A Day of Slow Pace

Dear Diary,

Just completed sending some file attachments to the pre-registration pharmacists upon their request. Happy that they seem interested to learn more. Today is a great day indeed. =) Although I had to kinda crawl out of my bed early in the morning under such cosy conditions (oh yes, it was raining gently outside then), I was pretty glad I made it to the training room at 9am. I never really had a chance to interact with the pre-reg pharmacists so far. Think they have already been training with my company for 5 months now. Engaged in a little get-to-know-you talk with them before I went through the answers for their assignments. Reminded me about those days when I had students attached to me... Oh yes, NUS hasn’t given me my money for those preceptorships yet! Haha… I told the pre-reg that spoon-feeding is the way to learn. It was not supposed to be cheeky. I really think so! I always think that spoon-feeding the basic facts is important because it frees up the student more time to explore areas of interest, increase creativity and also more time for rest! Yup, to prevent “asthenic” conditions, haha… Anyway, the pre-reg pharmacists are a nice little bunch and it was a pleasure to share some knowledge with them. Hope I managed to “challenge” them out of their comfort zones and to really research more into their areas of interest. Recommended them to re-read “Katzung” for basic antibiotic knowledge… study “Di Piro” for pharmacotherapy, “Kota-Kimble” for hospital-based case-studies, and “Harrisons” for disease states (pathophysiology).

After that slightly over 3.5-hour session with them, I went down to have lunch at the food court at Le Meridien Hotel in Dhoby Ghaut. The Thai food was pretty okay at $4.50. Kinda like the fact that it wasn’t overly crowded at the peak lunch hours in City area. Later, I adjourned to the Lobby Lounge at the same hotel. Had a zodiac cocktail (orange juice with alcohol and cherry) and a pretty huge bowl of mixed nuts. The waitress (a foreigner) did not speak English well but she was awesome in her mannerism and definitely courteous. I spent the next 2 hours or so, reading newspapers and continued reading that international best-seller “Father Joe, The Man who saved my soul” by Tony Hendra.

Reading at the sofa (with pillows too!) in a hotel with some nuts and alcohol drink was a luxury! Love every moment of it especially when the service was great and so was the book. =) I wanted to tip her before I leave but there was no $2 note in my wallet. The smallest denominator was $10. So I left without tipping (by the way, that > $15 drink was free-of-charge because of holding a Diner’s Card, Yay!)… hee… Nonetheless, I appreciate the service provided and I know it personally that it is difficult to work in a service industry. Just check out the hoo-ha caused by that petty renowned blogger… Yup, that “Brownie” was offended by body cues exhibited by a pharmacist recently when she directed him to the cashier to make his payment for his goods. It is never easy working in the service line. Maybe they should have a “National Service” by attaching people to service industry for a year or so. We need a more gracious society which knows what is customer service all about and not equating that to “service prostitution or slavery”. I never believe the phrase that “Customer is king”. Unless you want to pay premium service charges?

Anyway, after I left the hotel lounge, I went home… feeling a little drowsy (maybe it’s the alcohol), I took a refreshing nap. =) Ate dinner, watched television, come online… a perfect day to slow down the pace of life indeed! ;-)

By the way, was so proud of my youngest sister who came back from Perth on Monday night. I was listening to her escapades in Australia. She is the first person in my family to go for a tour alone, drove more than 2000km in her hired Toyota Yaris (more mileage than I ever drove in my life… oh yes, don’t think she drove more than 50km after she got her licence in Singapore before that), and even wanted to check out a Benedictine monastery in one of the suburbs she visited. Understandably, the monastery did not allow a female tourist into their quarters to explore, haha… She could take a very long time to navigate a 3-point turn on a 2-way street and not a single Australian driver would honk her. They just waited patiently for her to figure out how to make that turn. An amazing experience she said.

That’s all for tonight! Goodnight.

God Bless,

Andrew