Doctor - a zigzag journey

Part 22 - A bumpy journey

Background: 1999 - 2000 (Age 32 -33 years)

It was a weekend. The noise of the playful kid next door woke me from sleep. It was 10AM anyway. The telephone sitting on my desk reminded me to call Ah Ma. I wished to tell her good news. She was living with my second elder brother and sister-in-law in Malacca.

"Ah Ma, have you eaten?" I spoke in a dialect – Hokkien.

We communicated in Hokkien most of the time. Instead of asking "how are you", we usually asked each other "have you eaten?" because we were grateful that we could have three meals in a day.

"I have had my breakfast. Today is your rest day, go to visit your friends. You are no longer a small kid, it is time to find a girlfriend," Ah Ma reminded me.

Yes, I was thirty-two years old! And yet single. No further news about Lola and Esther (university mates), and Selina (a colleague in my previous company). I paused for a moment. Suddenly, came the noise of the neighborhood kid again. I lived in a condominium in which apartments were separated by a thin wall.

"Oh, I get it. Are you feeling all right, Ma? How are your knee pain and shortness of breath?" I replied.

Ah Ma had worn herself out from hard work; she had arthritis.

"I'm okay. Don't you hear the sound of the neighbor kid? It is wonderful having a wife and kid at home. I'm seventy years old now and won't be able to take care of you for the rest of your life," she insisted.

Those words saddened me. It was not the right time to tell her that I had completed my master degree with flying colors and was planning to apply to study medicine.

"OK, Ma. No luck at present. Well, you take care of yourself," I ended rather abruptly with an intention to find an 'inner sanctum' to reflect on myself.

"OK. Go to eat," she gave in finally.

The phone was hung up. I was conflicted and saddened. The neighborhood kid was exhausted, and the noise subsided.

*****

My daily routines repeated monotonously.

One day, I came home from work, and received my ordered book - "Applying to Medical School for the Non-traditional Student, by Bryan Goss, 1997".

After having a bath, I sat on my cozy sofa. The T-shirt with a printed "Y2K" (the year 2000) logo had become my pajamas. In the year 2000, I would be 33. It was time to take action to pursue my ambition, or never.

I turned to the first page of the book. The author wrote that "I decided to write this book while I was a non-traditional pre-med student who was going through the application process." This sounded like talking to me. The book included interviews with several Americans who were in their late twenties and thirties, who left their jobs in order to apply to medical schools. The interviews covered their experience and hardship in the application process and their lives as mature medical students. The book seemed to tell me that "Do not give up, be bold to try." It gave me the courage. However, having said that, those students were in the United States of America (USA). I lived in Malaysia and worked in Singapore where the environment and education systems were not the same as the USA. The USA was too far from Malaysia, I believed. It would be difficult for me to rush home if Ah Ma had become ill. Nonetheless, I decided to explore other opportunities instead.

It was pretty late at night. Time to bed. I had to get up early next day to meet a new client at a multinational engineering organization located at the Indonesia Bintan industrial zone on an island. I had to go to the World Trade Centre in Singapore to take a ferry to the island.

*****

Early in the morning, I ate my breakfast (a glass of milk and a piece of coconut bread) hastily at Malaysia, then I rushed to Singapore. Upon arriving at the World Trade Center in Singapore, I bought a newspaper. Holding the newspaper in my left hand and carrying my laptop computer on my right shoulder, I walked pass many branded designer shops. However, I didn't have time to shop around; it was just in time to catch the ferry. Even if I had time, I would not shop around and spend money on branded goods which were costly. I lived thriftily because I know that if given the opportunity to study medicine, I would need a lot of money to pay for the fees.

The Indonesian island was about fifty kilometers from Singapore, and the journey took about seventy five minutes. Soon after the ferry departed, I read the newspaper. It was hard to concentrate at times when the ferry hit bumpy waves. The roaring waves caused a sensation of butterfly in my stomach. When the waves calmed down, I could hear the ferry rumbled. It was a bumpy journey. Nonetheless, an advertisement that read "The School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore will offer a course in medicine coupled with a Ph.D. program" caught my attention. Wow, I would like to inquire about this opportunity! The admission criteria were stringent especially in the age criteria. But I was determined to explore and find out more about the program. I know the journey to my ambition would be as bumpy as this journey to my work destination.