HMDP Seminar

Dear Diary,

It is almost Sunday. The last few hours of Saturday! The feeling is so familiar. It always happens and we let it past again and again without injecting meaning into it. Time is always moving and occasionally I do lapse into that “What am I doing on Earth” type of mindset. This morning’s seminar and workshop by a HMDP expert Associate Professor Julie Ann Dopheide, was great. It was worth that crawling out from bed early in the morning despite turning in late the night before. I even got lost on the way to that seminar venue. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the seminar-cum-workshop. Those sitting around me were less enthusiastic though. There was even one point of time when we were broken up into groups to solve some case studies and my group members did not even bother! They told me they didn’t know anything and that they were from unrelated fields like National Skin Centre blah blah… So I basically just discussed with that pre-reg. She wasn’t confident at all and even kinda “pleaded” me to go up on her behalf when the professor “arrowed” her to lead the discussion. Surprisingly, I survived that episode. Barely. Thanks to a guy who decided to join our group suddenly and accompany me up to present. He is clearly a big fan of Assoc Prof Julie, I could notice that! ;-) Something else left a delectable impression in my mind though. I watched how a particular pharmacist (probably in her early 40’s) presented her answers for another question. She was clearly not knowledgeable in psychiatric medicine but she still boldly presented her answers. Despite numerous mistakes, she did not look one bit discouraged or embarrassed. I guess it is all about one’s egocentricity. Maybe when one grows older, one becomes more matured and less self-conscious? I must learn from her and not from a bunch of pharmacists who left halfway due to “performance anxiety”, haha… =P

It seemed like a God-given opportunity when an elderly pharmacist offered me a ride to the train station. He was the one whom I wanted to talk to about God. So in his car, within those 20 minutes, I left him to ponder on why there could only be one truth and why it is impossible for us attain salvation by our merits alone. I sure hope I have another chance to follow up on him on this. I think I stumped him when I told him that it is not right to say that all ways to God are true. The fact that they differ and contradict each other blatantly in doctrines, means that there could only be one truth. On a personal reflection, maybe that argument is applicable to the issue of Christian denominations too. Sigh…

Yesterday evening was a mini gathering in the name of birthday celebration, haha… I met up with friend earlier to buy a present and a card for the birthday girl. It was a nice gathering at Tian Tian steamboat restaurant at Tan Quee Lan street. There were 7 of us and we had just so many things to share and talk about. The food was so-so but the company made it very memorable. After that buffet dinner, the birthday girl’s ex-student left but another friend joined us. She brought along her hubby. Excluding the hubby, all of us are / were from Watsons Pharmacy. So we were ex- or current colleagues. Sadly, the “ex-” outnumbered the “current” by a ratio of 4:3… hee… We had drinks and desserts at Phin’s Steakhouse at Liang Seah Street till 11.30pm. Felt like the good old days, yet it is not possible to ignore the fact that everything we shared were past memories. It felt the same too when I chatted with some of my old classmates and juniors at the HMDP talk. No matter how we reassure each other that we are young and how we are newly minted from the university… we cannot deny that more than 2 years of working life had gone by.

So while we can enjoy the beauty of this world, we must remember that this is all temporal. University life is temporal and in my case, had come to past. Career success and wealth are temporal too. Even family and friends are. As we recognised inevitability of the life eternal beyond this temporal one, we should live with love and compassion. I thank God that He is love and we, as his creation, can also experience and give love. I like how the late Mother Theresa put it when she showed the “maverick” (yes John McCain, we know you are a maverick, haha) attitude which ran against the norm of the world.

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway!
If you are kind, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway!
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and real enemies.
Succeed anyway!
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway!
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway!
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway!
People really need help but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway!
Give the world your best and it will hurt you.
Give your best anyway!

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

God Bless,

Andrew