Sprain

I got an ankle sprain at the time of critical importance again.

It is the right ankle again. I remembered the first time to have such as severe ankle sprain was my graduation camping of the primary school. I was skating and I hurt my ankle so badly that I had to leave the camp site (with the escort by the dearest friend KY, now a police officer). Tears were in my eyes. My classmates except KY would not be able to see it, because they all had fun in the camp. I was the only one who got hurt and pain.

That time I have known what pain really is.

This time, I had a football game with my classmates in the medical school. I tried to shoot from a return pass at the edge of the penalty box, but it turned out I had an unaccustomed position that I had an eversion injury. Completing the shooting posture, I still could manage to play. But later on, I found the pain not endurable and I had myself substituted.

Now what troubled me the most is not that I could not play football (indeed I realize I will have no chance to have football game before internship, not to mention during internship) for a long time, I could not step on the ground with my right foot easily, thanks to the pain. Therefore, I could hardly play drums with my usual right-hand setting.

One solution is I will try my less-proficient left-hand setting. I tried for some time about that sort of arrangement and it probably can work.

This time is not that painful now, strangely. The possible explanation is that, I actually not really care about the band performance. Band music to me is gone. I enjoy silence more than guitar and drum. However the performance this time, I have nothing to prove. If tomorrow I should find out my ankle's condition is so bad, I will even withdraw myself from the rehearsal. My bandmates can handle the condition without me, I am sure.

In other words, I don't feel the same pain I did this time. After all, I have become more philosophical and tried not to put others' happiness into my burden, or suffering.

Cheese

Morocco, as a country located around the Mediterranean sea, is famous of Cheese.

We have had uncountable opportunities to have a taste of this very food, which was not very commonly served in Hong Kong. Well, we know why it is so: the humid weather can change every unprocessed food in a day or two into the dim sum of gems. For the sake of health, we let go this germ which is recently studied by NEJM to become protective to our cardiovascular system.

Anyhow, every morning, when the sun has come up (or we have woke up at the clock of 11 am), we prepared ourselves with bread and cheese. It is of course wonderful to found the tasteless bread to become a pleasing dish after the cheese is prepared.

As a local tradition, Moroccan will also supplement the bread with many others ingredients on the bread like jams to increase the sweetness. Heard from my father, Addition of sugar is a way to sustain in an adverse environment.

VM is particularly in love with cheese and this drove him to buy a box of cheese to get back to Hong Kong. He has a high hope that the cheese can still be itself when it is emigrated to Hong Kong. I did not have the same hope.

What I do is simpler: taste the cheese while I can.

Swapping

The most fearful event before the internship finally came. Surprisingly, it was very smooth and it took me no more than two steps to complete the rotation choices by swapping with the others.

This is another time of moment that I felt the God of fate was working behind all of us. Either by the choices made previously or the changes with the people you know or you don't know, every step was like a butterfly moving its wing, which eventually made a tremendous hurricane.

While I felt happy for my friends who have got the desired combination, I felt the people who did not have  favorable rotations. What I could do to you is likely to be minimal, but I can just quote what SF told me once before: If you are meant to be a good doctor, you will be good whatever post you are in.

Please just hold on.

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One interesting fact about the swapping system is that, as usual in every year, you will encounter people you have never talked to during the swapping interval, possessing different interests. At that time, you will realize how fun it is to meet people whom you have never known can help you a great deal, even more than the people around you.

It is like exchanging train tickets (or octopuses) in the interchange station. People having opposite destinations will help each other for their own benefits. See, the world is after all not always a zero-sum game. If we can help each other even for the most selfish targets, we actually are doing something good to overall.

So may I use the space here to thank NL and DC for their sincere exchange. And I hope you two can get a good combination in the end (and of course, become the good doctors you want to be these 5 years).

Travelling

As usual, I brought books for travelling. So for this time, when I went to Morocco, I brought myself with some leisure readings too, but this time there is a subtle difference.

Kindle paperwhite was with me this time. I have had the time to finish The Three Kingdoms (三國演義) and some part of the Sherlock Holmes.

As for Three Kingdoms, this was perhaps my third time to read it up. Every time I do it, new ideas and images came up to my mind to an extent that it invaded into my dream as if I lived in that time of moment, fighting with the Generals. Blame it to the video games, the appearances of the people in the novels are quite fixed in my mind, but their characters are lively in the novel that I feel like we can talk when I read the book. What a fascinating experience it has been, especially when I finish all the examinations so far, free of pressure.

The reading began when I was preparing for the examination. Every night before I slept, I would lie down and turn on the Kindle and read the book. When I finished it, I just realized that 100 years of time has gone through in my head. 臨江仙, which is the first poet in the book, comes to my head.

滾滾長江東逝水，浪花淘盡英雄；是非成敗轉頭空，青山依舊在、幾度夕陽紅。

白髮漁樵江渚上，慣看秋月春風；一壺濁酒喜相逢，古今多少事、盡付笑談中。

We are just the ashes of time.

Quotation

On this very special day, which is the first day I officially become a medical doctor, I hope to share with you what is following me these years. These are nothing but some words of wisdom from my dearest teachers, who give me so much inspirations. I don't know how to thank them but to practise medicine with a good heart. Nobody says it is easy, but I just have to do it.

SF: If you have a caring heart, there is nothing you can't do. You will practise good medicine to patients.

TL (when he was just a house officer, when asked how to deal with futile resuscitation in the midnight): I can just try to do my best and hope something happen. There is not certainty about life and death.

JS (my mentor in my Singapore time): I am not asking u to become a good CUHK graduate. I am asking you to become a good doctor in the future.

KH (my all time model): you should put all your time with your patients, and all your time with your family. The thing to decide is how do you distribute the time. When the time comes, do you best. Be pro-active.

With all your inspirations, how can I not become a good one? Your hopes and expectations are not the burden but the powerful fuels to me. Please light me up and start my new life.

Name

Officially I have gone through the whole curriculum, from the basic anatomy and physiology in year 1, to the philosophy from our dearest oncologist in year 5.

There are two people whose name who I can never forget.

The first one is CK. As you all know, she is my senior. Her commitment towards this profession is unshakable. Before the start of the year 1, she taught me what is devotion by her act. On one gathering, she would ride a bicycle (despite that she never know how to) so that  the group could have fun. I still remembered how she rode on the bicycle with two assisted wheels. You might think its easy, but for a novice, the bicycle was always shaking when you were on it. How on earth someone who decided to have a activity which she never knew or love? It was because she loved to gather the people she knew and cared about. She wanted to see us to make us good medical students. That is all.

Her Chinese name is 嘉明. 嘉者，讚許也。明者，亮也。 The beauty is the simplicity as well as the meaning underneath. People says your name is the description of your character. I have to say that her Chinese name is the best to describe her life: the praise of the light in our world.

The other one is our dearest oncologist SF. Being loved by so many seniors and my classmates, his teaching in the oncology module has been inspirational in many years. In the end of every tutorial, he would ask if there is anything new. His expected answer is no: indeed everything he taught nothing new in terms of textbook knowledge, on the contrary, he taught us how to integrate what we have learnt in these years, making them a memorable knowledge instead of forgettable information. His way of teaching is excellent.

He is being something more. In the end of the module, he told us stories about the ups and downs of people these years. He told us how bad the situation of our ecology has been, talking about the devils and the hells. Some could feel the pain from this speech. But, he decided to turn our mind again, saying that when the sky is dark the stars will be brighter. Whenever there is struggle, the opportunity comes up.

He loves to teach, hoping to see his students to become the light and salt of the world every year.

His name is 承暉. The continuation of the sunlight. Again, it is the best name to describe his life. Nothing less, nothing more.

With their inspirations, I am committed to make the best to become the doctor for the rest of my life.

生不逄時

The first of April originally is meant to be funny for everyone. But for a special reason, Hong Kong people can hardly find it pleasing. It is all because of our Leslie Cheung, who chose to end his transient but spectacular life on the same day, 10 years ago.

Being the greatest star in Hong Kong, he is forever missed by the fans. He deserves it totally. For these few weeks he has been in every corner. His posters, his songs and his movies have once again infiltrated everywhere now, just like the 80's and 90's. Once again, we know that the difference between the truly great artist and the care-frees today.

No wonder one of my friend exclaimed her loss, saying she should have been born 10 or 20 years earlier to know Leslie better. Yes. in that case, she would possibly have known Danny Chan, Anita Mui, Wong Ka-kui better as well.

Instead of making the same sigh (which I used to do) as my young friend did, I imagine. I imagine that Leslie was born 20 years later, which would be 20 Sep 1976. By now he would have been at the age of 37, which is supposed to be his second prime, being the main actor for the movies like The Ashes of Time, Days of Being Wild.

In this age of time, he will face a much smaller resistance from the media about his sexual orientation. He was perhaps one of the first well-known artist who declared his choice openly (as well as being most severely attacked by the mass media). Now in Hong Kong, we are more open to gay men and lesbians. It was a completely different story 20 years ago, when we teased the gays and tried to avoid making contact with them, without understanding what they think. It was previously thought as a disease, but now most will know that it is just the difference of choice.

The game has been remade. People can come out and declare their choices with pride. People demand for the rights to love (which is intuitively right) and have marriages with their partners. Consensus although may not be arrived at this moment, we all feel that our community is at least coming close to the target, when the resistance is soften, and the conflicts are getting solved. 20 years ago, one without powerful imagination could not predict this would ever happen.

At least, should Leslie be with us now, it is foreseeable that he will become a happier man with his lover. He might not be the greatest star we have seen in the posters or the movies. He does not care, even if he is no longer an artist. He would rather become what he wants to be: Leslie Cheung.

P.S. Though according to the principle of parallel universe, there should not be interference between the spaces, and as a result, I am not quite sure in the absence of Leslie, our society would be as open to homosexuality as now. But one thing that is certain, our world has become more open to it in general. Let's hope Leslie is smiling for this very change from the above.