ladies that their brother had an advanced cancer and had probably days to weeks left to live. As I tried to simply explain the details I could see one of them choking back the tears and holding back her disbelief. I saw the other just nod and let the news wash over her as a reassuring explanation of something she deep down already knew.

This poor guy is pretty sick. His wife died a few years ago and he will leave a young daughter behind to be cared for by his family. Within a few hours of my meeting with the sisters, crowds of relatives were piling out his door with women sobbing in the corridors as they paid their respects to this man on the other side of the grave whilst they could. I purposely walked to the other elevator so as not to bump into them, partly becasue I did not want to disturb them, but partly because I did not want to have to deal with it myself.

Death is not natural. No one 'dies with dignity'. Death is an unnatural thing that fractures our relationships and breaks down any meaning in our life. We toil and strive to get ahead in our careers and have a great lifestyle... but for what? In the end the fate of the poor man is the same as that of the rich man... they all die and take nothing with them. Death makes our lives now meaningless.

We sanitise death today. We use euphemisms like "passed away" or "loved ones" when in reality we all live in denial of our own mortality. I noticed this even amongst my own bosses who in their pursuit of prolonging life could not bring themselves to tell this patient's family the reality or to talk about a "Do Not Resuscitate" order.

And so over the coming days we will transfer this patient to the Palliative Care team and ship him off somewhere else, out of sight, where he can die... and we can all pretend like life goes on.

There's something seriously wrong with that.

The Results...

Every experiment is designed to test out a hypothesis.

It contains an aim, methods and results followed by a conclusion.

An every experiment must have an end in mind.

Sometimes that end is brought about when the results clearly indicate the hypothesis being valid or invalid without requiring further validation.

This happens quite often in medical practice when a certain therapy is clearly better or worse than another and it is immeadiately stopped so as to be ethical.

And so it is with some relief/catharsis that I can reveal the preliminary results of "The Intern Experiment"

Aim: To determine what Dr J should do with the rest of his life.

Methods: Trial being a medical intern in order to ascertain whether or not Dr J should continue down the path of medical practice.

Results: 3/4 of the way through the experiment, the subject decided to terminate the trial at the end of 2007 and leave his current vocation citing 'other priorities'.

Conclusion: Dr J will cease in 14 months to be a doctor (at least temporarily) whilst he considers a new experiment trialling out full time Christian ministry for 2 years.

After much thinking and praying and talking with others over the past 5 years, I have decided to take a break (possibly temporarily, most likely permanent) from medicine and spend my days work telling people about Jesus and spending my time and energy 'working for the kingdom'.

Sounds kinda crazy doesn't it? Throwing away a medical education and the world at my feet? Maybe even a little immature? Living a poorer life in order to 'brainwash' people with the Bible?

Or maybe its not? Maybe there IS something more to life that medicine doesn't quite get. Maybe the priorities of this world are not going to last. And maybe... just maybe... it is time.

Time to stop sticking our fingers up at the one who made us. Time to stop blaming him for the way we stuff up the world and our relationships. Time to pull our head in and listen to him. Time to meet this man called Jesus and realise he is the Ruler and the Judge of this world.

I know some of you will say "About time Dr J!" and other of you will shake your heads and say "What a waste!" Ultimately though, I have to explain my life not to you readers/friends out there... but to Him. And can I urge you to at least listen to what he says before you dismiss him?

And so the next 14 months I will continue to experiment with medicine, but only as a way to earn some money and save up for the years ahead.

For the one who saved my life by his death.

Mando Pop

Only 4 sleeps to go!

That's right, this Friday marks a special occasion in the life of every young doctor. A time of great celebration and joy.

One's very first Mandarin pop concert.

It began about 2 years ago in Taiwan. My tour companions and I would watch MTV Asia at night time whilst eating our dinner and we were captivated by a song "Up up"... we found it amusing and catchy and next thing I knew I had her album and it was all over.

On my second trip to taiwan I sought out the nearest music shop and looked for any more Cd's by the artist known as Jolin Tsai.

So imagine my suprise when 3 weeks ago my mate tells me she is coming to Sydney and playing at the Entertainment Centre. I almost fell off my chair.

And so this Friday I will make my pilgramage to Darling Harbour to see the Queen of Mando (or at least Taiwanese) pop. It promises to be "an original and inspiring mixture of fantastic choreopgraphy, stage design, lighting, music, and just plain entertainment brilliance."

So exicited! Hun hao!