Day 2 at Kg Gajah: blunted affect

I thought I slept well last night but when I woke up I didn't feel rested. It was a strange bed and we had to have the air-condition on all night because there was no fan. I'm not used to sleeping with the air-condition on. At home, we normally just use the fan and I prefer breathing the cool fresh night air but somehow, the air here is pretty stale. There's not much breeze and it feels a bit like being trapped in an oven.

I keep saying to myself to stay positive, to make the best out of these ten days but I've entered into one of those 'moods' and when I'm in one of those 'moods', I just need to wade it out slowly. I need to allow the feelings to hover and gradually to dissipate by itself. I'm just functioning at the lowest level, sleep, wake up, eat, be polite, answer questions and do whatever task assigned to me but there's no enthusiasm.

Sometimes when you have a feeling that is difficult to manage...you simply need to let nature takes it course, not to entertain it and not to fight it. If you entertain it, it may escalate into something bigger and more detrimental but if you try to fight it, it may rebound and get out of control. So, the best thing to do is to simply let it sail through and Allah (swt) has created time as a blessing, Time is a great healer, a bearer of truth. In time, you will understand and things will be back to normal again. In this case, in ten days, I'll be leaving this place.

I miss my home, my family and I miss my work colleagues. I even miss my office. I miss driving to work in the morning and being greeted by the sound of running water from the little fountain in front of our office building. I consider my work place like a second home and my workmates as my extended family. I've always enjoyed working in large institutions. I used to love working at the hospital and felt slightly lost when I left hospital into general practice. So, I'm really happy to be working in an academic institution and still being able to perform my clinical duties. It is in the nature of doctors to always be a clinician. No doctors will ever leave their clinical work to only be a lecturer. In UK, there is no distinction between a clinician and a lecturer. The best hospitals in the UK are teaching hospitals and the best consultants and GPs are teachers.

I was rather surprised when I returned to Malaysia to observe this dichotomy between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Higher Education. I still don't understand it. To me, all doctors are teachers. They have to at least teach their juniors and their patients. Anyway, it is a weird system that I think will not be solved until the Khilafah comes so, I'm not going to give myself a headache thinking too much about it.

Okay, well...I'm starting to think again and having opinions so, maybe my 'mood' and feelings are normalizing...maybe tomorrow I'll be able to write on more profound issues inshaAllah.