[FLUSH]

Sending Off

It was going to be a very exciting day for me today. Exciting because activities that would be taking place before the rising of the sun to mark the new day. With a minimal amount of sleep, i was up at around 4 am. It was pretty strange to be waking up so early in the morning. The last time i remembered waking up this early was about 2 years ago when my family and I were preparing to make a trip down to Singapore for a visit there. The whole house was up and awake as we prepared to send my sister, Julia to the airport. My parents and I occupanied my sis and Mei Sin, who slept over the night before to to the airport as we bid farewell. Due to limited space in the car, my younger sis, Jessica had to stay back and take care the house, in other words to sleep back again. As we reached the departure at our beautiful KL International Airport, i spotted a group of people wearing the striking red of the Cyber Christmas T-shirt which became their official shirt as they travelled to Sibu, Sarawak. Though this trip was meant for Final Year Students, my sis decided to join in the bandwagon as she was looking forward to go to Sarawak for missions.

What is missions as some might ask? Well, missions means to travelled to another place on a volunteerily basis with the objective of helping the people there and also to help spread the message that we as Christian believe in. Many have ask me why I didn't decide to go along on this trip since I had always wanted to go on a local mission trip that would take me to the indigenious people which were located away from the city life we are so comfortably settled in. It is my desire but I wasnt really prepared yet to go to mission just yet. I would personally take mission as something rather serious and that involve being spiritually and physically prepared for the trip. Spiritual prepared to do battle where there are bound to be oppression that may hinder the work and also to physically prepared to endure the tough and strainous travel that require one to trek through undergrowth in the deep forest, travelling on speed boats on the rough currents of rivers to the deep villages and acclimatising to nature where bathing and doing "business" in the river would be a daily routine. This was natural some of the things that this group of people had to endure through the training in Malacca last week as they prepared themselves for this trip today.

One of the most interesting sight to see when i was at the airport was to see the luggages that they had to bring along for the trip alone. It was certainly up to each individuals to plan the things that they needed to bring for this trip. Some had bags that weight a tonne while some made you wonder how in the world were they going to go though 11 days of mission with such small luggages. It makes you curious to want to see what they had in their bags. I also had the priviledge to meet up some Malaccans who I hadnt seen for some time. It was nice bumping into Chern Wai and Alfrel and seeing Kameni, Janet, Grace, Josephine and Szu Li who were all pretty busy making sure that they had their stuff in place. The chattery Pastor Joanne was also there making sure that all are well as she accompanies the group on this trip. There were also some faithful seniors who woke up early and make their way here to send the group off namely Agnes, Brendan and Alvin Bong. It was good to see the support we give one another as fellow Cf'ers be it in Cyberjaya or Malacca, working people or fellow undergraduates. As they made their journey to Sibu, Sarawak, I wish them a pleasant journey and may the good Lord guide and protect them throughout their journey there. In prayers we will keep you in.



A Visit to the Hospital

I wasn't able to stay longer to help them take their group photo as they made their way to McD for probably breakfast before they depart as I had to rush back by 730am to fetch my grandpa to the hospital for his eye examination. Grandma followed along to accompany my grandpa. As they were going through the eye examination, I was going to the hospital for my regular checkup for my achne. Its been quite along time that I have been suffering from achne. Though it has been undercontrolled for the pass couple of years, the scars still remain and occasional breakout do occur. Its hard living with a scarred face for so long. Sometimes I envy those who have perfect flawless skin. I often questioned why my face had to suffer such cruel popups that would include a combination of pust and blood oozing out from very little pores of my skins and leaving a blemish on my skin. Occasionaly I do give up having to go through the whole process of making sure that my skin maintain oil free with constant washing and also smearing cream on my face with the hope that this popup do not occur once more. Amidst my effort, they seem to be ever popping out just like a seed sprouting out from the earth and breaking into a nice blossom. The difference is that mine will leave a scar instead.

My checkup this time didnt take as long as I would imagine as I was there early. It took around 2 and a half hours from registering to waiting to seeing the specialist and going to the pharmacy to obtain a large amount of medicine that would cost me a boom if i were to go for a private consultation. Visiting a public hospital required patience for relative cheap consultation of RM 5 only from specialist. However, this would mean sacrifice of a huge amount of time. For me, it was worth it as my previous visit to the private clinic didnt really make a difference to my condition except burn a hole in the wallet. My visit to the doctor didnt only include my achne alone but also some rashes i had developed on my knee cap and a recurrance of rash in my groin area. I pressume this could be the results of taking a plunge in the disgust pond during camp a week ago. The rashes were beginning to be more serious and it was causing an itch that in due time may be unbearable. I used to have sleepless nights because of the unbearable itch and was determined to try to resolve it as soon as possible before it became more serious.

In the midst of my consultation with Dr. Najeb, I was in the accompany of 5 medical students from IMU sitting and discussing about the patients conditions as they come in one by one. It was common to have them around and everytime it was a different set of students with different sets of personality. Armed with textbooks or notes in the hand, they were often questioned what kind of prognosis to give to the respective patients and what kinda of medicine to prescribe to improve their condition. However, I didnt have the passion to pursue this line of duty as being a doctor requires more than the thought of making millions but more of helping others who are in need. And looking at that, Ive always gave alot of respect to those who serve in public hospital where the pay may be less than working in the private hospital but the number of people you get to serve is so much more. Dr. Najeb check my condition under close curtain. I was asked whether I would allow the students to take a look at my condition or even allow the male medical student to observe, I declined that invitation out of embarasment due to showing my privates to an unknown person was pretty intimidating. On second thought, I would want to contribute and allow him to take a look so that when face with a similar situation, he was able to make the necessary prognosis that may help somoene else in the future with the similar condition as mine. With the neccesary I acquired after my visit today, I hope that this medicine will help improve the situation and at the same time I'm praying that His divine healing will hastened the recovering process. I realise that hygience is equally important and this may be why I'm suffering from all this skin allergies. Or maybe this is something hieraditary due to my family history of having sensitive skins.

One of my favourite past time is to observe people around me. As I waited for my turn to see the doctor and also to collect my medication, I took this oppurtunity to indulge on one of favourite past time. My target group this time seem to be focus to the little children there. I always had fascination for little children. It was merely the way the reacted to things which may seem so innocent and also their care free nature of not having to worry about so many things which we adults seem to do it quite naturally. One of encounters was a pair of twins who seems to having a ball to themselves by merely playing around with empty plastic bags. I guess they likened it like ballons floating around as they let them go and allow the wind to carry them away. They were going through the whole routine all over again. Such simple acts allowed them to be happy. Sometimes I do imagine what the world would be if all of us were to be child like in nature and not worry about anything. However, the other extreme would be nothing would be done if we were be care free like a child. Looking a child amazes me all the time then sometimes in life we need not worry so much and just take things as it is and enjoy the little things that we have. Maybe in this way we could learn to be happy and not complain all the times. Well, as the general statement made by many, humans are never satisfied with what they have.

After the visit to the hospital which took almost the whole morning, I went out with lunch with my grandparents where they decided to foot the bill althought I had already taken out money to pay for it. I decided to turn down my grandparents invitation to sit at their house after fetching them back as I wanted to return home to take a nice bath before going to bed to get the much anticipated sleep I need. Well, the wanting was so great that I ended up sleeping for 4 hours and was awaken by my mom's shout to wake me up.