My mother, looking 54 years? The beauty of having Malay genes. Having inherited my father’s looks, I’m not sure I’ll be as lucky.
Archive for the 'Camera' Category
I guess if there’s one thing I really get good at eating, it would be my words. I’ve been really busy and finishing late. I hope things smoothen out.
What I need is some time with my camera, lots of green and sunshine.
Photo taken at Bollywood Veggies
I guess I’ve been suffering from “flu fatigue”. Being gowned and masked for 9 hours a day isn’t fun for anyone. We’ve been eating out a lot, which isn’t good for our bodies or our soul: think MSG, palm oil, reused oil, salt and I’m not sure what else. I spent Mother’s Day eating homemade burgers with my mom and the rest of the family. I was exhausted as I still had to work, and it was a Sunday! But then again, here’s to the light after the rain, to a new beginning, new hospital, new department and a little thing that’s making me smile day after day.
This photo was taken at the Istana (sort of the White House of Singapore, though I’m sure its a shadow in comparison). Don’t you love the unfolding of the petals and the drops of rain.
To my dear friends, so many who are in the same boat as me, or rather behind the same mask.. Here’s to brighter days! Hang in there, I think we’re reaching the end!
When I entered the hall, I didn’t get it.
But when I turned around, I did.
Sometimes life’s like that, you see little itsy bitsy pieces at the beginning but once you’ve reached the end, you turn around and just get it. I spent today grappling around with exam questions, trying to recognize some sort of pattern, what that test meant, how one diagnosis wraps up the whole clinical picture, what is the meaning of life etc. I spent half the evening waiting for my granpa to come out from his MRI and reading my book.
Today I asked him, “Atok, what is the REAL reason you don’t eat chicken?”. My grandpa does not eat chicken. And my grandma does not eat egg. I’m serious, I really am. You can ask Shafaa my cousin.
So this is the answer guys.. To the Musa clan who read my blog, the mystery is finally revealed here.
My grandpa was brought to live with his aunty when he was ten, who he calls Ummi Leha. He was eating chicken all the ten years of his young life till he started living with Ummi. Ummi did not eat chicken. She says that when she was young, she say an elderly man clear his throat and spat out a long green blob of phlegm that fell to the village floor, a hungry chicken flew for it in a flurry of feathers and gobbled up this blob of phlegm. My grandpa never touched or ate chicken since that day.
I’m not sure how convincing a story teller Ummi was, but my young grandpa was really convinced. So much so that he has not eaten chicken for 71 years from that day. H was really beside himself when he heard this from atok in the car while driving. He then said in all seriousness, but you don’t have to worry atok, now in Singapore no one spits because they’ll get FINED. To the non Singaporean, maybe this Tshirt may help:
To those who know H, you know he’s going to start a string of one liners like he was a stand up comedian in his previous life so I just HAD to change the subject, I could see the wheels in his head churning with this chicken and spit story.
Now why doesn’t grandma eat egg? Well, thats another story all together! Enjoy your weekend!
some kittens, some new plates, orchids and a banana tree
Published September 23, 2008 Camera 3 Comments
I recently had a sun roughened, wrinkled little chinese man who was caught in the rain and unfortunately fell ill with a high fever and ended up under our care. He was a vegetable farmer, an organic vegtable farmer mind you, not just any farmer and had a plot of land in the western end of Singapore. After days of shrivering under the blanket, barely showing any interest in me prodding and poking him each day, he suddenly woke up after such a long period of lethargy like as fresh as a flower. The antibiotics had eventually kicked in. He then started moaning and groaning each day about each of his crops dying, one day it was the cai xim, the next day the kangkong then next day his cabbages. Everyday he begged us to let him go home and mend his plot. His daughters on the other hand, highly educated and well spoken urged us to dismiss the pleadings of this vegetable farmer and continue treating the disease adequately. He was recently discharged, all smiles with a heartily shaking my hand goodbye. I wished I was invited to his farm, I was too shy to ask for the location of his farm though.
Its nice to watch the the few trees on our plot bear fruit.
Its not surprising why Aunty Faridah loves her orchids. They are beautiful and really hardy.
The flowers hang off the plant like this. Nature has the best designs doesn’t it? This print could easily be found on a dress.
My recent bargain buy. Cheaper than plates from Ikea, these porcelain plates are second hand from a hotel and was $1-$2.50.
Remember our pretty cat? It multiplied itself by 3.
Now how that happened is another story by itself.
We now have 3 frisky kittens running about in the garden
A tin of “Earl White”, a gift from my mom. Its similar to Early Grey but much more potent. I think it’ll be good in bakes like Earl Grey Madelines, yum.
White tea is the uncured and unfermented tea leaf. Like green, oolong and black tea, white tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. White tea is fast-dried, while green tea is roasted in an oven or pan (while kept moving for even curing). Oolong and black teas are fermented before curing.
Trying out our new Samsung L100, we’ve decided a DSLR is great but too big to lug aorund most of the time. The Samsung is equivalent to the weight of my handphone. This shot was taken at night with quite low light. We’re pretty happy with the performance of this camera so far, but so far its compact size is its biggest plus point.
Lots of comments have been spammed in the last week, my apologies. When I de-spammed some, they seem to have disappeared. So here is to my aunty Zu: Thanks for dropping by! I haven’t seen you for some time, hope you’ve been well. Yes, I do some editing to my photos and the ones in Kerala. I increase the colour and sometimes decrease the brightness.
Sunday was spent working then sleeping, Saturday night was great as we broke fast with my newest friend and colleague Raz. Its pretty rare to have a Malaysian Malay doctor working in Singapore, and it is sad to be away from home during Ramadan, so we had her over for a home cooked meal with the family. Of course, I was really cooking behind schedule so I recruited her help in assembling the thin crust pizzas we had. On top of the prawn and saffron cream spagetti, noodles, sweet and sour chicken, lamb stew and spring rolls. I showed her a little around our neighbourhood and I had my first caffeine fix at a nearby cafe that night after so long! Photo above taken by H with our Samsung
To Mel, I’m sorry you’re going thru a hard time, my thoughts and prayers are with you!
Though I love stills and my photos of food, a huge part of the photos I take are of people in my life and people I am lucky enough to meet along the way. Today I feel extremely grateful and would love to share my joy with you. I wasn’t born wanting to be an eye surgeon or a gynaecologist, in fact I graduated with a basic degree in medical school, not really knowing what I wanted to be or what kind of doctor I was going to become.
After a year of completing my housemanship and half a year in a really busy department as a medical officer, I chose to take a break from seeing patients and took half a year off doing a “desk job” in a medically related field. At the same time I started doing part time sessions at a friend’s clinic and had the experience of some family medicine work. I enjoyed the slower pace but at the same time part of me still wanted to pursue my specialist degree. I started sitting for exams and was disappointed to fail in my first 2 tries. I thought to myself that I’ll give myself 4 tries to pass, if I didn’t I would just accept it that it wasn’t meant to be and I would explore other options in my career. Somehow fate had it that I passed after the 3rd try. Missing life in an acute hospital I went back to give it another go. Somehow I fell in love with it again and applied for a traineeship post, this time feeling that it was the right thing to do. Somehow things have fallen into place and I got thru. I am still learning everyday and ultimately, whatever you choose to do I hope it makes you happy. Just as I am.
So here are some smiles I’ve met along the way that I would love to share with you..
H, my favourite subject!
A Keralan lady going door to door selling coconuts in her basket. She would stop and grate it on request into the large plastic basin on top of her basket.
In Cambodia, even monks wanna a brilliant white smile.
A tentative smile from a young cambodian boy and his mother in a wet market.
A cambodian baby girl in a village house we stayed in during our voluntary mission.
This smile is in New Zealand now!
Brown eyes captured in Cambodia
Sophia is special
These guys are important. Remember H’s habit of popping a camera in the unlikeliest of places?
Daddy’s serious smile.
Wishing all of u loads of smiles and a blessed Ramadan to all my Muslim friends!
I was looking thru some my favourite photography website and was inspired by some black and white photography that I saw. I hope you enjoy this short photo essay of some images that are from old posts in happygrub and some images that were never posted but lay in the depths of my laptop. At the end of the post is a small challenge.
Breakfast is my favourite meal, and peanut butter toast is H’s favourite start of the day.
Roasted garlic
Ketupat or rice cakes in a woven coconut leaf shell on the morning of Eid, the celebration that marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
One of my favourite shots: a young girl with apple juice running down her chin in the early morning light with mummy looking on.
Pineapple jam tarts, it symbolizes so many celebrations in Singapore.
Honey cornflake clusters waiting to be baked.
“teh tarik” or frothy milk tea custom made for H in Cambodia.
Now for the challenge, anyone who reads this post is invited to post some black and white shots of your favourite photos and link it back to this post. I shall also take the liberty to volunteer a list of creative people whom I would love to see what you guys come up with!
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