Exit, Pursued by Dogs

News on my placement for the end of the year:
it looks like I won’t have to spend it here.
I’ve been approved for Dubai in November.
And while I’m overseas, I might sight-see in December.

But amid all this talk of international rotations,
classmates posting applications to distant nations
and their seemingly never ending conversations
on the frustrations
of ambiguous indications from hospital administrations,
I can’t help but sit back and recall
how it was before
back in ‘09 when I went to Singapore.

Well, I was quite broke back then
(plus ça change, plus c’est la même)
so I scoured the internet up and down
until I found the cheapest room and board around,
I ended up in the spare room of a siao liao gal.
It was uncanny how, her life seemed to resemble a Channel 8 drama
but I guess boarding so cheap that was probably my karma
and between two months of observing her life
with apparent addiction to chaos and strife,
I was pursued by a pack of eponymous hounds
I found them hanging around at the edge of town.

See trains and buses had stopped for the night
so, out of options, I hopped in a taxi despite
the cost and not knowing my precise address
my guess was close enough that I thought it best
to just get out and walk the rest.

Within a few hundred meters of my destination,
I managed to recognise a railway station
and decided I’d just follow the train line home.
I would have checked more carefully if only I’d known.
I picked the wrong direction to walk along the MRT,
the path got quieter til there was no-one bar me.

By the time I realised I was all alone
in a nearly deserted commercial zone
and decided maybe this wasn’t quite right
I’d walked almost an hour through the moonlit night.

I decided to turn and find my way back
and that’s when I ran into a stray pack
of five large dogs ready to attack
growling and snapping trying to circle my back.

I walked backwards all the way to the main road
keys in hand (the only sharp thing I had stowed).
Fortunately, once I re-emerged into streetlight
the dogs paused for a moment on the edge of the night
then decided to leave me alone
free to return to the long walk home.

A picture of me shortly before wandering off to be chased by dogs
(Apparently that thing on the so-called lantern has its own movie too. Who’d have thought?)

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The GAMSAT

I got my bachelors degree in the recent past
like most graduates I thought it’d be the last
time I’d see a classroom for decades more
that I’d never make post-grad with my GPA score

But I decided that I had nothing to lose
and that thought was what lead me to choose
to look at the GAMSAT and take a shot
at that test, because I just thought “Hell, why not?”

My background’s legal drug dealing and pharmacology
so I was already up to speed on chemistry and biology
I read up on electronics – charges, transistors
I practiced essays til my hands had blisters

I read Newton’s laws during all my lunch breaks
wondering what difference so much study makes
whether all the effort would help out in the test
or if I was just trying to put my own doubts to rest

I got to the venue, met a few people I knew
turned out they craved a career change too
We all shuffled in with our fingers crossed
knowing in a few hours it’d be won or lost

We scratched our pencils across the pages
it seemed like we sat in that room for ages
one by one the horrible questions assailed
by the end everyone thought that they’d failed

What a surprise to hear at the end of May
(when I’d almost forgotten the events of test day)
to finally find out how we’d all done
and be informed that I’d scored an 81

At first I couldn’t quite believe my own eyes
even 50 would have been a welcome suprise
sixty would have been good, seventy better
but with 80 I was almost guaranteed my acceptance letter

So I applied to the schools I liked the most
got accepted to one over on the East coast
that pretty much brings you up to speed
and leaves us primed for entry three

The Rhyming Med Student

This is the most absurd blog you’ll ever read
The rhyming med student – that’s me
Anyone can write about a life in prose
but I’ve gone one better and I chose
to keep my records in a form that flows
a little better which just goes to show
that bloggers can really go so low
in looking for some small quirk
to make their posts all work
a little harder at drawing readers in
but enough of that – I need to lead us in
and I’ve decided that I must begin
by making a post recapping
the host of things that happened
to bring me to where I am now
so the next post will aim to show how
I ended up been allowed
to come back for study at uni
so watch this space and you’ll soon see
the next entry written about me…