Mother's Day Thoughts

Dear Diary,

Feeling good, though a little drowsy, after that evening run. It is good that yahoo and gmail have almost unlimited email storage space for their subscribers. So I am actually now trying to dig out my previous email attachments to my students last year, haha… I am intending to forward the same notes that I did for them last year, to my incoming batch… hee… life will be pretty relaxing since practically all the notes are already prepared! ;-) As I searched for my email, I realised that among all the students (including the incoming ones this year) I had sent a greeting email to, only one of them ever responded to me. I don’t exactly expect a reply when I sent those welcome emails but now as I look at her email, I must say that she had set an unprecedented benchmark in my perception. I always dote all my students (at least, so far… haha) but she is the most impressive till now. Remember this… first impression counts, hahaha… ;-) Hope she got into the hospital of her choice for this year’s preceptorship attachment. I am now pretty sure that this coming batch of students will be the last batch for me… I am firmly resolved that my job scope must change by next year.

Today is Mother’s Day. We attended an earlier and more charismatic church service at St Andrew’s Cathedral. After that, we brought her for lunch at a Thai restaurant. The waitress placed my dad’s order in front of me and so I tried to help her to shift it over to Dad. However, the table was not flat. There was actually unevenness due to the fact that the long table was actually formed by placing small individual tables together. So as I dragged the bowl over to Dad, the bowl toppled and the jade green curry was spilt over the table. Quite a drama indeed! The waitress and I tried to salvage the situation by barricading the flow of the curry with napkins and a towel. Mum asked the waitress to get a new bowl of curry for us… however, somehow… the waitress’ reaction was one of “unsure-ness”. She vacillated and implicitly seemed to decline our request. My sister and my mum were “appalled” with such service. The restaurant manager came and apologised. He got Dad a new bowl of curry. I was actually quite shocked by the whole episode. The way Mum and my sisters demanded the “expected” customer service…. I told Mum that it was my fault but she said that unfortunately in a service industry, the server would have take the share of the blame. Hmmm… my sisters had ever told me how they asked for waiver of service charges at restaurants if they deemed the service to be poor. Wahhh… that’s fierce! Haha….

I was puzzled at how fast I was “absolved” of my mistake by my family members and the waitress bore the blunt of it. That is the world of customer service… I am in it too. However, I will never have reacted that way even as a capacity of a paying customer. Sigh… maybe I don’t know my rights but I am happy to remain that way. Currently, I am in a pharmacy outlet notorious for demanding customers too… but I have actually not met any yet while my former pharmacy classmate in a nearby rival pharmacy keeps complaining how many “evil” customers have spoilt his day! Thank God that I am spared the trials, hahaha… Anyway, when we left the restaurant… the manager even gave us a Mother’s Day present which no other customers seemed to get. It was a wooden rack with two porcelain press-down bottle dispensers. Probably cost more than $10. I guess it is a form of compensation for that incident.

I don’t know why I have this feeling that in recent times, I have committed many sins of apathy and the sins of not doing what is right! I neglect to do right! Sigh… I kept quiet initially when the blame seemed to be laid entirely onto the waitress. I only told them later that I should be blamed for that! In another incident this evening, when I was running… I overheard a China lady talking on her cell-phone, adamant that she was at MacPherson Road when she was actually at Aljunied Road! I should have walked over and told her so… but I did not. Why? Then a couple of days ago, I was eating yong tau foo at a hawker centre and an Indian man came over to me to sell a pair of socks. I declined and then he started to beg for some money. I ignored him… but the moment he left, my heart seemed to convict me of my lack of compassion! I placed my chopsticks down but saw that he has already walked quite a distance away. Did not want to leave my seat. Sigh… another non-action. So when there was a donation for the Myanmar Cyclone crisis in church today, I made sure I gave. I have been so apathetic to my “neighbours”. In fact, I ever spoke to a priest about it but he felt I should not be feeling too bad about not helping the poor and should instead focus on evangelism. I was like… huh? Did not seek his counsel since then, haha…

Next weekend, I will be going for a 3-day young adult church camp. I have mixed feelings… excited and disinterested at the same time… yes, it is contradictory. Many of those I knew had left the church and I don’t really know most of the people attending the camp. Just give it a shot I guess… hopefully, I can strengthen my relationship with God and find direction in my life. I had stumbled over some blogs last night from college students either getting so excited that they got into pharmacy school or so sad that they did not make into this “extremely prestigious” course of study. Maybe they haven’t encountered so many disillusioned ones in the industry. As a former college student, I understand that desire to get into the most sought-after, the most stringent, the most “professional”, the most stable course around. Pharmacy is no doubt one of them. To enter pharmacy school these days, you need almost perfect grades just to have a chance. Then again, I wonder if all these pursuits for satisfaction in the world will just be what the author of Ecclesiastes described…. Vanity, vanity, vanity! My advice is to choose something you love and are passionate about, so that you will excel in a job that you never “work”!

God Bless,

Andrew