2012: The End of The World (Again)

The eschatologies of various mythologies
offer their apologies that in their chronology
next year will unfortunately be our last
who’d have thought we’d see the end arrive so fast?

Starting with the count of the Mayan system
people are saying you should listen
not to Harold Camping’s wisdom
but the alien prediction
of a collision and our eventual extinction.

This theory gave us movies like 2012,
which no doubt made Mayan cognoscenti hurl,
and if you ask me then I do say
this’ll probably go the same way as Y2K
but apparently we face enough panic and trepidation
that the National Space Aeronautic Administration
has seen fit to state all clear and nothing to fear.
So for now, I guess, just have a great new year!

Image from here

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Not Blogging for Extended Periods Leads to Awards

Yesterday I was apprised of a prize from Love the Bad Guy.
To my surprise I surmise that I’ve finally had my
verse and style mistaken for being versatile
but, despite the error, I’ll take it with an obverse smile.

So now seven facts for you to find out about
then my chance to tout a couple of shout outs
(though without doubt I’ll probably take the route
of choosing to flout the 15 blog rule and not draw things out)

For breakfast, once, I ate a tortoise,
we’d just left a hotel and the rush had caught us
in a state of disarray without time to dine
but while waiting at the airport in the check-in line
I saw a café with tortoise served in a stein
and thought ‘hmm…that’ll do just fine’.

My natural sleep schedule’s mostly nocturnal
the sun’s eternal diurnal
rhythm messes with my internal
clock. I’d prefer working at night to all this daylight,
and if my classes were all posted post-meridian I’d be alright.

Late last century when I was still in elementary
I skipped forward a year, thereby essentially
advancing non-sequentially
rather than more conventionally
one year at a time as it is generally meant to be.

I have a brother he
is like another me
but I’m not as musically inclined, enthusiastic or that tall
actually on second thought, he’s really not like me at all.

Last year I was in a local film production
I played a framing part in the introduction
as a doctor being first on the scene,
I was keen to get a chance on the silver screen.

Well then, just two more facts to go,
so my dearest reader, did in fact you know,
wanting to look a little older I thought I’d act to show
maturity by growing a beard and it really wasn’t coming in too slow
but after a week it looked like my face was sprouting and I just let it go
(I’d put the photo below but I’ve misplaced it though).

It looked something like this but less onion-y.

The final one, then I’m finally done;
I used to be a lifeguard when I used to be young
but now I study all day and shun sun
so most everyone’s stunned when I tell them I ever was one.

I won’t pass on the award as such
but here’s a few blogs you might like very much:

Snotting Black
Straight Guy in The Queer Skies
Topicless Bar
Renxkyoko
The Undreamt Terrain

I was going to throw out a reference to Mahfooz
who’s blog on medicine and his personal views
are well worth a peruse but due to an issue
with my distractibility, I see now that he’s beat me to that too.

Second picture taken from here

Misleading Names

Sometimes before a test I read a text
inspect the index and get vexed
by the way they name names
in the main it’s insane
the lame games
leading to these far from plain names.

Intermittent explosive disorder, just to start off
first hearing about it you’d think it must be part of
some sort of under-hand terror plot
but understand that’s an error – it’s not.
It’s just people who’s mood can turn quickly to rage
(I learned that from a Wikipedia page).

Or, worse yet, super male syndrome would imply
sufferers with super strength who could in fact fly
but no, they don’t even have laser vision!
clearly this eponym needs major revision.

Let’s not even start on Sonic Hedgehog diprosopus
and leprechaunism or they’d never stop us
because it seems logic just goes right out the door
-perhaps geneticists shouldn’t write books anymore.

Dancing Med Students

Ok people, listen,
get out of the fetal position
repro’s over for now, until exam revision.
The uni’s next planned decision
is to teach us with bland precision
the ins and outs of the MS division.

Musculoskeletal – sprains and strains
fractures and rheumatologic pains.
The examination’s like a series of games
I always win at Yergason’s when the patient’s lame.

But how do you remember the order for supination,
extension, flexion and internal rotation?
Much less all the tests for intact sensation,
it’s really all just an overload of information.

So everyone seems to be formulating dances
the patient copies the moves and the chance is
good that you’ll eventually get all the answers,
cover every test except the ones for cancer.

And sure, that strategy’s sound
but it’s a little disconcerting when I look around
to see half the people in the room bobbing up and down
adducting their shoulders like epileptic clowns.

Oh well, at least their ridiculous actions
provide me with some welcome distraction
from reading up on muscle fibre interaction…

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?)