A month went by...

I have been neglecting my blog for more than a month. Trust me, the guilt of seeing the same entry on top of my blog haunts me everyday.

Alhamdulillah, things are progressing well here. True enough, the subjects were no longer as breezy as those in A-Levels, but this is the path I have chosen. Studying can be tedious at times, but there are those moments when I paused and think - Subhanallah, Allah is Great. Things as simple as an uptake of glucose is not so simple after all - it goes around a long cycle, induced and repressed by certain factors. It is really amazing. Anatomy classes never seemed to stop to amaze me (and giving me wonderful tongue twists as well).

One of the classes I particulary enjoy here is Humanity. It is the only class where examinations are not needed and notes need not to be taken down. It is a class where what is needed is our heart and soul, and a pair of attentive ears. In the first Humanity class we had, our lecturer asked us to share our feelings when we first saw the cadaver in our dissection sessions. Our dissection sessions, by the way, is everyday, save for Wednesday. At first, no one spoke up. Then, one by one, started to share the thoughts they had:

"Why is he here?"

"Doesn't anyone want him?"

"Is he so poor that he needed to give his dead body away to support his family?"

"What happened to him?"

"Our differences are only skin-deep."

"Even in death, he is teaching us something."

My first thought when I myself saw the cadaver was that this is what we are all going to be one day. Just flesh and bones, rotting away to be recycled for other living things.. It is the soul that matters. It is the soul that makes us who we are.

The class was pretty much emotional. It drew tears. At the end of the class, we were asked to put our thoughts onto a piece of paper and to submit it to our lecturer.

The second Humanity class was more brutal. A lecturer came from Kasturba Medical College. He is the head of department of Biochemistry at the university. At first, he made a joke out of our dean's "Rain Clap". His laugh was just something out of this world. It just makes us laugh along even though we don't understand what was it that he thought to be so funny. All jokes aside, he gave us three sheets of papers - one was the story of an AIDS patient named Ron, another was a letter from second year medical student on quitting the course and lastly was an article about the inhumanity of medicine. Our lecturer starts getting serious. He told us that he shed tears after reading our thoughts.

"Your heart is so young, so pure.. so innocent! You're too good for this world. You don't belong here.." He said.

He then lamented on his own experience, before launching into an outburst: "Where is that pure heart of mine now? It's gone. My heart is like a stone, man!" He told us how many doctors try to escape the human sufferings they see every day. It is not easy, that is for sure. I realize that ever since I've decided to pursue this career. I know it would be a journey of so much sacrifice, pain and strife.. but I believe that iman is important to sustain that passion. I'm praying hard that I won't turn back. And most of all, I'm praying hard that I will turn into a doctor that I aspire to be.

Humanity classes aside, other classes is going well. I love all my lecturers. They all have something that we can identify with. For instance, Table 5 dissector, Mr. Venkat Ramana, will usually say "like that". Mr. Sudarshan would say "Okay, fine" or "So sad..." and Mr. James Gonsalves will go "which is nothing but..." The slangs are really something here. They were times when we are just plain dumbfounded over the words that were said. They pronounce motor as "mo-tar", for example. They don't know what handphones are - they are "mobiles". We don't "pack" food here, we "parcel" them. Speaking of food, I'm far away from being deprived of them. Seems like my cheeks are getting chubbier, even in Ramadhan! *horrors* I seemed to be very fond of the mint cheese grilled sandwich at a vegetarian restaurant here.

We had a nice 4-day break from Saturday (yes, we have Saturday classes) to this Tuesday. Saturday was Diwali, and there was a huge fireworks display here. They carried on playing the fireworks up to the late hours in the nights, and even continue doing so on Sunday night. It was extremely noisy. Our Hari Raya is today (Monday). We had a good Eid prayer, although our takbir sounds really different from the mellow one we usually have in Malaysia. Our real ceremony for Eid would be tomorrow, though. It will be held at a senior's house. I'm going off soon to help them with the lontong!

So far, I have been around to a lot of places. We've been to so many place to eat. We've went to Udupi to buy cloth for our tailor-made salwar, as well as to shop for certain furnitures and shoes! We've been to End Point, where we had a good view of a large, idyllic rainbow and the sea. We've been to the Maple Beach, where we watched the sunset, and had a peaceful prayer by the sea. The prayer by the sea gave me a reminder that no matter where we are on this earth, we are always His creation, His slaves. Di mana bumi dipijak, di situlah kita hamba Allah. Last Sunday, I even got the chance to visit a nearby orphanage. Although we were separated by the boundaries of language, it didn't stop the kids from laughing and enjoying with us. It was a good visit.

I'd love to upload pictures, but I'm running out of time. Perhaps I'll include them in my next entry. 'Til then, selamat hari raya, maaf zahir dan batin to each and everyone of you who's reading this blog. May Allah bless all of you!