Enough already.

Enough already.

All these years I've learned to view life with a critical eye. It's served me well. I'm great at identifying problem areas that can often lead to solutions. But when it's my own life, I'm been identifying too many problems and haven't yet discovered too many solutions...

Perhaps being naturally critical is becoming a major downfall. I have yet to learn to count my blessings and enjoy life a little.

I should be glad. I should be thankful.

If I learn to just stay positive in life, I might find there to be not as many issues that require fixing, or that, even if I choose to fix so many issues, they can be fixed more enjoyably.

I am rather glad, actually, of what I have become. I just need to learn to be prouder.

I'm mighty thankful to be in a job where my natural curiosities carries me through my tasks. I'm forced to read and learn things I would happily enjoy learning anyways. I get to be extremely practical in my work. My knowledge applies to all my surroundings. I have worked for years for a set of skills that has enabled me to handle almost any health question with an approach. And I am mightily thankful to have achieved that.

I am thankful my work doesn't kill me. I have a rather routine schedule, extreme flexibility, and can choose to work as hard or as little as I feel like. I make enjoy to make life comfortable, and enough to allow myself to be generous to the people around me whom I am so indebted to.

I am fortunate have so much opportunities to spend quality time with family at an age when we are all young enough to enjoy each others' craziness. Trips, home rennovations, goofing around. I'm lucky my work has not taken me away from them, allowing me to cherish every moment of every day with them.

I should feel good about what lies ahead. I am in a lucky position that allows me to give as much of myself as I wish into my career. There will be opportunities for furthering career aspirations, and I already have a great job to fall back on. It doesn't matter which decision were correct, or which future decisions is the best. All options have the positives and negatives, but I will always hold the control in the kind of work I wish to do. Finding the positives in whatever I am doing will always yield a happier process. And as we all already know, the secret to happiness is to enjoy the process of life, not the destination.

Acceptance, Arrival, and Perseveration

I've inherited a lot of good things from my parents, one of which is the spirit of persistence and the believe that, with enough will and creativity, one can always find ways to get what he wants in the end.

I've lived that spirit for much my adult life and opened my doors to my future.

And then I take that spirit many steps too far, and all my doors are closing because of it.

My perseverance has became a stubbornness, one that I had not learned to shake for many years.

I have yet to learn, that in many facets of life, one does not always get what he wants.

And that is often harder if one does not even know what he wants.

I refuse to settle, but by doing so I also refuse to settle my dreams.

I let them evolve, let them transform according to my day to day inclinations, until they lose their original form and I start to wonder when I will recognize them again.

I refuse to accept my new found reality, because I felt I am still searching for my bearings. But I kept switching targets.

Arrival. I have not yet felt I have arrived at the place I set out to go so many years ago when I set on this long and trying pursuit.

Arrival cannot happen if I keep changing the destinations.

Does one ever arrive? Does arrival mean settling for the reality, when reality rarely matches the dreams.

Or is it simply acceptance. Accept one's place in this world, where I am now and what I have destined to become, and accept it with pride for what it stands for and embrace.

I have not yet learned to accept. I question what I am capable of, if I only keep pushing.

But by refusing to accept, and not feeling I have arrived have left me empty inside. I am slowly wasting away my youth, my opportunities, my time.

Instead I forget to celebrate what I have been given. The knowledge. The responsibilities. The securities. The possibilities.

And instead I tend to focus on my envies. I perseverates, on my many brief moments of envies that would take hold of me for days, and I let them sway my intentions.

I live my life by trying to cherish little moments, but it is these moments that are eating me up. I let them dominate my thoughts. I let them question who I am. I let them change my course.

I have not learned the concept of "make the most of my current situations". Instead, I keep trying to redefine my situation.

What is most important to me today? What shall I embrace? A good friend once reminded me to ask myself.

I kinda know the answer, but I'm not sure which are my true values, and which are my aspirations generated by moments of envy.

Stop looking for my arrival.

Accept what I have been given. It's impossible to know if past decisions were right or wrong.

Make the most of my situation. Accept that some options may not exist.

Remember my blessings.

Is this a sabbatical?

On a curvy little side road, onto a stretch of modest old houses situated behind the popular hiking destinations, the Chiefs, I found the address to the place I were to stay in for the next two weeks while I embark on some extra Emergency Medicine training here in Squamish.

Greeting me was an early-40-something Asian women with various tattoos and crocked teeth, but with a certain native American appeal crossed with the new-age organic-food-eating microwave-hating lifestyle. She works as a mountain-biking and white-water kayaking instructor, and has recently rebuild her own home from the foundation upwards and is the in midst of picking up a new B&B career by herself. Her room was beautifully cozy on the inside, but needs a lot of work on the outside (she has the only unpaved driveway on the street). Inside, she has a brand new gormet kitchen with stainless steel appliances but no microwave. The living room has stacks and stacks of DVDs but no cable. She used to live in the city, including growing up in Kerrisdale and then spending time in Kits followed by Commerical area. But eventually she found it too appealing to live the simple outdoor life here in Squamish and hasn't been back for years.

I tucked back out to hit the town for some necessities. Then moved my stuff in, took a nice shower in her new bathroom, and settled at the table with my macbook and some warm comfort food that my Mom has prepared earlier today (reheating it was tricky). I look around, I guess this is what I need. After months of studying for exams and then working lots and then fuzzing over the rennovations of the new house, it's good to be tucked into a quiet place somewhere and just focus on less things. Here, I need to learn some new skills in Emergency Medicine to allow me to practice confidently in the rural. I can practice a little guitar and go bike riding. I can reconnect with some friends whom I've been neglecting with all the life distractions. I can pick up a book and try to read again.

It'll be nice. Of course I'm only here for 2 weeks this time, plus I plan to go back this weekend. So all this simplicity wouldn't last very long.

New York, New York

When I decided to come to my friend's wedding in Toronto, I thought I'd take the opportunity to drop in a visit to my friend at New York and take the chance to do a mini-vacation there. Frankly, I wasn't actually overly excited about going to NY since I had already been there briefly twice before. But it would be fun to hang out with Eva there plus how often do you have a place to stay in NY to roam around?

I came in not wanting to do a single touristy thing. For the most part I've done some of those, and could happily envision some of the others easily without going. I didn't want to spend too much money or attend too many shows that I knew nothing about. I just wanted to relax a little and experience spending a week there. Plus I still had a lot to study for my up-coming exam.

But slowly, subconsciously, the city sank in. I could see how people could fall in love with a place like this. This city is so much more than the stature of liberty, the Time Square, the Broadway shows, and the many yellow taxi-cabs.

Almost immediately I started to experience a not-so-subtle resemblance to my beloved Hong Kong. Only that everything was in English. I don't know if it was a mixture of the humid heat, the rumbling of the air-conditioners by the neighbors, the busy streets lined with vendors and electronic shops, or the busting lights and signs in the streets that never sleep. I did not wish to make any direct comparisons, but more and more this city felt increasingly familiar to me. It was as if I did not walk its streets as a foreigner, but indeed felt quite at home. The crowdedness, the noise, the crazy traffics and the abundance of sensory stimulation were all too common to me growing up in Hong Kong. It was familiar, it felt close.


But New York is more than a collection of hustling vendors and tourist traps. By avoiding most of the tourist attractions and instead spending my time exploring the various neighborhoods in Manhattan, I started to see how charming this busting metropolis really is. From the sweet cafes in the West Village to the wide and tidy alleys of the Upper East Side, I now see New York as a collection of diverse various neighborhoods rich with cultural diversity and tolerance. From the shops, you recognize that this is a city inhabited by many different settlers. From small Turkish Cafes to Iranian pastry shops to Italian gelato windows to Japanese sake bars, everybody is making a home here, and everybody is waving their culture here. Quite literally, you can do everything in New York, and you can go everywhere in the world without actually leaving the City. When we went to a Japanese film showing at the Japan Society as part of the NY Asian Film Festival, I almost forgot I was in such a busy city when i found myself surrounded by an bamboo garden with a peaceful indoor pond. The people are also colorful, both in ethnicity and in clothing style, and we all stood together in harmony at the bus-stops waiting for the bus that would take us the same direction.

Seeing a city so diverse and so complete made me realize how relatively small Vancouver still is. But I'm not ready to hop on the bigger city band-wagon yet. I still love Vancouver, with is collection of mountains and coastlines and chill urban fare that few other cities could match. But it did remind me of why I subconsciously miss such big cities. The Hong Kongs, the New Yorks of the world. Maybe I will never relocated to one of these, depending on how my career shapes up, but I shall remember their influences on me, and how, occasionally, I do long for a dose of the big city juices. And it make me cherish living in a society with the luxury of having culture diversity. When I go back I shall continue to explore and indulge in my own city and extract as much as I can from its various neighborhoods.

Throughout the streets I see windows bursting with "I love NY" T-shirts. I didn't buy one of those. I don't know if I could declare such love from a city I only got to know for a week. But it was a treat living like a New Yorker for a few days, and to see what a city and grow up to be. Thank you, New York, it was great getting to know you.

Stay West, Stay True

How long has it been since I sent a day like this?

Sitting here, at a coffee-shop in Kits, staring at the rain outside, at 1:51pm in the afternoon.

It's refreshing. It's relaxing.

It makes me feel that everything's gonna be alright. That everything IS alright.

Suddenly, I feel the urge to write my blog again. It's been months since that last happened.

I need more days like this...


It's been a few months now since I've started working as an independent doctor. Last time I wrote in my blog it was the eve of my first shift alone. I was silently nervous, and nervously confident. I didn't know what awaited me the next day, or how able I would be to cope.

It's funny. The anticipation is often worse than the actual deed.

Well, three months have gone and I don't think I necessarily harmed anyone (at least not knowingly anyway). I think it's been alright. It's amazing how you just let your training take over, and for the most part what protects you from the unknown is your sense of due diligence to your patients and your conservatism. When I was in doubt I often take a step back and think out loud with my parents. I think they appreciate that. Most patients now are so used to getting routine knee-jerk medicine, that they really appreciate when someone actually listens to them, care to hear their stories again, and actually tries to think through the possibilities. Even if the outcome is the same (which is often the case), I'm quite surprised how many thanked me profusely for it.

Of course you cannot do that with all your patients, because with the volume in family medicine, you would just get burnt out. I can appreciate how over time family doctors lose their patience with people, and lose their sense of care. Three months fresh, I already find myself cutting shorter the seemingly "easy" visits to buy myself some sanity for the trickier ones. And overtime you grow more confident in doing so. But it's been good, to be making your own decisions on the spot, and then stop dwelling on this case, and moving on.

It's also quite amazing how a person's work satisfaction is closely tied to his pay. Working as a family doctor locum doesn't make you rich, but it does pay quite nicely if you work hard enough. Immediately, though, I noticed the instant gratification when I leave home each day tired but with the knowledge that I made decent money. Over the course of a month, it's nice to see that your bank account looking pretty much quicker than you've ever seen before. It makes you want to work harder. That drive for reward, for us all A-type personalities.

And that is what can easily make us lose sense of the little moments in life. I used to be king of those little moments. I used to want to live from one moment to the next. Like the knots in a hand-woven blanket, it's the little moments that make life pleasurable. And when you have a string of pretty moments in your life, you find yourself not care so much about the material satisfaction that cost money and requires you to trade in your time and some sanity.

The little moments tell you that life is already pretty peachy, and that you should try to enjoy it a little bit.

I recently brought a place in Yaletown. I had wanted to live in Kits for the longest time, and took almost a year to look for a place there, but there was no suitable property that I liked. Yaletown was the next best thing, and in terms of being an investment might be a even better choice. When I was younger, I used to imagine that if one day I could afford it, I would live in Yaletown. Location-wise it is second to none, and the property itself is quite chic. I do miss this low frills, down-to-earth west coast feeling that Kits provide for me, though. And I should remember this feeling. It's this feeling that reenergizes me after a tough day, a tough week, or a tough month. It's this feeling that make me feel whole again. It's this feeling that reminds me if I keep looking ahead and not around, I'll be missing out on life as we speak.

Capture the moments, and capture life. Thank you coffee-shop by the windown. Thank you the slow drizzle of rain outside. Thank you to the warm aroma of coffee and the soothing light chatter around. Thank you for reminding me to feel again.

The biggest test.

It's 9:15pm. Feels just like the night before a big exam. The anxiety is palpable. I flipped through study notes and last-minute reminders on various topics. I get my books and all my materials organized. I tell myself it's going to be fine. I've done this tons of times. Just like every big exam, I tell myself that cramming by this point is useless, that I should trust my preparation, that I already know my stuff, and that I shouldn't worry so much.

Only that this is actually not a test.

It's only my first day of work as an independent staff doctor.

Weird, it's been a few years since I've already earned the "doctor" title. I've been in really bad situations before all by myself. I've had to make difficult decisions without any backing. But every other time, I always had somebody to answer to, which meant I had somebody to ask if I wasn't sure. It was never my sole responsibility. I was never going out on a limp. I always had crutches.

But tomorrow, it's just gonna be me. I've tried that before, when I played "let's pretend" with my preceptors and ran their clinics for weeks. I usually do okay, but do occasionally encounter difficulties that I ended up consulting them for. Sometimes, when I'm tired, I just ask them for the easy answer instead of having to solve the problem myself. But this time there will be no such guardian angel. When I sign my name at the end of every chart, there is nobody responsible for that but me.

It should be alright. I'll just keep telling myself that. I'm a cautious and conscientious person anyhow, and if I don't know I can always still look things up or make a referral. But it is still nerve-wrecking nonetheless. I'll try to enjoy it. For the first time after years of studying and training, I'm going to be a real doctor tomorrow.

Everything I've learned since day one of medical school, it all applies now.

The Golden Goal.

Who writes this stuff anyway?

Sidney Crosby, scoring the overtime winner, in the gold medal game at the Olympics held in Canada, at the final event of the tournament. The goal that defined a generation of Canadians, the goal that gave a nation the medal that it wants most, the goal that put us over the top in records for gold medals in any Olympics, on the last day, at the last event, at the last possible moment.

There cannot be a better script for a finish for what has been an amazing Olympic experience.

With one shot, an entire nation breathe a sigh of relieve and rejoice for hours to come.

We won gold in hockey at home. That is what everyone wanted to hear ever since the games were awarded to Vancouver so many years ago.

The only thing that was slightly bitter-sweet was that, deep inside, I had wanted Luongo to be the hero, not Crosby. But then again, in Canada, in hockey today, is there a better person to play the protagonist than what has been the face of hockey ever since he stepped into the league?

This has been Crosby's games. It's only fitting that he finishes it.

We won gold. Finally. It's done.