Have You Read...?

Stole this from someone's Facebook tag. Apparently it's the 100 must-read books. Or something like that.

1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
2a) Add a '-' to the ones you HATE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X+++
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (bought it but yet to read...Option 4, let's # it)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee #
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X+++
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (that will take me yearsss...)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger *
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger*
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (I doubt I'd ever read it, and I'm inclined to blame the movie for it)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens *
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky *
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck #
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X- (in bold)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X+
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens *
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt *
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X+
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas *
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding X+++
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens * (can you believe that I have not read the book yet?)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens #
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker *
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro *
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom *
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X+++
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton X+++ (my fav as a kid!!!)
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo *

No excuse for not knowing what to do on in my spare time!

He

He was there right from the start. Holding her hand. Stroking her head. Kissing her softly as she winces in pain. Her tower of strength.

He was there in her hour of need. He kept her company when she was alone. And afraid. In this foreign place. He was there, from morning to dawn.

He made sure she was comfortable. He brought her flowers. And books and magazines to take her mind off it. He checks that she's not hungry, or thirsty. He tells her jokes that made her laugh. He updates her family, his family, and their friends. He flew all the way just to be with her, for her, and stand by her.

***

In case you think this is just another one of my daydreams, it's not.

She's real. He's real. It's real.

A 25 yr old doctor was admitted to Casualty at our neighbouring hospital for sudden onset of chest pain over the weekend. It was suspected to be a heart attack and she's now at the our hospital for further investigations.

He was here since her admission on Monday. Never leaving her bedside. Always around.

It's one of the things I look forward to when I go to the ward everyday (that, and my cutie pie Registrar). The sight of them gives me hope and renews my faith. Hope that love exists. Faith that such a 'he' exists.

***

Speaking of my cutie pie registrar, boy have I got news for you!

I was speaking to a patient yesterday, and he curiously asked about my nationality, after failing miserably to locate me based on my 'elusive' accent. I proudly told him my country of origin (as always) and he said the surgeon who operated on him is Malaysian too.

Anyway, don't know why I thought that was news-worthy, but it came up in my conversation with my colleague this afternoon as we were walking back to our office. I told her what I found out, and she said one of the cardiology registrars is Malaysian as well.

No prizes for guessing who....

YES YES, MR CUTIE PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***

My colleague: "Oh really? Mr DS is Malaysian? Aww, lovely. Oh you know what? One of the cardio registrars is Malaysian as well. Oh I can't remember his name...[me prompting with some hints]. Yeah, that's the one! Oh he's sweet. Really nice. *jokingly suggests to me* Hmm, now that you know, maybe you can get to know him better. If you're single haha. You never know."

I approached him once on a Friday evening a long long time ago (har-har, good guess but it wasn't to ask him out). I had a burning question about the heart and who better to ask than the cute doctor I have a crush on...sorry. The competent doctor who specialises in that field.

Me: "Hi, sorry to trouble you, but can I ask you a question please"? [heart racing, palms sweating, thank God not slurring]

He: "Yup, wassup?" [seriously, he said wassup. No kidding. Ohhhh this guy is kewl...]

Me: "blah blah blah, I'm doing an audit on pacemakers blah blah blah, what is the reason for xyz blah blah blah"

He: "yada yada yada...empirical [good choice of word]...yada yada yada...dogma [lagi good choice of word]..." er, the rest was a blur.

Bottomline: He's cool, approachable, not arrogant, speaks blardi good English.

Just saw J's message. "Have I stalked him on Facebook?" Yes but to no avail. Which is good, coz that means he's not a Facebook guy, which is MY kind of guy.

The Bachs, Brahms and Beethovens of tomorrow

Listening to: Dreaming of You (Selena)

"If you looked in my eyes, would you see what's inside, would you even care?"

Myself, Chet Wei and her friend David were out at the Royal Overseas League (nicely located behind the Ritz) tonight to support our ex-classmate Shuenda in the ROSL Annual Music Competition.

Shuenda deservingly got himself into the Keyboard Section Finals, beating 30 other hopefuls en route to tonight's grand finale, competing against 5 other contestants. There were 2 South Africans, a Taiwanese, an Australian (who looks like the teenage version of Josh Groban), a Maple Leafian (sorry, Canadian) and last but not least a MALAYSIAN!!! Ben Schoemann (the guy from SA) was crowned the overall winner but personally I thought Shuenda's choice of songs (and rendition too, of course) were better. All biasness aside.

The 6 of them were uniquely magnificent in their own way. Yours truly may not have a discerning ear in music but the 30 minute performance (from each) were really enthralling. Sure enough, Munny yawned and fought to keep her eyes open, but that wasn't attributed to the recitals. The harmonious tunes were simply so serene that she was (almost) lulled into sleep.

Yeah you laugh. You would too if you had gone there straight after work, and had less than 6 hours sleep the night before trying to rush an audit report.

Oh well, at least it's done.

And I guess as a reward for all my (last minute) hardwork, I managed to see my favourite (cutie pie) Registrar on the ward today.

*ALL SMILES*

Think Alex Yoong but with spiky hair, the same soft spokenness but wayyy cuter. Hopefully no beauty pagaent wife and adorable son....
And I thought I was only susceptible to what my sis and her bunch of pals call Rories...

Dreaming of you

Listening to: Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)

"listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness...like a heartbeat.. drives you mad"

I don't know if it's stress, coincidence or just plain randomness, but I've been having dreams about my colleague for the last couple of nights.

THREE nights in a row to be exact. Bizarre innit?

I can't remember when and what and how (naturally), but I am sure he was in it.

Is someone trying to tell me something?

I'm a little afraid of going to bed tonight. Because if I do dream of him again I think I'll have bruises in the morning. All for pinching myself too hard.

Please dream-spinner, don't freak me out.

Home & Away

16 days (away) and I didn't recognise my room in South Parade.

I find it amusing actually. How I could forget the landscape of this tiny little shoebox that I've been inhabiting since July. How I responded when I entered the room. As if seeing it for the first time. Me thinking, "hmm, this isn't so bad". As opposed to "oh no, not again".

Amazing what a 2-week break (home) can do.

It was a good form of absence too (I believe) as far as work is concerned. I probably have more colleagues chat me up today than I ever do in a week. "So how's your holiday?" "Did you have a good time?" "Aww, Malaysia must be lovely". "Bet you didn't want to come back to this horrible weather."

"Too short". "Obviously". "Without a doubt". "More than you think".

I saw an aeroplane flew above me as I was walking back from work. At least 36 hours has passed since I left (home).

I'm away, but I left my heart there.