lemonade & tea

yesterday is history. tomorrow is mystery. today is a gift.

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3-year-old Fena never thought she’d ever be without glasses again but !!hullo here we are! 😳 All those years of six-monthly-reviews and 1%-atropine-eyedrops (yes friends I was the guinea pig you learnt about in eye posting) and transition lenses, and this quite doesn’t solve the problems that come with severe myopia but at least I can see more than 10cm in front of me now!! 💫 Swipe to see photos of smol fena in spectacles and what this girl has been seeing without her glasses all this time (which is… not very much LOL) Kinda miss my specs-face and being able to escape to that blurry world and also being able to hide all my eyebags, but momma is just all “this is your original face what too bad” and “wah finally can put away those glasses; everytime I see those thick lens I want to throw them away” like !?!?? hallo she’s been wanting to do what for 23 years ??? 23/7/21; which also means I have an excuse to skip studying on small screens and watch the Olympics on the big screen instead 🌚 https://www.instagram.com/p/CRv1B7vlCmMln21qaA7whdPBaJtH0t9B9YD8Aw0/?utm_medium=tumblr

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6 Jan 2021 - 5 July 2021 | Guess who decided to do half a year of surgery for fun before heading to IM-land 🙋🏻‍♀️ Finally had some time to take a breather and look back on these 6 months of - running colo/UGI/H&N/breast/Vasc/HPB clinics (=!?!)(including that one memorable time with 11 x new PR bleeders..) and retractor-holding and not-so-good camera-holding and prolene-tying my glasses and sometimes-cutting/stitching/I&Ding <3 and late evenings chionging admin/M&M/TB/PRL and gatekeeping SHD (which pretty much just meant begging the world for HD beds) and attempting (and failing) IAs on call (ok but good cuz at least there’s something that isn’t so foreign in this foreign land now) and active float x 3 weeks and ANA friends on the other end of the curtain and realizing my glove size is actually 5.5 jialat and getting nurses and bosses v confused btwn me & not-fena (@chong.yvette ) and friendz :))) Had many many people who proptosed at this noobie hahah but wouldn’t have traded this for anything else I think. Thank you for letting this girl check this off her bucket list before returning to med for good. ♥️ (at Sengkang General Hospital) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRa2YmwFNwAXDI5Z5DapJZZVSA3oIHFWm2pwbQ0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[greaterland]

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🥺

Gave me chills.

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by History Cool Kids 🌐 (@historycoolkids) on Jun 5, 2020 at 2:12pm PDT

More than 8 decades ago, but this still hits home.

Caption:

Jesse Owens of USA winning gold for the long jump in the summer Olympics in Nazi Germany, 1936.⁣

The man saluting behind Owens is Lutz Long, a German who shared training tips with Owens and was the first to openly congratulate him after his final jump in full view of Hitler. After the Olympics, the two kept in touch via mail. Below is Long's last letter to Owens while he was stationed with the German Army in North Africa during World War 2. Long was later killed in action during the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

"I am here, Jesse, where it seems there is only the dry sand and the wet blood. I do not fear so much for myself, my friend Jesse, I fear for my woman who is home, and my young son Karl, who has never really known his father.⁣

My heart tells me, if I be honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write. If it is so, I ask you something. It is a something so very important to me. It is you go to Germany when this war done, someday find my Karl, and tell him about his father. Tell him, Jesse, what times were like when we not separated by war. I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth.⁣

If you do this something for me, this thing that I need the most to know will be done, I do something for you, now. I tell you something I know you want to hear. And it is true.⁣

That hour in Berlin when I first spoke to you, when you had your knee upon the ground, I knew that you were in prayer.⁣

Then I not know how I know. Now I do. I know it is never by chance that we come together. I come to you that hour in 1936 for purpose more than der Berliner Olympiade.⁣

And you, I believe, will read this letter, while it should not be possible to reach you ever, for purpose more even than our friendship.⁣

I believe this shall come about because I think now that God will make it come about. This is what I have to tell you, Jesse.⁣

I think I might believe in God.⁣

And I pray to him that, even while it should not be possible for this to reach you ever, these words I write will still be read by you.⁣

Your brother,⁣

Luz"⁣

⁣

Source: https://lettersofnote.com/2016/08/15/tell-him-about-his-father/⁣

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Hullo I’m back! Buns with rabbit ears? You got it! ..Clearly my brain is broken. #BUNnies #amazingpuns #doodles #thisisntevenmypununfortunately #butiluvit #sorrynotsorry #bread #dough #bun #chocolate #chocolatswirl #cute #rabbitsofinstagram #cartoon #baking #bakery #fakeryLOL (at Bake-Baking-Baked) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAc7F9Blvm2/?igshid=gbw5komiee30

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Everything we are are just sides of the same coin.

May the 4th be with you ✨

(#kylorenorsoloben🧐)

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3/3 ✔️🎉 What a time to be in genmed!! [Can you believe this naive soul read the WHO circulars back in early early Jan and was like ‘nah 27 cases of severe pneumonia in Wuhan won’t become a thing’ lmaooo joke of the year] Started off just trying to transition back from smol babies to adult human beings and panicking on my first IM call because I had 10 cultures that night and I’d forgotten how to take from adult veins (can you believe that I can set neonate plugs but fail miserably at taking blood from wrinkly ahmas omg help), and it all went downhill from there HAHAH. From being part of the first ARI team back in February where everything was new and uncertain and all of us were running around like headless chickens (now HALF of genmed is ARI), to the many many call permutations, multiple mask fittings attempts cuz the N95 really doesn’t fit this flat face lol, remaining in SG for CNY for the first time because of manpower, and a lot a lot a lot of food, it’s been a change — but change has been pretty fun with friends and colleagues and insanely nice bosses who !?drags an ultrasound machine over and help to set plugs?? And calls are really more fun with friends :) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_rUS5_l-wfxl1B1OuynQM3Fkkp8xZp2b1X4Q40/?igshid=yd04btcjfmo5

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Perks of the entire world going COVID are:

- free opera streaming from the Met Opera

- singers going on IGTV: aka Chris Martin and John Legend and Alec Benjamin and CHARLIE PUTH AND HIS BEAUTIFUL PIANO CHORDS AND RAMBLING and and and DANNY JONES AND MCFLY SONGS FROM AN ERA AGO LIKE POV AND NOT ALONE AND WALK IN THE SUN — nearly cried because childhood.

- feeling a little less alone

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So I made a thing!

Have been doodling happy things to get the gloom off my chest lately, and finally got around to posting them. Crack tags included, if anyone fancies reading through them.

It's a really short, silly story. But it makes me smile.

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Time is a funny thing

Finally taking a day or three off

And finally tidying up my website and cover bits on a whim

And posting my doodles on a whim -- http://instagram.com/bristleandthorn knock yourselves’ out

And would you have it: THIS BLOG TURNS TEN TODAY. TODAY. TEN. 

I don’t even know what to say.

But it’s funny how life works out.

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so i bought an Apple Pencil lately

and have been sketching a little on the house ipad

have been making short drabbles with Paper53

maybe i’ll do one with these.

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LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS OMG HAHAHAHAH

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Courage is not the absence of fear.

Never thought I’d be in a position where I would be living that phrase day to day — which on hindsight wow Fena what naivety given your profession LOL — but at the end of the day someone has to do all these things, and if we happen to draw the short end of the stick then I guess we just do the best we can.

#NOWUHANPLS

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choked on my spit

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I think little by little I’m learning to tread without fearing the night, for after black comes colour and after dark comes light. And the world is still a beautiful place.

I’ve rarely posted much this year, and I remember the days (has it been more than decade that I’ve been on this?) where this was the only platform I used all day.

But working life of 6/7 x 6.30am to god-knows-when (minimum 5.30pm, at least) and awful calls have been decimating my motivation and energy -- something I’ll need to work on, I guess. On the bright side of things: At least it means I graduated!!!!!!! With viva for the med paper, like how even ?? Will need to work on picking myself back up and studying again though - it’s been a long time, and I have so much more to learn and so much further to go. I still panic at every call, but have had the fortune of getting understanding seniors who never put me down and always push me on. And, as always, thankful for all these small blessings in life.

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!!! THEY IMPROVED SO MUCH !!!

And everytime i think i get over their duets i just die again each time