The Misinterpretation of Dreams

How many times have you woken up in the morning wishing you could just take the day off and not have to go to work? Well, I am pleased to say that so far this year, in my new job, it has not yet happened once. It could be that it’s because it’s a new job, new place, new challenge (I like new things!!) but I’m hoping that it’s because I enjoy what I’m doing so much!!
Nevertheless, last night I was pleasantly surprised by an sms from a senior colleague telling me I could take the day off today and she would cover for me. Our department provides an epidural service to the labour ward at the hospital: suitable candidates in labour are eligible to receive an epidural as pain management. I was scheduled to do epidurals for today. There’s just one small problem with this seemingly wonderful service- it’s not what the midwives are used to. And so, as with all new development, there is quite a bit of resistance. From a nursing perspective it means more work, the midwife has to check on the woman in labour more regularly. A woman’s pain levels are used as an assessment tool by many midwives, so if she’s not in excruciating pain, then it kind of throws off their assessment. Also, if the woman can’t feel the contractions, then she has to be coached more carefully through the delivery by the midwives who have to actually stand and feel when she’s having a contraction and tell her to push. At the end of the day, all this means is that there is a certain amount of reluctance from the labour ward as far as epidurals are concerned. They’re not banging on our door begging for us to come and give the women epidurals. Instead, whenever I’ve been scheduled to do epidurals, I have to regularly run up to labour ward and check if there are any eligible candidates. So far I have not yet done one epidural!! What usually happens is that you spend the day floating around between theatre and ICU, helping out wherever an extra hand may be needed and checking on labour ward every now and then. My senior colleague promised she would call me if she was so lucky as to find an epidural for me to do, but that I shouldn’t come in to work otherwise.

Well, of course I had no idea what to do with my unexpected weekday off, and spent a few minutes feeling guilty about it, but then I chatted to a friend who reminded me how we worked our fingers to the bone during internship and community service and convinced me I deserved a day off for all that overtime I was never paid for!! I decided to make the day a little pre birthday present to myself.

So this morning I turned off my alarm when it went off, rolled over and went back to sleep without feeling guilty. I eventually woke up at 7 when a friend who’s visiting KZN for the weekend called to ask what time would be suitable for his return flight, as I’m dropping him off at the airport. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I put on my running shoes, grabbed my iPod and hit the road. No, I’m not an exercise freak, I just like to eat chocolate cake and brownies and I can’t give up wine, but I still want to fit into my little black dress. I don’t like running much and I don’t get very far before I feel like I’m going to die, but my bike’s still in storage, so I don’t have much of an alternative. After my very short run I decided the beach was in order and then a little shopping for some kitchen appliances. I packed my bag and naively took R500 from my drawer, thinking it would be enough to buy me a decent microwave.
I didn’t last long on the beach, the sun was beautiful, but the wind was just a little bit too much. I don’t really like the feeling of being persistently hit by fine grains of sand, and reading is not much fun in those conditions either. So after a short swim, off to the mall I went.

I walked to either end of the mall, to compare prices at Game and House and Home. The cheapest microwave I could find was R529, and I didn’t like it. I happened upon a bra boutique, and found the bras much more appealing than the microwaves, and for R500 I could get bras two and have some change. Also the sales ladies in the bra boutique were much more helpful than the guys in Game, who assumed that because I was wearing shorts and flip flops I probably couldn’t afford their stuff. Not that they were wrong, but you shouldn’t judge a customer by the way they’re dressed, and anyway they had no idea what my microwave budget was! Yes, I felt guilty about the unplanned spending on a luxury like lingerie, but I recently read in Elle that good bras are important to have, even if no one’s gonna see them anytime soon.

After investing in beautiful bras I decided to head off to the reptile park in Izotsha, which claims to be the biggest reptile park in Africa, it’s called Pure Venom. It’s about 9km from Port Shepstone. I discovered that going to a reptile park alone can be a bit strange, to say the least. I have no problem doing movies on my own, I can sit in a restaurant on my own, I can do walks on the beach on my own and smile in greeting at the couples I pass. But at a reptile park, or any kind of animal park for that matter, I think you need someone to comment to about the amazing stuff you see. And so I found myself commenting to anyone who happened to be nearby. Or I would stop one of the workers who happened to be walking by and strike up a conversation. Let’s just say I got some funny looks, even from the old people who normally give me “Ag shame” smiles. I had fun nonetheless. The most interesting animals, I thought, were the green iguanas. They were huge. I also had a nice conversation with the guy cleaning the Nile Crocodile water hole and alerted one of the other workers that there was a goat loose down at the animal farm area. (I think they find it cheaper to have their own supply of food for the reptiles, so there’s an animal farm area with rabbits and pigs and goats and ducks, but they denied that it’s the reptile food supply when I asked!)

After Pure Venom I decided to try the beach again and see if the wind had died down. It hadn’t, but the waves are quite impressive when the wind is a bit strong, so I braved the wind and ate a sandwich while I watched the waves. Then I decided that the perfect way to end off a girly day was with a girly movie, the best one showing in my little town: “He’s Just Not That Into You”
So back to the mall I headed and used my ex boyfriend’s Ster Kinekor Discovery Club Card and got my ticket for only R10. (I’ll take it as an early birthday present from him, but shhhh, don’t tell Discovery, I might be arrested for fraud!) It’s just that I used to keep the movie cards in my purse cos we always went to the movies together and he would’ve misplaced the card. I just haven’t gotten round to giving it back to him. I don’t think he would go to the movies on his own anyway, and if he’s trying to impress some new girl at the movies, then he should fork out. Heeheehee!
And how can I be expected to resist getting a discounted movie ticket when I have the card in my purse?!!! The price of movie tickets these days is absolutely ridiculous!

Anyway, I’ll promise to dissect the movie at a later stage. All in all my day, out on my own was most enjoyable. While waiting for the movie to start, I sat down at a coffee shop and had some pancakes (only because they had no chocolate cake or brownies) and coffee. I have to mention that I love the little packets of sugar Huletts supplies to most restaurants and coffee shops that are left on the table. On the one side of the packet are printed words of wisdom. I think they were designed to keep single people occupied while they wait for their coffee. I recently learned a little trick to make those words of wisdom entertaining: just add “IN BED” on at the end. Here are a few examples:
Mahatma Ghandhi: Be the change you want to see in the world. IN BED
Bernard Baruch: Whatever you do, do it with all your heart and soul. IN BED
And the best one- Ernest Hemingway: Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. IN BED!!

If you don’t get an unexpected weekday off handed to you, I really encourage pulling a sickie once in a while, I’ll supply the doctor’s note!

Today I decided to go into some car dealerships and see what they had to offer. They told me quite openly that the book value for my car was R33 000 but they would give me R20 000! Talk about daylight robbery. Then to add insult to injury they point out that if I’m willing to pay R3000 per month on car installments, all I can afford are the bottom of the range cars, even after trading in my Clio and paying in an extra R20 000!!!
 
I decided to test drive these bottom of the range cars: the Ford Fiesta and the Mazda 2.
The Ford Fiesta feels like a piece of plastic on wheels. The steering wheel is uncomfortably thin, I felt like I would bump my head against the windscreen if I leaned forward slightly, if I pulled the sunshade down I could hardly see through the windscreen!!
The Mazda 2 was better, it was a 1.3 engine, but felt like it had more power than the 1.4 Fiesta! The steering wheel was more comfortable as well as the space, the gear lever was very interestingly placed and it had an alarm, which the Fiesta didn’t! But still, it is not the prettiest car I’ve ever seen. The back is ugly and the wheels are terrible, they have these plastic hub cap things attached to them. And this is valued at more than R140 000!! It’s absolutely ludicrous! I’m sorry, but I absolutely refuse to pay so much money for such suboptimal product.

So I’m gonna hold onto my little rattling piece of French design for now. I think my problem is that I’m a snob with no money. If I knew how to pack enough pairs of shoes for a weekend away into a rucksack, I’d head over to the Vespa shop.

I hate making big decisions for myself, I’m always looking for a sign to point me in the right direction. I can make big decisions about other people’s lives and health as part of my job, but that’s usually because there ARE signs pointing me in the right direction. (maybe that’s what I really love about medicine,the signs, actually never thought about it before!) When a patient presents, the first thing you do is take a history to find out the symptoms, then you do a physical examination to look for signs of disease that tie in with (or sometimes dispute) the history. And that’s how you make your diagnosis most times, the investigations you do usually only serve to confirm the diagnosis or to give a better idea of the extent and severity of the disease. Medicine is all about  signs and symptoms. I wish real life was the same.

At the moment I have this huge decision to make: do I buy a new car? After a year of driving to and from Ingwavuma and Manguzi, my car is in a sad state. I own a 1999 Renault Clio, she’s pretty but getting on in years now and her French designer definitely did not envision her negotiating potholed roads in northern KwaZulu Natal, nevermind dirt roads!!! So now she’s a bit battered and rattles a lot and doesn’t like to start the first time I turn the key. I took her to the local Renault Service Centre in Port Shepstone and they balked. They called me up at work to tell me that they had never seen anything like it before! Apparently the back brakes were metal to metal, they didn’t know how I had driven her safely. The rattling noise I was hearing was because my front shocks were loose and needed to be replaced and my CV joints also needed to be replaced. The above problems and parts are just the ones I can remember, all that matters to me is that it’s going to cost around R14 000 to fix! After that I will probably still need to get myself new wheels!

So what do I do?
1) Do I pay R14 000  fix my Clio? I’ve grown attached to her, but she really is getting old now and chances are that a few months down the line there will be something else that’s going to need fixing that’s going to cost me a few thousand rands again. The advantage with having an old car is that I don’t have a huge monthly payment, but is this negated by the cost of frequent fixing?
2) Do I trade my Clio in and use the R14 000 together with the trade in as a good down payment on a new and more reliable car? I’m just afraid to commit myself to another huge monthly payment. Paying a bond is stressful enough, and at least a house is an asset, a car is anything but!

I need a sign!! Or some sound advice would do too. Anyone???

I have a very dear friend whom I have had dreams about twice in the last few weeks! It’s quite funny, and yesterday he jokingly suggested that I blog about it. So that’s what I’ve decided to do!

In the first dream I found a gun under his mattress and was quite surprised! It was kept in a white cardboard box along with the ammunition. I was very upset about it because I thought that it wasn’t safe at all.
In the second dream he had died on a train and all I wanted to do was keep his puppy, but his mother refused! Again I was very upset, I think mostly because his family was dismissive of the importance of our friendship, they didn’t think I deserved to get anything.
He has two possible “interpretations” of my dreams:
1) I’m dreaming about his “weapon” and I want to have his puppies!!!
2) The emotion that is felt during the dream is actually what the dream is about, in both dreams I was upset, so there’s something that I’m upset with him about.

I’m not quite sure why I’ve had these dreams, I don’t place too much importance on the meanings of dreams I have while I’m sleeping. It’s the ones I have while awake that are more important to me.
Possibly the first dream could be about me fearing for his safety, because he recently bought a superbike that’s got more power than he can really handle, he’s a bit skinny. I’m not really sure what the second dream could be about, maybe something similar- fearing for his safety, or maybe literally that I’m afraid no one knows how important our friendship is.
I certainly don’t believe dreams are predictive in anyway.

Nevertheless, maybe I should take this opportunity to let my dear friend and everyone else know how much his friendship means to me.

We’ve known each other for around 7 years now, during which time we’ve gone through periods of frequent contact as well as sometimes not speaking to each other for a year. He’s a bit of a strange but very interesting character. He’s a real nerd, but denies it vehemently. He started a blog about computers and technology and all that mumbo jumbo a few years ago. When I read it I told him it was stupid and the concept of blogging was dumb. Then about a year later when I started blogging he was my first and one of my most regular readers! When I broke up with my boyfriend he was the male opinion I sought. I know he’s terrible at relationships, I think he will remain a bachelor until about 50 and then marry a divorcee with money, but he always listens to my troubles and voices a neutral opinion without passing judgement. I know I’ve even piled my issues on him sometimes while he’s busy at work!! And even then he makes as if he’s listening to me. When he thinks I’m getting too tangled up he distracts me with weird topics that he knows I can talk about like gynaecomastia and haemorrhoids. It could be that he changes the subject because he has a short attention span and is getting tired of my story. Whatever the case, it works to distract me. In the past few months he’s made time to have some form of conversation with me almost everyday, whether by Windows Live Messenger, sms or phone call. Quite honestly, he’s made it easier for me to survive through some of the tough times.
Dear friend, if you didn’t know yet, I love you lots and really appreciate all your support.

Now does this blog entry get me a top of the range blender for my birthday or what??!!

A woman’s place in society has changed drastically in the past 20 to 30 years. As a woman born in the 80’s and reaching my late teens in the 21st century, I suppose it would be very difficult for me to understand all of the intricacies of societal expectations imposed on women during the “darker ages” and, in South Africa particularly, non-white women. I grew up believing that I could do and be whatever I wanted.

I don’t believe I am a particularly power hungry woman, but I am something of a control freak. I am sometimes left staggering from the realisation of the amount of power I have as a doctor, to be able to change a person’s life permanently, whether in a negative or positive way. I am able to save lives. Yes, for every life I have saved there are probably 20 more lives I didn’t manage to save, whether from negligence, lack of skills, knowledge or resources or because they were too far gone. But just saving one life is an unimaginable feeling and I can’t begin to describe it.

There are some I remember clearly, mostly children:
THE GOOD
My first weekend on call at Mosvold Hospital. A boy who had ingested organophosphates, which are lethal, came into casualty at least 4 hours after ingestion. Working in a remote rural area, with only one main road which is tarred, meant that presentation of patients was often delayed. By the time he arrived he wasn’t really breathing on his own. I went into automatic pilot. He ended up at Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban, at least 5 hours away. I don’t know how I managed that, they’re not even the hospital I was supposed to refer directly to; I should have sent him to Ngwelezana Hospital in Empangeni, 3 hours away. Nevertheless, the within the next few weeks I received a phone call saying he was well and being discharged from Albet Luthuli. He came back and spent a few days running around the Mosvold Paediatric ward, because so eager was I to save his life, I had put him on a chopper to Durban without taking any of his family’s contact details!!! It took a few days, but we were eventually able to locate them.

THE BAD& THE UGLY
About a month into my community service at Mosvold, a 2 month old child came in with a history of having received an herbal enema. He was severely dehydrated because the enema had induced diarrhoea, he had the worst electrolyte derangement I had ever seen. I didn’t think the levels of sodium in his blood were even compatible with life! (I didn’t yet know that I would see even worse later in the year!!!) I called the Paediatricians at Ngwelezana Hospital everyday, telling them about his blood sodium levels which just weren’t improving. Not to mention that his stomach was becoming more and more distended. Eventually he was transferred to Ngwelezana where they discovered his anus had been ruptured! He had to be sent to the Paediatric surgeons at Albert Luthuli. After more than a month in total spent in one hospital or the other, the young ignorant mother came back to Mosvold with her child and a discharge summary stating all that had been done for him during his stay at Albert Luthuli. The child had an opening on his abdominal wall through which his faeces had to pass, he was wasted, malnourished and looked so unhappy. The first thing the teenage mother started speaking about was going home. I tried to tell her that while her child was better than he had been previously, he was not yet healthy and needed to stay in hospital. I was convinced that he would die if she took him home. She was adamant. She did not see my point of view, all she knew was that she had not been home in more than a month. I can’t say whether she had even spoken to her family in all the time she had been away.
I eventually walked out of her room, angry because I couldn’t make her understand the situation. My last words to her were that the child was ill because of her actions and if she took her child home he would die and it would be her fault. Before I finished the ward round, the nurses came to tell me that she had left. I never saw or heard of that child again. I’m sure he died within a week. There are many things I could have done better. I could have picked up that he had an anal rupture on day 1 and gotten the correct referral directly to Albert Luthuli much sooner. I could have done a better job with the mother. Yes she was stupid, but maybe if I had not been quite so tactless, she might have brought the baby back to the hospital before he died.

While I say that I am not power hungry, I do want to be in control of everything that affects me, and I suppose it’s because with control comes a sense of power. And quite truthfully, I do feel powerful being able, to some extent, to bring someone back life. And where do the control freaks in the medical field go? Well, lots of them go into anaesthesiology. It’s a very controlled and well defined field. Is it any surprise then that that’s where I have decided to spend at least my next year- in an anaesthesiology department, deciding if it’s what I want to to for the rest of my life?
Oh and the control! It’s like a drug! For a patient having abdominal surgery I inject him with drugs that sedate and relax him completely. The patient can’t breath for himself, because his abdominal and chest muscles are relaxed, but the wonderful heart muscle still goes on pumping. So I take over, I put a tube down his trachea to protect his aiways and attach him to a ventilator to breath for him. He’s hooked up to monitors that tell me whether he needs more or less ventilation and whether he’s feeling pain. Down the tube I send gases that keep him sedated. I make sure he doesn’t feel any pain during the procedure, I make sure that his muscles remain completely relaxed. And then, when the surgery is over, I make sure that everything is reversed, that he can breath on his own again, that his postoperative pain is minimal.

Obviously this is the condensed and simplified version of what anaesthesiology is about. When it goes well, it’s a dream, everything is so controlled. But if it goes wrong, EVERYTHING can get out of control so quickly.

So with all this control and power, and power to control, and some kind of power and control over life and death (or at least the delusion thereof), why is it then that I do not have the power to control my feelings, thoughts and emotions? Why can I not decide how I feel when I wake up in the morning? Why do I struggle so much to control the way I feel about men, love and life in general? Could the problem be that I’m just looking for everything to go the way I want, all the time….?

I love words, they hold us together. We would exist in complete isolation without words, we’d have much shorter lifespans, we’d have much less joy. The written word is invaluable, I think I’ve mentioned before my wonder at learning to read. It was the best gift I have ever received in all my life. I will never forget my first teacher: Mrs Barns at Wentworth Primary School, my hero forever. Funny thing is that she remembers me too, she ran into my mother a year or two ago and asked about me. Tells you something about me, doesn’t it- I was a nerd of note!!

I have ALWAYS loved letters! Writing and receiving letters. I remember sitting and watching in awe as my grandmother wrote letters to far away places, and as soon as I could I started doing the same. I would write long letters to an aunt living in Jo’burg (I was living in Durban, about 6 hours away) and to a cousin living in America. I can’t clearly remember if there were ever any replies, but I always made the whole thing into such a ceremony: choosing the writing paper, finding the right sized envelope, folding the letter to fit into the envelope, licking the sweet edge of the envelope and sealing it, licking the back of the stamp if I had stamps at home. If there were no stamps at home, I would stand the letter on the dressing table waiting until the morning when I would put it into my school bag and ask for 18c to buy a stamp. I would stop at the post office on my way home from school and wait in line for my stamp. I was always excited to see what picture was on the stamp. The most exciting thing about putting the stamp on at the post office was that they had those rolly things that wet the stamp, and I think a few times I made my stamp too wet because I enjoyed rolling it along the rolly thing so much. And personal letters that I receive I always keep. I have boxes filled with letters that I’ve kept since high school, even notes passed during class!

Now, I can hardly remember the last time I even wrote a letter! It’s just such a long procedure, so much quicker to send an email. As for receiving a personal letter, well… the most personal thing I receive in the post is wedding invitations (I’ve received three in the last few months!) and bank statements.

Not to despair, there is something I do still receive and send on a very regular basis: text messages to and from my cell phone, SMS. I love SMSes! They’re like a short letter. And, like letters, I also keep all the smses I receive for as long as possible. Obviously I get the not-so-personal ones most often, but there are some that are very personal that I’ve received from people who would never take the time to sit and write a letter. And even good friends are more prone to put down personal feelings that sometimes can’t be said out loud and wouldn’t be said as often if they had to be said via the post office.
The only problem is that my phone’s memory is too small to keep every sms I’ve ever received! Apparently there’s a way that I can put all of them onto my computer and save them, but I haven’t figured that out yet. Anyway, every now and then my phone beeps and tells me the memory is full and I need to delete some text messages. The problem is that I like to keep even the short seemingly unimportant ones. They remind me.
One from a friend: “Btw, I just wanted to tell you I’m seeing Paul now. What u think?” reminds me how uninterested the friend was in men in the past and I’m flattered that she values my opinion when she does find one she really likes.
“Congratulations, Standard Bank has registered your home loan…” reminds me how exciting buying my first home was, and how much debt I’m in!!!
“YAY!YAY! I did it! My novel is being published!!…” reminds me how anything is possible and I can almost feel the joy I felt when I first read it.
“PLS b @home by 1.30 earlier if u can 2help wit girls…i’m so nervous” reminds me of a friend’s wedding day and how it all turned out better than she could have asked for.
Then some that I’d been keeping, but decided to delete, in the name of healing. From the player: “Good night. Wish I was with you now” “I will dream of u” “Plz can I come over” reminds me of lust and how powerful it can be. And how powerful hope can be, against all odds, against the facts that may be staring you in the face. And that I may lie to myself as much as I want, but in truth what I’m really looking for is LOVE. The truth is that I’m an all or nothing kind of girl.
And then old messages from my ex boyfriend: “I luv u so so much u r my all…u r more to me than anythin i hav eva wanted or wished 4…i wish i had the words to explain how much i luv u…” reminds me that sometimes LOVE just isn’t enough, makes me think that maybe I have made a terrible mistake. I want to delete them but I can’t, because what if his was the last love I will ever have? If I never have love again, at least I have some evidence that once I was loved, deeply.

So powerful are words.

As part of the relocation package I received in relocating from Mosvold to Port Shepstone Hospital, I am entitled to be accommodated at the expense of Port Shepstone Hospital for up to 2 months. Quite a convenience, I must say, as it would have been very difficult to try to find a suitable place to live in Port Shepstone and surrounds while in Ingwavuma, about 6 hours away.

The place I have been provided with is a charming house with a charming garden in a charming neighbourhood. The only things not so charming about the whole deal are my housemates. There are two of them. The one I will not elaborate on, except to say that she seemed almost normal on our few encounters. She isn’t really looking for social interaction, keeps her room door closed at all times. A few times I’ve caught her struggling to unlock her room door or ducking into the bathroom and I’ve kinda forced her to talk to me. She’s never been violent, so I have nothing against her. The other housemate… well, this is where it gets interesting.

Let me start at the beginning:
I arrived in Port Shepstone on a humid Sunday afternoon. Found my way to the hospital where I picked up keys and directions to “Flamboyant House”!! It wasn’t too hard to find, even though the “map” did not include any road names! My remote for the front gate didn’t work, but the security guard was there soon enough, opening up for me. Through the front gate the driveway is to the far right of the property. The front lawn is pretty and neat with two big trees on it. One of the trees has a broken branch which has fallen across a small part of the lawn and adds to the charm of the place. It could serve as a seat when you feel like reading under the trees. At the end of the driveway is a garage attached to a granny cottage at the back of the garden. Tucked just to the right of the garage is an outdoor shower! The main house is just in front and to the left of the granny cottage. I parked my car near the end of the driveway on a patch of grass. I got out and greeted the security guard who greeted me with a smile and started to help me to unload my car. I also grabbed a few bags and followed him up the front stairs. When I got to the top of the stairs I saw that there’s also a nice sized (although slightly green) swimming pool in a separate little area of the garden. In this area there’s also a little bird bath and a garden bench and table.
On entering the house I walked into the living room and encountered “The Housemate!” It was a hot sunny summer’s Sunday afternoon in Port Shepstone and he was sitting on the couch watching wrestling on etv! The security guard introduced him to me. He smiled and greeted me in an oddly feminine voice. The lounge wasn’t very well lit, and he is melanin rich, so I couldn’t discern his finer features, but I could see his shape was not exactly petite. The friendly security guard led me through to my bedroom and set down my parcels, then he took a key from the rack just outside the bedroom door and tried it to make sure it was the right one and then handed it over to me. After which he showed me to the bathroom, dining room and kitchen. He then followed me out to my car and we repeated several trips back and forth until the car was empty. All the while my new housemate sat on the couch dividing his attention between the wrestling and the security guard and I tripping over the front step that was hard to see with our arms full. I’m not sure which he found more entertaining.

Well, nevertheless, I decided that I would not be deterred by the curious nature of the housemate and I would try my best to be pleasant. Although everyone else kept their room doors firmly shut, I decided I liked mine open whenever possible, with the curtains open too, let some light into the place. I busied myself with cleaning my room and unpacking a few essentials for the rest of the afternoon. I also tried cleaning the kitchen up a bit, just so I could unpack a few things into the cupboards and fridge. By the time I was done it was dark and I decided I could do with a bit of cleaning myself. I went to the bathroom and discovered that the light didn’t work. I went to find Mr Housemate, he was still sitting on the couch in front of the TV, and asked him if the bathroom light was broken. “No,” he says, “it’s just fused, it has been for a while.” Luckily I knew how that is meant to be fixed, because he obviously didn’t. Once I had sorted that problem out, with an energy saving bulb of course, I quickly decided that the shower could not be made fit for human use in less than an hour, so I attacked the big bath. In about 15min it looked as if I would step out of it cleaner than I went in, which is how baths are supposed to look! I ran myself a bath and laid down in the lovely bath, big enough and deep enough for two, thinking about what the next day held for me while listening to Coldplay and concentrating on not drowning- I couldn’t even stretch my legs in the bath in the Mosvold trailer park.

During the next few days I learnt that Mr Housemate rises early and didn’t mind showering in a shower with black slimy stuff coating the tiles. (I’ve since changed the state of the shower so that I didn’t mind climbing into it!) His morning exercise consists of walking to the gate at the end of the driveway for a cigarette, while waiting for his shirt to be ironed in the tumble drier. After work he goes to Spar and buys himself oily ready cooked meals for four and eats them alone- a whole chicken with four rolls, 6 fishcakes with macaroni and cheese, etc. After work he also likes wearing shirts with no sleeves and his arms are covered in tattoos! I later also encountered him at close range without a shirt on during above mentioned morning exercise, and realised that his breasts (yes breasts, not chest) are also covered with tattoos. I can’t quite remember if the crucifix is on his left or right breast and if the “Aum” is on his right or left arm, I remember that the Hindu prayer strings around his neck are numerous and he also wears some around his wrists. He has the biggest crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror of his very old Toyota Corolla, which he has to start up 15min before he actually wants to drive it. When I’ve passed by his room when the door happens to be slightly open I’ve noticed pictures of the Virgin Mother and Jesus on his wall and praying hands next to his bed! Maybe he just wants to cover all his bases. Maybe he’s thinking like Denny Crane in Boston Legal when he says to Allen Shaw: “I believe in God, if there’s no God, so what? But if there is a God, then you’re screwed!”
Maybe Mr Housemate is just making sure God knows he believes in EVERY possible version of Him.

This week I discovered two new facts about Mr Housemate:
1) The motor for the front gate stopped working and so it now has to be opened manually. When I get back from work I usually climb out of my car and open the gate for myself unless the security guard is standing at the gate. By the time I have driven up the driveway, the security guard has usually realised that I’m back and has started towards the gate to close it for me. Mr Housemate doesn’t get out of his car at the gate. If the security guard doesn’t realise that he’s at the gate as soon as he arrives, he hoots loudly and repeatedly until the securtiy guard DOES realise and runs to the gate, from wherever he may be, to open it for him!!
2) A work colleague and ex university classmate came over one evening. Mr Housemate greeted her with a slimy “You look familiar. Where are you from?”
I rolled my eyes thinking, “How original!” But it turns out it wasn’t a line, she didn’t recognise him at first because he had put on some weight, but apparently he was one year above her sister at university and he used to work in her neighbourhood. He’s an optometrist and he was apparently a brilliant student at university. He had always been a bit odd and the story goes that he just disappeared and no one in the neighbourhood knew where to!
He’s at least 9 years older than us according to my colleague, which would make him around 35. He looks at least 45!

To be quite honest, he makes me feel uncomfortable. I never take the pleasure of sitting on the beautiful green pleather couches in the living room and flipping channels, because I’m afraid he might just decide to join me. Whenever I walk towards the common living areas in the house (bathroom, kitchen, living room) I make sure I make plenty of noise. I don’t want any unpleasant surprises. I wouldn’t want to walk in on anything I can’t erase from my memory!

So what would the perfect housemate be for me?
Someone with good taste in music, we can’t listen to Queen first thing in the morning, but if someone can’t makes any good suggestions for morning music, then we’re going to have to listen to mine; which could be anything from Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Tracy Chapman, Missy Elliot to DJ Cleo or Matthew Herbert, depending on my mood.
Someone with a good idea of what’s a reasonable amount of time to spend in the bathroom in the morning and who doesn’t use all of the hot water. It would be even better if said someone could learn my morning routine and avoid clashing their bathroom time with mine.
Someone who would feel like morning exercise sometimes (about 4 out of 7 mornings a week) and help get me out of bed early enough.
Someone who can cook and has a lot of imagination in the kitchen, I tend to cook the same things over and over. If someone could also do the dishes, that would just be an added bonus. If not, then someone can just help to pay for a maid to come in every second day.
Someone who understands to give me space when I close my door, but knows when to ignore the “Keep Out” sign.
Someone who goes away every now and then so I can have the place to myself, but is good company when they are around.

Somehow, I think that like a good man, a good housemate is an enigma. So for now, I’ll be happy to live on my own. It’s ok if it’s small, as long as I don’t have to share it with strange housemates!

I’m feeling very disconnected at present. I think a lot of it has to do with the new job, new place, etc. I don’t really feel like I’m a part of things yet. I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing, especially in ICU- I’m fumbling in the dark. I feel like the dumbest student in the class, where everyone is discussing a subject on which they all have a vast amount of knowledge and understanding and I’m left on the outskirts of the discussion- I don’t understand enough. And there’s just SO much information coming at me from so many different angles, I don’t know how to handle all of it and process all of it and I’m sure I won’t be able to store all of it. My head’s in a state of disarray.
Then there’s no one at work I feel could be a potential kindred spirit. I don’t see myself connecting with any of my colleagues on a personal level. I’m often wrong, but I like to make quick judgements about things like this. The thing is that before I never felt the need to connect with other people. I never went searching for friends or social connections. Someone once said it was because I had everything I needed. I think sometimes I felt like I had TOO many friends, too many emotional attachments, no room for anymore.

But at present I am feeling very unattached. Yes, I do still have good friends, but they are all far away. Unfortunately I am feeling very disconnected from my best girlfriend too. I’m not sure if it has to do with her being married and me being single, but we just seem to have completely different thought processes of late, we used to agree on everything.

And yes, it does make a difference that I don’t have a boyfriend anymore. I think he was always a source of security for me. I knew that at the end of it all there was always someone who had my back. Someone to call to talk about ANYTHING at ANYTIME. Someone who would laugh at my racist jokes, but know that I wasn’t racist; someone who would listen to my stories about patients and know that my insensitivity was just a defense mechanism, etc, etc…

No I don’t want a new boyfriend just yet, I just want to have a conversation with someone who gets me!  I thought this was supposed to be a teenage phase??!!! But in all honesty, I think I probably had similar feelings, though less pronounced, at the beginning of 2008 on arriving in Ingwavuma. Maybe I just need to give Port Shepstone more time. Oh, and I think it will also help when I find my own place! I really need my own space!!!

The end of my dreaded community service year has come and gone, and I’m on a little bit of a break before starting my new job as a “Senior Medical Officer in the Anaesthetics Department of Port Shepstone Regional Hospital”!!! And I should be ecstatic, but somehow there’s this knot of tension in my left shoulder that won’t go away even after a massage. I know in my head that I should be exuberant- this is a job practically on the beach, just over an hour’s drive from Durban and in a field I’m so interested in I am seriously considering specialising; not to mention that there’s also a salary increase. So why am I not floating just a few inches above the ground, surrounded by a pink cloud of happiness?

1) I’m anxious about starting a new job in a new place. Professionally it means I still have to prove myself. Personally it means I have to be nice to people. I’m not the friendliest person, my first reaction is to not like people, everyone starts off in the negative with me unless they’re good looking enough! (LOL!)

2) 2008 was an almost perfect year for me. In fact it turned out to be the best year of my life so far. I feel I accomplished growth professionally and personally. I gained more confidence in my abilities as a doctor. I gained more confidence in my abilities as a human being and a woman. But then I allowed myself to be sucked into a stupid waste of time of a twirl with a man, which I knew from the start would not amount to much. But still it affected me more than I’m happy to admit.
I just don’t understand how I can be in control of my life one minute and then tumbling disorientated through a tangle of emotions the next, unable to tell myself how I should feel. How is it that a man can have so much influence over me? Even one who is far from the kind of man I’d want to grow to love? How do I come so easily to a point of giving more and more of myself, getting little in return?

At present my only consolation is from something a friend of mine tells me when I ask questions like this: If you could control all of your emotions you wouldn’t be human.
This still doesn’t stop me from wanting to be in complete control of my emotions. And right now I want to feel exuberant about the new beginnings afforded to me in 2009. 
I think I’ll wait a bit longer… maybe it will come soon, the year is still young…

My fears of a lonely Christmas have come true in a way much worse than I could ever have imagined!!
In my attempt to dispel the loneliness of being single at Christmas time, I suggested that those of us in Ingwavuma should have a Christmas Eve party with cocktails, finger food, pretty clothes and gift exchange. The party was good, but it faded at around 23h00. All the happy couples started to leave. The singles were left behind. I left at around 23h30 and was followed home by two guys. One of whom was the previously mentioned fling/player (who seems to have gotten it into his head that we can be friends and should make the most of the few precious days we have left together before I leave Ingwavuma for good to go and work in Port Shepstone) and the other his closest male friend here in Ingwavuma. We were joined shortly by my closest female friend here in Ingwavuma. So the four of us sat waiting for midnight. Well, I told them that we had to wait for midnight, cos it’s a thing I’ve always done since I was a child. The four of us sat drinking tea and forgot about the time.

At a few seconds after midnight my phone rang and as soon as I saw who was calling I knew what time it was. It was my ex boyfriend of course, old habits die hard, we’ve been together every Christmas for the past 5 years.
So there I sat on my couch next to the guy I’m trying to be friends with after he’s fucked around with my head for the past few months, (the “fling” got much more complicated than I would care to admit, I’m back where I was as an insecure 20 year old, all the self sufficiency and confidence I felt after recovering from a difficult break up is almost gone!!) while talking to the ex boyfriend, who still loves me but can never be all that I want. And I felt so completely alone.

A little while later my friend left and then the player and his friend left. Mr Player hugged me before he left and held me for a little longer than necessary. But I’m afraid he’s seen in me the unattractive desperation for validation I have in my eyes when I feel insecure. If there’s one thing he’s excelled at in these past few months, it’s been his ability to make me feel insecure. He would tell me he doesn’t want to live without me, while planning to go away for a few days without letting me know he was going. Then in all the time he would be away he would not talk to me, not answer my calls or sms…

So here I sit at 2h00 on Thursday 25 December 2008, wishing I could be happy with being alone…