burnt out

 

I feel totally burnt out! I dont know if its the on call effect, me Pmsing, cloudy foggy winter or if its me slowly waking up from my denial.
I just feel like crap, emotionally unstable and i could feel myself choking with my tears, trying so hard not to break down and cry because honestly, i have no idea what im crying for and it wont fix a thing !

Ive been having alot on my mind lately and being in that busy rotation doesnt give \you the time or the mood to sort these things out.

Im sick of talking about it too, i want a solution. I want to put an end to it. I want a friend who i could trust, talk to and who could actually DO something to make me feel better. Its funny how in a city of 5 million people, you fail to make friends .. atleast MATURE friends who are not high on hash or drunk all the time !

I know i shouldnt rely on people to make me feel better or fix me but at the moment, im totally burnt out and out of energy, i cant even force myself to go to work or workout or even go shopping for crying out loud. Winter is here and i havent gone shopping yet !

I could switch my xmas holiday and go home instead of going to disneyland but i dont think this will help, i have a feeling that ut will only make it worse on me .. because ive reached out for help from alot of people there and were helpless and some ended up making it worse on me. I dont blame them, i mean if i knew what this is all about, i couldve fixed it.

I think i should stop now.. the more i think about it, the deeper i sink ...

why leaving is that hard

So this is where my journey ends.. When i first arrived in kuwait for my vacation, i was home sick for toronto and i never expected myself to break down like this.
Ive been pretty emotional and tearful in the past few days prior to me leaving to toronto. Ive been having so many regrets regarding not spending enough time with my family and fears about losing them.

When i firat arrived to kuwait at the beginning of october, my dad told me that one of my aunt"s was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer but she was pretty stable and asymptomatic and within one month, ive been informed that her condition has deteriorated so badly and that she has less than 6 months to live. Being a doctor, i know what pancreatic cancer is and i knew that she wasnt going to be cured but just realizing that she wont be here next time i come for a visit has struck me with fear.. Within one month, she recieved a diagnosis of death and within 6 months, she will no longer be here.. Realizing how things can change so quickly !! I realized that it could be anyone else, it could be my dad, my mum, my grandmother, any of my siblings b3id elshar inshallah.

Being abroad, away from family and friends could you put you in that risk, the risk of losing anyone and being left with regrets for not spending enough time with them.

My friends keep telling me that therez nothing i could do and the reason i am abroad is to make my dreams come true, little they knew that  i dont see my subspeciality as a dream and it is definitely not worth it but its a choice i made ans i have to stick to it. Dont get me wrong, i do like psychiatry and i have no regrets choosing it as career but its not worth the pain im feeling right now.

My friends and family dont really know what i really feel. I only post my happy moments/pictures. They have no idea how lonely it is there, how tough it is to go through this on my own. Toronto is one of the busiest  and fast growing in the world. It is full of immigrants and people seeking a chance to live. Everyone is working hard here and they have no interest in socializing so its hard to make friends here and most people are found in groups, like all asians, all indians, all arabs! Most of kuwaiti students are doctors like me and they are either too busy trying to survive the residency and the on calls or have their own family and satisfied with that as a social life .. everyone thinks of being abroad as a '' COOL '' thing, actually, i used to think the same way .. maybe it is a cool fun way if you are off as a student, as a bachelor student but definitely it is one of the most stressful experiences as a doctor/resident ..the way medicine is taught and practiced here in kuwait differs a lot from the way things are done in canada. i don't think they train us and prepare us for such responsibility here in kuwait. In canada, you feel as if the medical students are waaay better than you and can handle critical situations better than us residents/doctors. with this, comes great amount of stress, depression and low self esteem. you feel as if you wasted your life away during these past 7 yrs . add to that the long working hours in canada .. the average working hours for any profession is 8am till 5pm but for doctors it can get as hectic as 7am till 7pm .. during my consultation liaison rotation, there were days when i left the hospital around 8:30.. it can get really crazy!

so we got stressful job , no social life and then lack of support. the time difference between kuwait and canada is like 7-8hrs .. even in the lucky days when i leave work as early as 5pm, it will still be too late to call home coz that would be around midnight and most of the people would be asleep by then. you can try staying up late till midnight canada time but then that would be as early as 7 am in kuwait and the majority are busy getting ready to work or still sleeping .. this leaves you with nothing but the weekends to try to keep in touch with people back home.

i have no regrets coming here or doing that .. it wasn't my 1st choice but i know this is happening for a reason and i have a feeling that amazing things will happen in canada .. I'm just saying, its not as easy as it seems .. and I'm not as happy as i pretend. in a matter of fact, i don't dare to show my family and friends how fragile i am here .. in the past few days, i broke down a couple of times and i told a couple of friends about it, a lot of em were shocked and didn't know why i was crying. they thought things were perfect here and that i was having a blast ..

i think I've ranted enough …

just wanted to get these thoughts off my chest . and I'm beginning to get really sleepy right now .. i still have 2hrs before my next flight, I'm so drugging myself out and sleeping the whole flight ! its 14hrs25min flight and there is no way on earth that I'm going to stay awake all flight long.
sadly, im reaching toronto around 5pm so i can't just jump in bed, i got one day to fix my sleep which is impossible but one can only hope right? so ill probably go for some grocery shopping then deal with the piles n piles of mail that i know that they r waiting for me and i bet most of them are bills!


cant keep my eyes open anymore

perhaps too emotional?

I'm sitting here in Amsterdam Airport when a young lady, I say about 20yrs old in a KLM uniform offering me biscuits and attempting to take away my used plate. A while ago in the toilet, there was an old lady, I say older than 50yr old cleaning the toilets .
two scenes with the same reaction, i felt really sad. a 20yr old girl should be out there making her dreams come true, and a 50yr old lady should be resting at home playing with her grandchildren. I know a job is a job and sadly, not everyone is born wealthy and most of the world have to work really hard to make a living. Maybe life isn't fair. I just can't help feeling sad when i see such people .. young children selling products in the streets, old men doing hard labor work, old ladies cleaning houses and stuff .. it really breaks my heart.. i get the urge to hug them.
Ive been told by one of my seniors in Canada that i have this good emotional sensitivity to other people's feelings .. perhaps im too sensitive?
I guess i shouldn't judge,  i mean that girl atleast have a decent job and not another homeless person on drugs or doesn't have to sell her body for money and i guess that old lady is taking care of her self instead of rely on others.
and maybe things will change for them eventually. ive seen how life flips completely for me and for others. Maybe this is the beginning of something beautiful.
okay, its been a long flight and my brain is a bit slower right now so i'll finish this later on

in a dark place

ive been in this dark place way too long ...
ive been feeling like a mess .. ive been too impulsive, cant control my anger and been so insecure. im trying to recall when is the last time ive felt okay ... i think that was 3 yrs ago .. when i was still in med school .. my only explanation is, that i was too busy to think about anything else but my studies .. after graduation, i thought its time to take care of myself and i guess thats when hell broke loose .. i think i took it too seriously that i started finding defects in every aspect of my life .. and then came the obsession of being perfect ...
then i did psychiatry and started psychoanalyzing myself .. and finding disorders in my thinking ..
ahhhhhh *bangs head on keyboard *
i need to step back, take life less seriously.. loosen up more .. bring back the old carefree person in me ..
the keyword is: CARE FREE .. sob7an allah .. it seems so easy and simple .. i mean, whats easier than NOT CARING AT ALL .. yet to me, it seems so hard and almost impossible :s

sick

so i have finally gotten sick..
wow such a relief ..
lol no i'm not mad, i have a pretty good explanation for this ..
you see, one of my biggest concerns about going abroad and being on my own was getting sick .. i rarely get sick but when i do, i get sick so bad and ive always needed a little bit of pampering and nursing :P
no seriously, i was dreading getting sick here ..
and unfortunately, i did get sick .. i think i have the flu or something ... the weather has changed dramatically in the past few days .. it became cold all of a sudden ..
so yesterday, i had that nagging headache with this bad lethargy .. as if a truck drove over me .. i slept the whole day .. and i had that scratchy throat ..
but things were not as bad as i anticipated EL7AMDALLAH !! i managed to make me chicken soup from scratch :D .. and i did have couple of friends calling me and offering to come over to nurse me lol ..
im so glad that i got sick .. coz now i know that getting sick when ur on ur own isn't as bad as i thought .. i mean el7amdallah it was only the flu and nothing serious but still, im glad that i found out that i could take care of myself ..

OHH OHHH and i learnt other stuff too .. so ive always been a workaholic and a productive freak . i cant just sit still without doing anything .. i cant just have a lazy day .. even when i was sick before, i had to do something like read a book or watch some documentaries .. i cant just waste time in bed . this was very unacceptable and yesterday, i had the urge to grab a book or something .. and believe me, if i was doing this for fun, i would have let myself but i know that that urge to read or do something is out of my obsession of being productive rather than having fun .. so i stopped myself .. i was getting restless and the urge was getting stronger to do something but i kept stopping myself and did nothing but sleeping the day away ... and this is considered a big achievement for me lol .. yep .. doing nothing is not easy for me at all ..

and the other good thing that i learnt is, to give myself a break .. Canadians are workaholics and they never take days off .. coz that means less money .. thats why you rarely see people taking sick leaves and stuff and ive always had that feeling that if i take day off, ill give em the impression that im a weak person or something and since this is my first year, i cant afford giving my supervisors any bad impressions. there were days when i wasn't feeling well enough but i had to push myself because i thought, i should't ask for breaks .. but then a friend of mine told me '' YOUR HEALTH COMES FIRST, YOU COME FIRST, IF YOU ARE HUNGRY, YOU LEAVE YOUR PATIENTS AND GO EAT. IF YOU FEEL SICK, YOU EXCUSE YOURSELF '' .. ive always been hesitant to do such stuff .. there were days when i didnt have lunch coz i was busy with my patients , there were days when i missed my doctors appointments because i couldnt tell my supervisors that i need to leave for my appointment .. you cant blame me, doctors in kuwait have traumatized me lol .. they were so mean and rude and would never let us leave for lunch/appointments so im not used to asking for these .. but it seems people are more considerate in canada and i guess i gotta learn how to ask for my rights .. i mean, here you can just call and tell them you cant come coz you are sick and no one will ask you what kind of sickness you have because privacy is a big issue here !! but in kuwait, they demand you to bring a sick leave or tell them what u have and if they are not convinced, they will force you to come and work :s ...

the thing that im trying to say here that ive started to learn how to loosen up a bit .. and thats something that i really need ...

running away

you keep on running away ..
I cant blame you.. you've been hurt so many times .. by so many people ..
I've always thought I could be the one, the one who make all that pain go away ..
but it seems that ive only made things worse for you ..
I had a feeling that you will eventually run away,
I was hoping you'd run back to me ..
if not,
I wish you a safe journey,
and I hope you find yourself somewhere safe and warm,
somewhere you can call home.

ramadan in north america

ive meant to update this long time ago .. and i know ive said that a thousand time but i really wanna update it more often, for my own sake :s it has been 3 months since ive arrived to canada and those 3 months passed by too quickly :S .. i still get home sick sometimes and i believe the reason is that i still dont have many friends .. the weekends are the toughest coz im either home all day long or out on my own and its really not fun being on your own .. ive always wanted to do this .. travel and live on my own .. but you know, its not as fun as you think it is .. especially if you are working and here in north america, people work ALOT !! things can get really stressful at a times and miserable if you lack support ... now ramadan was quite a challenge .. so in toronto, emsak is around 4:30 am and breaking fast is at 8:45 pm nowdays .. you go to work from 8-9 am till 5-7pm .. and people around you are eating and drinking .. thats not the worse part .. the worst part is, when you come home around 6-7, you're already exhausted and tired, you try to cook some fotor and then you break your fast at 9 and by 10pm, you cant keep your eyes open .. so its like the whole day is wasted because you're at work and even if you're home, you'll be too tired to do anything and at night, you're sleepy and actually you cant even stay up late because you got work the next day and there will be no coffee to help you stay awake .. do you get what im trying to say here?? ramadan in north america SUCKS est'3afer allah .. not only its draining me physically since ive been living on one meal .. but MENTALLY TOO .. i swear to god, everyday id be debating with myself if i should break my fast or not!! in my whole entire life, ive never wanted my period to come as bad as i want it to come right now .. i just cant take it anymore :( and what ye7er too is that there has been alot of holidays here and you'd want to use those holidays to go out, do stuff or even travel but you cant because you're fasting .. dont tell me to go out despite my fasting, its really hot and sunny + people are eating everywhere + alot of walking involved + im already as diadventage because i only eat one meal a day .. i tried waking up for so7or a couple of times, i either missed it coz im so exhausted and couldnt hear the alarm or id wake up only to realize that fotor is still ga3d 3ala chabdi :S i just cant wait till ramadan is over :( and thats so sad because i was lookng forward for ramadan :( the good thing about ramadan that it has forced me to cook everyday and be creative with it lol .. yeah that clashed with my dieting plans .. but who cares!! i only eat one meal a day .. i should eventually lose the weight .. i hope :S so yeah, ive been experimenting with different cuisines ..

we got some italian futor, some middle eastern futor .. tiramisu which i need to PERFECT because all tiramisu here has alcohol in it so the only tiramisu i'll be having is the home made ones :( ive actually eaten a few ones here without knowing that they had alcohol and gotta say, it does taste different ... NOT IN A GOOD WAY LOL .. wallah, chena fe dowa ka7a :S today, im steping up the game a bit and im having asian futor, the plan is to do some suhsi, baked spring rolls and dumplings .. now thats gonna be a challenge :S ill keep you updated :D

PGY1

so I have finally received my 1st year schedule and it sucks big time .. LIKE BIG TIME starting on july 30th july 30th – august 26th: elective august 27th – sept 30 : psych ER oct 1-28: elective oct 29 – jan 1: general medicine jan 2 – feb 3: palliative care feb4 – mar 3: ER mar 4-apr 7: psych CL apr 8 – may 5: behavioural neurology may6 –june2 : neurology june 3-30: addiction so lets start with the good news, the good news that ive been relocated from Toronto general hospital ( REALLY BUSY PLACE ) to mount Sinai where I work now, which is quieter and has a friendlier staff here .. plus mount Sinai is smaller and u don’t get lost in it like in Toronto general .. I was assigned first in Toronto general and I don’t know how I ended up in mount Sinai but im really glad :D now the bad news is, they screwed my vacation .. you see, I was planning to use the ELECTIVE to come home ( you could do it in Kuwait ) but now its on august and I don’t wanna come home yet lol .. I don’t miss home that much yet .. plus, I cant take a vacation in my 1st rotation and I think I cant take one until I pass 6 months of my rotations .. that means, I cant use the electives as vacation ( a lot of people do that ). And the other bad thing is, I don’t know what to do with the electives :s .. usually people go through rotations and know what they like and what they don’t and based on that, they decide their electives .. mine is at the very beginning :S so I don’t even know what to choose .. so 1st of all, ill be stuck here in Canada and not knowing what to do with my electives .. that sucks big time .. this week sucks too . I got 3 on calls in one week :s .. today which is Monday, on Friday and on Sunday .. and Friday Sunday thing sucks big time coz I go to work on Friday and come back on Saturday then go to work the next day and come back on Monday .. waai3 .. there;’s a concert for yanni that Saturday, I don’t know if ill be able to attend with such a crazy on call  .. maybe I should .. as a reward .. I don’t know, we will see

panicking again

i havent been feeling well lately .. i dont know why but ive been anxious and panicky and its becoming more and more everyday without any obvious reasons ...i could think of some but im not totally convinced that this is it if you know what i mean ... 1) not being able to stick to my to-do list: but ive already worked this out with myself and realized that i wasnt really realistic and started making realistic plans which i havent been able to apply yet but im planning to work on it pretty soon, ma3qola failing my to do list could be the cause ?? i know i came with alot of expectations and wanted to do much but i couldnt but ive spent a whole day managing this issue with myself and made some plans .. now that im thinking about it more .. it cant be it .. i mean, it does make me upset but NOT PANICKY .. 2) not being able to study : yeah the old enemy is back .. me being all obsessed about studying .. thing is, according to 90% of all people i met, they told me its COMPLETELY OK NOT TO STUDY during the 1st year .. especially that ill be doing rotations which are not related to my field .. they told me to take it easy and not study at all and ill be fine .. and u know, i kinda believe them because look at me, ive survived 2 weeks of medicine without studying .. its not as bad as i think .. it will get worse later on but i dont know .. i know this is one of the reasons that im feeling guilty and bad .. but thing is, I AM TRYING , i swear to god i am .. i come from work at 7 exhausted and tired and never the less i spend atleast an HOUR trying to study everyday, why wont i get credit for that ?? 3) memory loss now this is related to the 2nd issue, not being able to study efficiently is making me panic .. i know that i made peace with this memory loss issue but it seems to haunt me back now ..i started doing some mental training and brain games but im not even sure this will work .. i know this is stress related but HOW ON EARTH CAN I STOP BEING STRESSED !! HOW !!! teach me .. i dont even know how to stop caring 4) the old cycle of panicking coz im panicking now is back . but im getting this under control 5) doubting my subspeciality .. here we go again with elmawtho3 el sa5eef .. doubting my choice .. the fact that i keep on doubting it every once in a while makes me panic to be honest .. its like something isnt right .. even when i came to canada and saw how aweful people are, that made me panic even more ... coz i thought ppl werent feeling ok in kuwait coz of lack of good psychiatric help but canada is supposed to be one of countries with the best mental health system so why people are still a mess .. loads and loads of miserable poeple.. but then, u cant blame them .. life here is hectic, i really dont blame anyone for feeling miserable ... i dont know when im going to end this once and for all .. even if i hated psych ( WHICH I DONT ), its the best available option .. i really think i should work on the balance thing .. coz i can totally see a pattern here .. the problem was never in the subspeciality .. its not that i hated medicine and its not that i think psych is useless .. its the fact that im so scared that i wont reach to my own expectations .. i can totally see that now ... i decided not to be a medical dr coz i doubted my own abilities esp with my memory disturbance , i knew im going to fail being an internist coz i could never memorize all that information .. its not hard .. its not that i hated it .. on the contrary, I ENJOY DOING MEDICINE .. but i had a belief that i dont have what it takes to be an internist .. and now this is happening again with psych .. i chose it coz i thought its interesting and i thought i had a lil gift with people but now im doubting the field coz im doubting my own abilities .. i dont have self esteem issues .. well .. maybe a little but there's something else .. i dont know why im so scared of venturing and finding out if it was my thing or not .. i dont know why im so afraid to fail ... maybe coz im afraid that people will leave me once they realize that im useless .. but nobody is completely useless .. everyone is good at a thing or another .. god, i so need to see a therapist .. *sigh* 6) been feeling really lonely lately.. family doesnt really ask much about me , most of my friends seem like they moved on with their new life without me and i havent made any GOOD friends yet .. i know a couple of girls who i hang out with but they r just FUN friends if u know what i mean .. i feel so lonely ... i think i need to go back to therapy .. but where will i find one that would fit into my long working days ...

stressing myself out

Ive been feeling stressed out lately and im really ashamed to say that ive done it again and i iver stressed myself !! ahhh this is just so annoying !! i tend to overwhelm myself with demands and stuff o elqahar ashya2 sa5eefa not even worth being stressed over !! i really need to be a carefree person .. i just keep on stressing myself way too much to the fact that i have a panic attack the other day .. imagine .. after being panic free for so long now, i bring em back and over what? Working out !!! this is just ridiculous ... im trying some new time management thing and hopefully it works out before i go haywire and panic like crazy i feel scared .. really scared... too know that whatever im going through was created by me, by my mind and im having hard time controlling them, it makes me scared because i know no one can protect me from my own self .. its like being locked in with a psychopath and no one knows how to get you out.. do you know what i mean? Its like something is seriously wrong in your life and its causing you this intolerable pain and depression and that thing is YOU !! i tried to change so many times but i failed .. HOW DO YOU CHANGE YOURSELF ?? i am 100% motivated to do so coz im sick of the way i feel but i dont know how .. it makes me feel so desperate ... i have no one to run to and even going home wont help me at all coz i cant escape myself . Ive made a mess out of me, i dont know what else my mind want me to do to myself !! ive realized that self destruction is what i do the best and this is getting out of control .... ive been trying to change for so long now and the fact that i havent been able to indicates an element of resistance .. i mean what else could it be ? But i know 10000% that im not doing this consciously, omg id pay whatever it takes to learn how to be carefree ... maybe i should start therapy .. try to find out whats wrong and stuff .. but with my hectic daily schedule, its kinda hard .. im not even sure that i can find therapist working past 7pm :S and people ask me, why do i hate myself ? BECAUSE OF THIS, it gave me nothing but heartache and insanity .. i got that sadistic mind who tries to hurt me in every possible way .. and it doesnt make sense .. how could my mind control me ? Lol , arent i suppose to be the one controlling it ?? ahhhhh just thinking about it makes me panicky .. i better shut up now

another attempt to make friends with 5aliji ppl

so yesterday i went out with a new bunch of poeple, kuwaiti doctors from kuwait and suadi .. walla they are fun and stuff but they reminded me of typical kuwaitis .. u know , they wanna go to cafes and chat or go shopping and stuff .. and even one of the kuwaities really scare me off .. she';s the kind that would throw words at u just like that and i dont know, she scared me lol , i tried my best not to have long conversations with her because i didnt wanna have stuff throw at me lol .. and u dont know if she's joking or serious coz she has this poker face lol guess i still need to look for friends .. damn, its a city with population of 5 millions !! why cant i find some interesting people !!!!! i wanna go hiking, biking, rollerbading , walking around the city, fishing , sailing . Why cant i find people who wants to do the same thing mumbles

ewing sarcoma

so this is my 3rd on call and they've been pampering me and i know i should be happy that i get to sleep everynight unlike the rest of the residents but I WANT TO LEARN!! I WANT TO WORK@@ because once, i become officially a resident, ill be making the calls here ! ill be responsible and thats freaky :( i thought this call will be different because usually we are 3 from the same team, our senior who destributes the cases, M who's a medical student and me .. and my senior is really pampering me and making the medical student do all the work and tonight, he's not here, he took today off so i thought thats my chance to be worked out but guess what? ITS A QUIET NIGHT!! i know i shouldnt be complaining and i should be happy that there is no work and stuff but i really wanna learn !! anyway i did get a case though and its such a heart breaking one .. its a young guy who got cancer in his bone when he was 18, it was in his spine so he was paralyzed for 2yrs untill he finished his chemotherapy and stuff and he thought he was cured. we did a scan on him and found out that the cancer has spread to his sacrum ( hip bone ) and lungs .. basically.. he's terminal .. when you get cancer, thats bad news and it means chemo or radiation and all these aweful therapies but when your cancer gets spread out, thats like game over. they dont even bother giving you cancer treatment and they will treat you symptomatically .. as in giving you pain medicine and stuff and not actual cancer treatment .. that made me so sad .. the guy is so funny and pleasant .. he had high spirit and stuff .. he was telling me how his hockey team lost the tournement and how he's sure that by next year, they'll get it .. he didnt know that he might not be here next year and that his family will have to watch him die slowly :( i really felt bad .. we really do take life for granted .. look at him .. he never saw that coming .. he got cancer when he was 18 and he'll be dead when he's 21 .. wow .. can you imagine that? sigh .. allah ye9aber ahalha o yeshafee

time management

its been a while !! i still have hard time organizing my time and this is causing a big deal of stress and frustration !! i try my best not to bother myself with the unfinished to do list, u know teach myself how to be flexible and stuff and it works on daily basis but then by the end of the week, when i see my cumilative undone stuff, i freak out big time ! and I AM BEING REALISTIC !! i have already given up most of the stuff that I WANTED TO DO in canada and narrowed the list to what i NEED TO DO!! and that is, studying, working out and free reading .. but its not working out .. here how my day goes: 6:30 i wake up. iron my clothes and have breakfast . i usually take my time waking up like id check twitter and stuff on my bed and i NEED to do that so i dont feel all stressed out and brutally pulled out of bed you know .. 7:40 am : go to work and ill be at work by 8 8 am - 6:30 pm: work 7pm: im home or sometimes i need to go buy stuff so ill be home around 8:30 7-9pm: praying, cooking, cleaning up , eating and watching something or reading something 9pm: an attempt to study which usually fails and end in like 40min coz im just too tired 11pm : im in bed but somehow i end up sleeping around midnight i know it sounds like im wasting alot of time but im not .. trust me im not .. the reason why im giving myself time to do luxury stuff is that im easily stressed, ana eb '3orba, i have no friends so i dont wanna over stress myself with studying/work and end up depressed. im thinking about altering this a bit so i can really do something productive during the day .. im thinking of waking up at 5:00am and maybe study then till 7:00 ( my room is overlooking a very beautiful sunrise view .. i woke up to pee a few days ago and i was amazed by how beautiful the sunrise is from my room ) thing is, i could wake up at 5 and work out instead of studying but then by the time im home, ill be dead tired to read anything since ive waken up SO EARLY hmmm guess ill be testing this .. scenario A 5am: waking up and staying in bed till 5:30 5:30-7:00 : study 7:00-7:30 : get ready to work by ironing clothes and making breakfasts 8am -6:30 work 7pm-8pm go home, pray , eat an apple then go for a walk ( as work out and to explore the city ) an hour walk. 8pm-9pm: dinner and stuff 9-11pm: to do whatever i want. and im thinking one hour studying and one hour ( my time whether reading or so ) but i know that my time will be wasted coz of phone calls/chats/errands 11pm- 5am: sleep but then i was aiming for 7hrs sleep , guess ill be done to 6 blaaah .. Scenario B ** suddenly eshtaheet dyayat kanari :( ** 5am: wake up 5:30 - 7 : work out ( jogging or cardio ) --> i dunno if its a good idea to jump around in my apartment where people underneath me are sleeping :S 7:00 - 7:30 get ready for work 7:30-8 am: going to work 8 am - 6:30 pm: at work 7pm: home 7-8pm: praying, dinner , watching somethin ( reason why i stress on prayers coz ill be doing 9alat elthoher o el3a9er, thats 8 rek3at, it takes time u know :P ) 8-10pm: studying 10-11pm: my time but then i keep on freaking out over the fact that ill be waking up at 5 am and only sleeping 6hrs .. that doesnt sound healthy at all ... but even my life style right now isnt healthy .. blaaah .. i know you are probably thinking mo lazem i work out everyday .. thing is, im not really workin out everyday .. ana 7a6a yom cardio o yom strength and stuff .. and keep in mind that when im on call, there wont be any working out .. so yeah .. i really dont know what to do .. this is is driving me crazy .. i came here to LIVE mo repeat the same mistake i did in kuwait and lose my life to my work/studies i wanna live and i wanna live it right !

misplaced

so here i am again, on my 2nd on call .. damn i need to get me one of these keyboards, it makes typing so much fun, better than the mac laptop keyboard.. i kinda like big tabs that make sounds when you press it.. i dont know why but it works as positive reinforcement making me wanna type more and more wahahaha. so yeah what did i wanna say ? yeah my weekend got screwed because of this on call .. since its all saturday and half of sunday but atleast ill be free the next weekend and its 4pm and so far so quiet so im glad. hope it stays like this during the night so i can get some sleep . its been a month since i left kuwait. days did pass by so quick!! i havent settled mentally and psychologically and part of me is freaking out a bit ... i know for sure that i have nothing left for me in kuwait .. true i have family and friends there but .. i dont know how to describe it, its like therez nothing for me there .. nothing that im missing so bad or nothing that makes me wanna go back .. it doesnt even feel painful being far away .. its funny but i dont think ill be feeling any home sickness .. but then, i dont feel as if i belong here too ..toronto is not my city plus ive been too busy to be honest to explore this place .. but part of me knows that this is not my thing and now i feel misplaced .. i got nothing to go back to back home and i dont feel as if i belong here .. and this is making me feel insecure .. but i also believe this is the anxious voice inside of me trying to throw in a panic attack or so .. i mean if u think about it, toronto has almost everything i ever wanted .. ALMOST .. i mean different ppl, different languages , different cuultures , i can do whatever i want with no restriction, i can skydive or hike or bike or whatever i want .. but i dont know why i feel out of place .. maybe i should go out more and make friends .. i met a couple of people but i wouldnt call any as a FRIEND, u know like a friend friend that i can talk to or go out with .. so i met an interesting patient .. she's a holocaust survivor.. she was in auschwitz which is a concentration camp in poland in which hitler used to kill the jews .. ive been there when i was in poland and ive seen alot of documentries about it .. it was so horrofying whatever happened there, i cant believe that ive met a survivor .. she even had her number tattoed in her arm. she was 12 then ..wow .. i dont dare to ask her about it .. poor lady .. i think im gonna take some italian lessons .. i mean there are ALOT of italian people here or maybe keep on doing spanish ?? i dont know but definitely im learning one of these and french will be easy to learn too coz everything is written in french and english here .. but i think i wont enroll in a class yet .. coz my working hours are too long to fit a language course and work out in the same day so i think im gonna focus on working out for 6 months and when i reach my goal, ill go to language classes. speaking of work out, i still havent had the time or the mood or even the strength to work out and ive been eating alot .. home made food but still.. you know, maybe i shouldnt cook as much . to be honest, i wanst cookin to eat, i was cooking to have fun coz i really do enjoy it but i think this is reflecting so badly on my weight and fittness plan .. so currently im cooking all the BAD food to get rid of it and then i;ll start the real thing .. im still looking for a good diet/work out plan so if u have any, ill appreciate it . its 5:15pm, so far so quiet .. maybe i should nap .. in case all the people decide to come at night :S

Medicine in canada

So my 1st week in medicine is almost over and im glad that it ended up with no big damage to my self esteem :p

So yeah i was assigned to team A in a quiet jewish hospital. My consultant is or shall i say was a big shot ! Hez pretty famous and a graduate of harvard university, hez known to be very sarcastic and pick on students and i was really nervous the whole time but he never really attacked me but definitely he was picking on one of the med stdents in my team. Anyway tomorrow we will be having a new senior, it seems that team leader changes every month ! The new doctor is known to be smart and really good so yay for that! Hope he doesnt pick on ppl too.
So my team is kinda small and things are weird here too
So in medicine, u have 1 staff dr which equals to consultant in kuwait. A senior resident ( hez in his 2nd year of the 5-yr residency program ) , 2 first year residents, medical students in their last year of med school.
So basically our boss is a 2nd yr resident and hez sweet and all bs 7ada mo mal teaching and he talks in a funny way! Ma afham shno yeqol!! And i dont know if this is good or bad but hez been going too soft on me :( i want him to teach me how to do stuff :/ and thenn i got 2 first year residents and they are amazing!! Like so smart and all, ill definitely stick myself to them coz they ARE teacher material and would teach me and stuff. Then i have one med student whoz thaay3 bl6osha! Hez not interested in med so he couldnt care less about what goes on here :/

So imagine!! All the drs in the ward are ppl in their SECOND YEAR RESIDENCY!! Thats crazy!!! Even in the on call, we take charge, year 2 with year 1 and medical students!!!!!! Now that was shockin until i heard the story of their medical school!!

In canada/US, u cant join med school after high school. U need to do a bachelor in ANYTHING inshalla economy! So they spend 4 yrs studying somethin else first ( my senior has a bachelor of mechanic engineering!!!!!!!!!!! ) and then u can try to apply for med school. Now gettin in isnt easy at all that people end up doing masters and even PhD to get in!!! Can u imagine that??? Thats why they are old when they join med school which is 4yrs only.

But again, i cant believe that they leave people in the hands of residents. People who are still studying for their subspeciality :/ but u know, its really impressive how much they know!! THEY KNOW ALOT, actualy they act like real drs !!!

So what happens is that we , the team, see our patients and write plans and then we do a round once a day with the senior who might correct our approach n stuff !!

So ya back to me.. So ya my team been easy on me and i want em to take me seriously coz im still doing my PEAP and once july starts, ill be officially a RESIDENT and ill be in charge of people and stuff :/ so i really wanna take advantage of the quiet environment and stuff to learn as much as i can before the real thing starts. Plus i feel left out :/ its like no one wants to be around me :( they always make plans and then spread out leavin me standing behind and im sick of begging them to give me attention!! Like today for example, ive been here for an hour and no one is answerin my calls or anything!! This is so frustrating!!
And i cant study in the hospital, its too noisy :/

Blaaah

Anyway i got no weekend this weekend! Im on call on saturday! So i go to work at 8am amd get off sunday 8am and probaby sleep all sunday off :/

Im gonna go try to find em now n if i couldnt! Ill just.. Urgh i dunno! Go home??

Sigh

She screamed:WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
I said: i dont want you to get hurt.. By me ..
And then: and i dont want to get hurt.. By you.

And thats when everything started to fall apart..

my first on call

so here i am, sitting alone in this tiny on call and wondering what the hell am i gonna do ? ive been aconfused and overwhelmed lately .. i mean the system here is so different and im spending most of my effort figuring out the system instead of focusing on the clinical work. but i cant complain because my medical PEAP which i was dreading so bad ended up being not so bad after all.. i mean, i do feel rusty and out of medical shape if you know what i mean but im based on a laid back hospital, not like the old hospital where things were SUPER BUSY AND SUPER HECTIC @@ this one is actually more peaceful and people here are friendlier although its a jewish hospital and i thought people will hate me for wearing the veil. my unit isnt bad too, my senior is like a SUPER BIG SHOT @@ he's known world wide, he;s funny too and the rest of the people here are nice, kinda 6too busy for me but atleast im not intimidated by them. but ive been under stress lately and if you want me to be honest, id say ive created that stress myself . i mean, i still expect alot from myself and i still expect alot from others. i try to beat sense into me every once in a while about my unrealistic self expectation but i cant seem to break the habit of expecting stuff from others . i know that i would do those things to them so why is it so hard to do them for me .. but then, there is this part where you cant force people to do anything and more importantly, you cant force them to like you ... yeah so.. i think im going to fly solo from now on... i just wanna do things on my own , no expectation from others whether empathy, encouragement or anything .. it really drains me out when i feel invisible by others and i cant afford getting all depressed because of that . even my family dont call/ask about me and it hurts so bad .. i dont know .. im not really happy with the way my brain works, it seems to be very hostile against its own self and others . i dont like my attitude .. but then this is one of the reasons i came here .. beside my residency, i wanted time off to work on me , tackle those things that i hated about myself and find peace. maybe i should work on them .. yeah .. and TRY TO BALANCE. so yeah im gonna lay low for a while .. anyway back to real life events here lol .. so yeah its my 2nd day on my medical rotation and im on call. this is the first time i ever have a 24hr on call but it seems like ive been slowing the team down so i think they wont be dragging me out of the call room which means sleeping for me yaaay .. im exhausted .. bso its good news to have a good sleep but on the same time, I WANNA LEARN@@ I mean now im just a PEAP student, being treated as a medical student so im not responsible or anything but once i start my residency on JULY, i will be extremely responsible as in ill be doing CPR, giving electric shocks to save pts lives so its not a joke so might as well learn the system while i can ... so much to do, so much to read, so much to know and little time i actually have ..

Privacy in canada :/

Its been one hectic week, im glad its over! But im not excited about next week either, ill start medicine n im a little bit rusty coz i havnt done it for so long :/
So ill be spending my weekend on studying!

Im a little bit disappointed, i havnt been able to do any of the things ive wanted to do! Ive been busy with work n gettin all settled! I cant wait till i can start workin on my own plans! I wanna cook, i wanna fish, skate , take photos, hike b explore the world but its so hard with this time consuming job. I wanna date too lol so i better find a way :/

Ahhh my psychiary rotation was crazy!! Ppl were so busy that no one was payin attention to me and i did mess up lol BIG TIME!! Imagine that i was following up the wrong pt for 3 days.. The guy had a hard name so i never really called him with his name and i was examining the pt on the bext bed all that time :/ ashwa ena no one found out :/ imagine that ive been discussing wrong finding for 3 days.

Something that is strange here is the privacy!! Imagine! U cant talk to the family without asking for the permission of the patient, u are not allowed to even take history or examine the pt if he had friends/family over. U have to ask if thats ok first! Imagine we went to see this guy so when we first entered the room, we were like hey sir, im dr x from psychiatry department, do u mind if we ask u some questions? And that guy had some one with him. He got angry and kicked us out, which is so expected, alot of people feel insulted when questioned by a psychiatrist but herez the funny part, later on we were informed that hez gonna sue us coz we gave his friend the impression that hez a mental pt! So our mistake is that we didnt respect the pt"s privacy and exposed him infront of his friend by saying that psychiatry wants to check on him! Do u get it?? OMG THIS IS INSANE! We were supposed to ask the pt if its ok to talk to him infront of his friend n if hez ok with it, we would say we are psychiatrists!! Do u see how insane things are here!!!

U are not allowed to bring out of the hospital any paper that has any info about the pts! O bl kuwait na5th elfile ebkobra elbeet :/ !! Any paper that has anythin related to the pt should either fe in the file or SHREDDED!!! Not even thrown in the garbage!! Should be shredded!!!
U cant discuss anythin about the pt infront of other ppl or other dr that has nothing to do with the pt! We cant discuss it bl hallway or elevators or outside the hospital :/

Ya privacy is such a big issue here :/

Anyway, beside the hospital, ive been feeling really bad! I feel all forgotten to be honest! My family dont call me and i havnt talked to mum for almost 10 days.. This feels aweful.. I know i can only blame the time difference but even if we couldnt TALK, how about a message or two.. I really feel sad.. Like people did move on back home..
Maybe i should move on too :( i dont know why i still expect things from others!
Akhhhh those damn expectations.. They will eventually destroy me .. Whether my expectations from myself or from others! They always back fire at me ..

exhausted

i'm really exhausted .. i came here to live .. i wonder if am i gonna be able to do that with such hectic life style.. i didnt come here to be over worked .. i promised myself that im gonna reward my self with the best 5yrs of my life and it should be relaxing amd i should be able to do the things ive always wnated to do .. sigh

hectic life

so i have started working, like somehow official and its been hectic like hell .. before i come home, they told me working hours in canada are from 8am till 5pm but ive been going to work from 9am till 7pm and its been super busy and super crazy !! thing is, after work, u kinda drag yourself back home, u try to eat and maybe de-clutter a bit or watch something and then its suddenly 11pm and you just cant keep your eyes open .. its been a week since ive started workin and i havent studied a bit and its scarying me actually!! because this is not kuwait anymore, in canada, u are a REAL DOCTOR and you have to figure out how to manage the patients .. its really scary, i really need to find a way to study :( so far so bad lol , i mean, there were days when i couldnt see all my assigned patients, there were days when i ws kicked out, there were days when i was very much intimidated by the patients and their relatives because they know so much when it comes to medical knowledge and you feel as if you are being tested .. but the biggest shock is, ive been seeing the wrong patient for 3 days !! IMAGINE !! ive been following this pt, i got the file right but ive been examining the wrong one .. IMAGINE !! 3 days !!! i really dont know how i could recover from that lol so yeah, im doing one week of psychiatry right now .. its a branch of psychiatry called consultation liason psychiatry. its the branch that connects medicine to psychiatry .. so basically we see medically ill patients who has mental illness .. most of our patients are chronically sick, end stage diseases, cancer, non treatable diseases who ended up with mental illnesses like depression, anxiety or even schizophrenia .. ive always been interested in that field but now that im doing it, its kinda depressing ..most of the patients are dieing or really sick ... but anyway i dont wanna judge yet .. so yeah next week, ill start my medical training, NOW THATS SCARY !! true that ive been on my own in psych but i could never kill the patient. in medicine, ill be on my own and i COULD KILL the patient :s the system here in canada is SO DIFFERENT !! first of all, their hospitals are HUGE !! and it has alot of sub-specialties ..alot of impressive branches like memory clinic , smoking clinic , tropical diseases ... etc .. the wards are packed up with different people .. not only nurses and doctors but you also have social worker, psychologist , nurse practitioners ( i think a nurse whos almost a doctor ) , an advanced kind of pharmacists ( pharmcist who is almost a dr ) , physiotherapists, dietitians , sitters , spiritual guidance ... like lots n lots of different people doing different jobs .. its CRAZY !! everything is so complex .. even talking to the patients has its own rules.. like you are not allowed to ask about certain things and you are not allowed to share the patients info with any of his family or even other drs ... its INSANE !! like i said, everything here is so complicated :S alot of people would say its organized but if you ask me, i just think it could be simpler .. for the patients sake :S and yes its so busy that i cant even eat during work ... and i end up having only 2 meals a day, breakfast and dinner so definitely i should be losing wieght without working out .. but that makes me sad because i really wanna work out ..

21 days since i left home

It has been 21 days since i left home, 10 days since dad left and ive been on my own and have to say that i feel .. Lonely already. I did make friends and they always seem to wanna go out and have fun but i miss the parts of me that i left back in kuwait.
I miss my family, i even miss the noise my baby sister used to make, her annoying nagging and the way shez always yelling. I even miss hearing mom screams her lungs out at the maids or my baby sister. When i opened my eyes this morning, i felt so sore when i realized that im in the apartment alone.

I miss my family gatherings, the one i used to force myself into attending them. I miss my friends, i miss my friends so bad.

I can totally see that my new life will be a better life, its promising and i can see me feeling alot happier here than back home but part of me is resisting it, refusing to let go.. More like afraid of letting go.. Even when i know good things are coming my way, im just afraid of moving on..

So far, alot of ppl gave me good reasons to let go, some did it in a good motivating way, some did it in the most painful ways..

I know i should be stronger, i know i should move on.. I know i should let go and leave it all behind.. Start going forward and stop those constant look backs .. But i cant help feeling ths way.. I cant stop the tears and the aching.. I cant stop the self destruction.. I cant stop myself from doing the same mistake all over again

busy week

so its been a busy week .. no wait, not 100% busy but lets just say unpredictable in a way ... im still having problems organizing my days .. thats why i wasnt able to update my blog although i promised myself that id update it daily. so to summarize the last week .. 1. i met one of the kuwaiti psychiatry residents here. lets call him peter because he has peter pan syndrome. he has just finished the program (5yrs) but he's planning to do 1 or 2 yrs for the subspeciality . to be honest, i wasnt excited about meeting him in the beginning, because he just graduated and that makes him my SENIOR and me and seniors dont get along because of my lack of professionalism! so i was a bit hesitant but then after a couple of chats on whatsapp, he seemed friendly and not so prof if you know what i mean. so we met and he took me out for dinner in yorkville ,one of the most luxurious part of toronto, and we talked, we talked alot .. i opened up to him too quickly i think lol, we talked like old friends lol, we even shared an ice cream !!!, it was fun and i didnt feel the need to be professional or anything. plus hes only 29 lol . hes a really nice guy, he looked a bit na3im to me but naah i dont think he's gay! anyway gay or not, he;s a keeper :P . he also loved how hyper/loud i am lol .. thats new :P the best thing about him that he lived all his life outside kuwait, he left kuwait when he was 15 to study so he's pretty open minded and i dont think i need to worry about being misunderstood or being led on :D. p.s: i think i need to do some self control here .. ive never had guys friends before so im acting on my default mode which is the same way i acted with my girl friends lol but obviously, its way too wrong lol oh speaking of guys, one of my old colleagues , B called me the other day around 4am kuwait time and he was upset about his sister needing a surgery and stuff.. i found it a bit wierd, I DONT MIND IT but B is great friend of mine and i dont wanna lose him, he's been calling me and checking on me alot lately, i hope this is out of friendship .. i dont want it to end up like my ex best friend who eventually admitted falling in love with me and thats when things went down the drain :( ohh one interesting thing that peter told me that this year's applications were so impressive. he said the committee here was astonished by how strong the CVs are .. there were people with master degrees, people with alot of research and before the interviews, they couldnt make up their mind on whom to choose.. what happened is that i wasnt part of the original people to be interviewed OBVIOUSLY because of my poor CV and grades but one guy cancled the interview and thats when i got in but i still had to compete with other strong candidate .. the toughest was that suadi girl and the reason why i was chosen over her is that I MADE A MISTAKE IN THE INTERVIEW !! he told me that that suadi girl made a mistake in the interview but didnt admit it and insisted that it was right but in my case, i admitted it was a mistake and i told them that id seek the help of my seniors and thats why they chose me !! lol ... so i guess sometimes lack of confidence and being stupid can get you into places lol .. he also said that i should be REALLY grateful to be accepted because they are planning on reducing the seats for gulf students so the number will be reduced from 3-2 seats every year to 1 and they started doing this by only accepting me this year :S .. wow now i feel lucky . so yep, i got my ID, got my pager and the only thing missing here is my UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO tshirt :D .. i might be really excited about it but i can totally see me crashing that pager because it wont stop beeping lol.. so i spent my 1st day at work doing some sort of computer training .. they have everything recorded on computers and its so impressive, you can even read the notes from other hospitals regarding your patients.. it is so damn impressive but very complicated to. it was supposed to be a 4hr training session but it took me like 24hrs!! it was information overload to me :s and then u get to be tested on it too :s .. the other down side of this system is that its taken too seriously, imagine that ull be questioned if you opened a patient's file who is not yours or if you are a surgeron and you went to read his psychiatric file :S so i dont know .. ohhh even you are not allowed to discuss a patient's case with anyone outside your team or who is related to the case :S .. thats pretty freaky lol so yeah after i finished my EPR training ( electrical patient records), i took the exam and passed it yaay .. to be honest, i was realy freaking out, didnt think ill pass it but i did so im not gonna complain and with this done, i can start working . the worst thing about work is the waking up part! i mean work starts at 8 and waking up shouldnt be a big deal but when your work ends at 5-6pm and u stay up til midnight to talk to family and friends, ull be waaay too exhausted and that 7hrs of sleep will not be enough. here they dont hve any tolerance for abstinence or coming late to work :s so im worried about that .. see my original plan was to wake up really early to jog before work but then i thought this will be painful so i decided to do jogging after work especially that sunset is around 8.30 but im assuming that ill be too exhausted to jog then :S my official first day was really long .. so im doing my PEAP which is 8-12weeks of CL psychiatry and 4 weeks of medicine. so ill be doing 2 weeks CL psych then 4 weeks med then ill return to CL psych again to finish my 8-12 wks. CL psychiatry deals with mental illness in medical/surgical patients .. so its more of psychosomatic medicine .. you deal with depression in a patient with cancer, anxiety with patients of heart attack for example or any mental illness that results from medical/surgical medications/procedures. its an interesting subspeciality that im thinking of doing once i graduate . anyway the unit is pretty small and BUSY! work starts at 9 am and ends anywhere between 5:30-8pm .. ****SHOCKED*** i dont know how exactly things go here but from what ive seen, we come at 9 am and then our pagers start ringing and we go see assigned patients .. as long as we are on duty, we can see anyone .. its not like we have a certain number of patients you know .. so from 9 till 2:30, we see patients on our own then we discuss it at 2:30 meeting and then we have our rounds .. it doesnt sound so hard yeah, but the long hours is the thing killing me ..its a BIG HOSPITAL, really busy so they keep you busy plus they have this huge unit for cancer and those are the ones we mostly see .. so on my 1st day i was shadowing angelo, a 4th yr resident who talked in a funny way , o thought he had an accent but when i looked carefully, the guy had hearing aid on so im thinking that he's deaf or something .. and that got me really IMPRESSED !! those people are FIGHTERS .. although he seems to be deaf, never the less, he lived his life and joined medical school and now he's doing psychiatry .. not only he's a doctor but he chose the field in which he'll be exposed to people everyday.. he didnt feel embarrassed of his funny accent or his hearing aid ..he's a guy worth admiring wallah. bs allah yesam7a !! qa6ni 3ala 9a5ar!! i was supposed to shadow him only but he made me take history and present the case .. he was like: YOU ARE A RESIDENT AND YOU WONT LEARN UNLESS WE THROW YOU IN THE WATER and he threw me in so well lol .. and he was like: today im being gentle with you, by next week, things will get serious !! LOL thats just too freaky lol.. im glad that they didnt tell me anything about being on call and im glad that we have a long weekend here .. so monday is an off day and im gonna use this time to read abit!! they really scared the hell out of me lol so in the unit, there was this suadi guy, hes doing a one month observer ship so he;s like a trainee ..so after work, i was really starving ( didnt eat anything from 9-6:30 ) and i wanted to know about the unit so we went out for dinner and god, i need some self control again :P ..i was really hungry and i was craving pasta and steak so i made him get the pasta and i had the steak and i ate from his plate *buries my head under* I KNOW I KNOW, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME RIGHT !!!!!!!!!! dude i keep on forgetting that these are GUYS and not my old girl friends :S !! omg i have no freakin idea what i was thinking back then :S .. guess when im hungry, i go coco !!! but seriously, bada3t :( anyway that was it ! today, i was supposed to go out, get a haircut, buy a camera and attend a stand up comedy at night but im so exhausted to go out now plus my place is a mess so i need to do some cleaning, AND SOME READING, i wanna finish the hunger game and STUDY A BIT .. AND WATCH NARUTO !! damn i need to do so much in so little time :s AND WORK OUT !! lol i better bounce now and get some stuff done !!

my first meal

since i bought alot of stuff last week that i didnt eat, most of the vegetables are starting to get so soft and mushy so i decided to cook them ASAP .. thing is, i didnt buy any meat/fish to cook them with so whatever im going to do with them, it should be totally vegetarian and the only thing i could think of is soup ... so i made 2 soups, asparagus and butternut squash .. now the asparagus soup looked like a total failure .. you know, ive always been excited about using broth in cooking and when i finally did, i realized it tastes aweful, atleast the veg broth did but i managed to arg3d elwath3 a bit and the asparagus soup turned out to be fine. now the butternut squash aka pumpkin was SO DAMN TRICKY .. i mean, i needed to peel and cube it and it took me like 10 min just to cut it into half !!! then i cut that half into two parts and it took me 45min to peel one of these halves !! IMAGINE!! 45MIN !!! 7aseet elsalfa feeha ena !!! there is no way that everyone struggle with it like i did .. i was so in doubt that i thought that this could be something else and not pumpkin :s.. anyway i googled it and yeah i was right, IT IS HARD TO PEEL IT and alot of ppl do struggle but there are tricks to tackle it .. like heating it up then peeling it with potato peeler or heating it up till the skin is soft enough to be skinned off !! and when i did that, wow things went so smoothly .. damn.. i wish i had googled it earlier ! and this soup had cream cheese with it .. and also it tasted really fine .. too bad that im not hungry .. so the original plan was to FREEZE them and heat em whenever i felt like having soup but freezing a soup doesnt sound right so im just gonna put them in the fridge and then google it tomorrow.. im just happy that i learnt a new thing today :P, how peel a butternut squash :P you know whats the best part about having your own apartment ..walking clotheless and having mail .. walla wanasa.. i strip off the moment i enter the apartment, it feels so liberating :P .. and having your own mail box is also fun, it feels so exciting to open up that box and find mail even when its only bills lol damn its almost 1 am and im going to start working in a day or two ! i so need to fix mys sleep :(

kensington market

YESTERDAY WAS ALOT OF FUN! im glad that i was dragged out !! we went to kensington market .. its like a long street with alot of shops, some are houses with some sort of yard sales and stuff .. it had stuff from all over the world, shops from chilli, mexico, greece, jamaica and lots of other stuff.. and they had this cool shop called blue banana.. reminded me of virgin with all those weird funky stuff bs 3ala akbaaaaar !! and i was so happy that i tagged along because i finally found molo5ia and 7alooom !! WOHOOOO .. i was told that i have to take an 1.5 hour bus to buy these stuff but i found em a few blocks away! IM SO HAPPY !! we had mexican food .. the shop looked like ma63am hendi bl kuwait .. u know.. so .. i dunno .. ud doubt its heigyne and stuff but the food !! ya allah !! the food was SUPERB ! la teqolon chilli's wela taco bell !! IT WAS SO DAMN GOOD !! AND ALOT HEALTHIER !! then we walked around the city and we got lost .. we were walking for hours and hours lol and when we were just too tired to anything, we went to the movies and watched dark shadows by johny depp !! i have to say that i was very disappointed! i really expected more from johny but i cant complain coz my feet were aching and i needed to sit lol and the best thing about the day that i finally got my period *does a dance* its a few days late and been bugging me so im glad that its finally here :D ohh and im coughing and i think im getting sick :s .. 7ada mo waqta... im gonna change in a bit and go to finish my paper work and hopefully start working this week :S

travelling the world

so its sunday and although i really wanted to spend it home .. im being dragged again lol but this time, i dont mind it because we are supposed to go somewhere COOL .. its called kingston market and its supposed to be full of interesting stuff .. just hope this hang out wont be stretched to midnight like last night !! i have finished almost all my paper work, tomorrow i'll need to pass by the postgraduate office and hand in my application and hopefully ill be ready to work by tuesday/wednesday . yeah im kinda getting bored .. i need to start working man, i got alot to do but i really wanna stay home .. i wanna read, watch stuff, think , clean , COOK !!! and i also need to SHOP !! I DONT have clothes for work .. ohhh ohhh since im stuck here for 5 yrs and my chancs of travelling around isnt much, i decided to travel within toronto .. as in .. I WANNA MEET SOME ONE FROM EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD and when i say meet.. as in make friends with them .. i really wanna do that.. i think it will be so cool to know ppl from everywhere :D .. toronto is unbelievably multicultural and im sure i can find ppl from atleast 60% of world's countries :D i should go clean the toilet now .. im also started coughing and a bit of diarrhea and no period yet .. only cramps .. AND I NEED A HAIR CUT !! lol .. im such a mess :P

weekend

the past few days been hectic and i hate it! i hate when i feel overwhelmed by others .. its like .. i came here ... all the way across the ocean to live MY LIFE .. but it seems that old habits dont change fast enough and im caught again in the old habit of me trying to please everyone .. although my original plan was to stay home during the weekends, read a bit, study a bit , clean and work on my long-short term plans in canada .. i wanna feel like im finally here !! but no, i was being dragged out, being forced into long long family conversations on whatsapp and skype !! lol I WANT SOME ME TIME !! just a lil .. just to realize that im actually here .. dont get me wrong, i think being busy is GREAT ! it keeps me off worrying and stuff .. but i could really appreciate 3hrs of me time ... so dad has left on thursday.. it got me a bit emotional .. i think he wanted to cry too .. but to be honest, it scared me a bit .. in the past week, i felt like a tourist but with dad leaving, ths whole being abroad thing is starting to feel real .. its not bad .. being abroad and stuff .. but i got my own reasons to be a bit scared .. so yeah i was a bit emotional .. i dont know if its the normal anxiety, my personal reason or the fact that im PMsing .. ohhh my period is 3 days late and its KILLING ME !!! ive been drinking za3tar, mesmar , darseen lema 6l3aw mn 5ashmi and ive been walking alot but still .. i have the cramps and everything but no period :s .. i really want it to come today or tomorrow max .. becaus ei might start working on tuesday and the first 2 days are the worst so i wanna finish them before my long working days start :s so i got to know my lil new group of friends more .. hmmm.. they are kinda harmless and nice to hang out with but i need REAL friends .. i mean, haya is a kid.. she's warm and loving but again, she's like a kid .. plus although we agreed to go see the avengers together, she bailed on me and went to see it wth some one else without even inviting me along ... NOT COOL !! the least thing she could have done is telling me that she;s going to see it with some one else !! mo ana ag3d o an6er o b3din te6la3 shayfta :s .. then we got khlod, she's sweet and stuff .. but she's the party kind of a girl, her kind of fun is not my kind of fun. shes into clubbing and stuff so i dont know .. then we got noor, too quiet and dont know her yet .. anusha is an interesting indian girl but anyway, the group is warm and loving but not the kind that ud run to them if you need anythin!! plus they are like 19-22 yrs old LOL !! i feel like mama 3oda around them lol. yesterday we did something fun though, we had a potluck where each one of us cook something and then we share it over anusha's, we were supposed to help her assemble her new furniture but we ended up going karaoke all night long .. lol it was funnnnnn !! however, i came home with a headache lol . oh the other day we went to IKEA and god, not having a car is such a ma95ara .. it was SO FAR away, we had to take the subway to the end of the line then a shuttle bus and then had to carry all of our stuff back home :s ... OMG EVEN THE OTHER DAY, i went grocery shopping and almost dislocated my shoulders with the grocery bag !! i think it was +5kg !! it was so freakin heavy and i had to walk like a block !! not cool !! not cool !! again, the prices keep on shocking me !!! sheno ya3ni 3 pieces of green peppers eb 6 dollars !! which is 1.700 kd !!!! omg ! i bought like 2 cans of corn, 2 cans of red beans , 3 peppers, mayo , french sauce , oat meal, chocolate and milk and spent like 100 dollars which is 28 kd !!!!! la o payed 2dollars for the bag :s !!! food is extremely expensive here !! even stationaries .. sheno ya3ni 6 pencils eb 13 dollars which is 3.6 kd !!!! the girls were like, buy all u need of stationaries back home .. pencils and everything .. actually, they were like NEVER SHOP HERE !! always shop back home :s allah ye3z el kuwait !! omg, 9eg allah ye3z el kuwait .. everything is so cheap there :s

niagra falls

you know, i feel like my adventure hasnt started yet since dad is still here .. he's doing all the cooking and all the paying and stuff .. and im doing all the showing him around thing .. its good and bad .. the bad side is that i feel as if im babysitting him lol .. i wanna go out and do stuff .. but the good thing is, he HELPED ME ALOT FINANCIALLY walla .. i came here with a saving of almost 5000 kd and i spent almost 4000 kd in less than a week !! o hatha o ana my apartment is ALREADY FURNISHED !! imagine if i had to furnish it :s .. the food here is expensive plus i didnt expect the owner to ask me for 2 months rent, thats like 1300 kd :s .. im really shcoked :S and i thought im going to pamper my self here lol. so yesterday i took dad to see niagra falls .. 7aram, it was a rainy foggy day so he couldnt see much but surprisingly he had alot of fun, he said the best part was the weather !!!!!! he loved the fog and the rain !! wai3 i hated it .. the fog made the place like a ghost town and the rain makes you wet and sticky AND COLD !! but im glad he had fun :D so im still unemployed .. my paper work is taking too long .. ill probably start working next week .. that means ill have a free weekend to do whatever i want .. hmmm fly to new york ?? i wish, but im broke blaaah :s we will see .. i hope things get easier from now on .. im sick of going out and running errands all day long. i want to stay in the apartment all day long, cook me food and read the hunger games :(

moving in

so I DID GET THE APARTMENT ! my agent had to pull a few strings to make it work .. although i love the place but with all these stupid restriction the owner had on me, its making me feel uncomfortable. the first thing i did was buy me a couple of new drinking glasses and i know i might end up buying plates too because im so scared of breaking his stuff .. plus i wanted to hang some stuff and im a bit worried since he'll be poping in once every 2 months to check his place out :S . well the good thing is, im gonna spend most of my time during the first year in the hospital, I THINK ... so the other day, i cleaned the whole place, damn thats not easy .. i struggled with the wooden floors .. its like you cant broom it and if you sweep it, it aint clean too, i even used the vacuum cleaner with no use .. and i used some of the detergents he had left here and i ended up with blisters in my hands :s .. dude these stuff are dangerous :S speaking of my apartment, i LOVED IT, i was so happy with having those high windows everywhere but i discovered that its not a good idea and i discovered that the painful way, you see my bedroom is facing the sunrise so for the past 2 days, i was COOKED by the sun.. so not only sun rays fall into my bed but also heats up the whole place .. according to dad, my apartment will be really hot on sunny days and really cold on cold days .. waaay to go me .. dad managed to create a HOSE for me since they dont use this here .. i dont like it .. he basically connected the shower head to a long hose and the water pressure is REALLY high if you want it hot, and if you want it cold temperature, you can get a low water flow .. its complicated i know .. its like when you increase the temperature, the water flow/pressure increases .. u want warm shower, u;ll end up with a heavy shower .. so yeah if i used the hose with low flow, ill be freezing, yes IT IS THAT COLD , and if i use it with warm water, ill be probably losing my virginity lol too much information eh ? :P you know, yesterday, i was actually panicking and freaking out .. i really felt like cryin .. it happened after when we went and got our groceries .. maybe its starting to hit me , you know the food and such .. or maybe im just PMsing .. i dont know if im home sick yet but i do miss my friends and the gatherings .. ohh i made some friends too :D .. and i asked them about their home sickness .. they gave me an interesting answer, they said after a while, whenever you go home, ull feel left out because you missed out on many things so ull end up feeling bad and home sick as in canada home sick lol .. so eventually going back to kuwait will make me home sick tooo. yea so friends .. i met this young kuwaiti girl, she's really young and sweet, really friendly and warm .. the best thing about it that we have so much in common, she's into japanese stuff, anime, concerts and music, oh she's also the daughter of hessa elshmimri .. a kind of well known yoga instructor in kuwait . i have also been to majlis 5aliji which is a gathering of 5aliji people every weekend .. gotta admit, i was impressed . they are all open minded and stuff, 90% are suadis; me, ahmed and haya are kuwaiti and i think there was a bahraini guy. they gather to do either social activities ( book club, watching documentaries, debate, presentations ) or fun activities ( road trips, movies, picnics ).. they had a debate that day and i managed to WOW them lol, wanasa, i made a good first impression hehehe they all seem fun, the girls even took me out to this ALL YOU CAN EAT JAPANESE BUFFET FOR 20 DOLLAS ( 5.550 kd) and includes EVERYTHING! not just the boring stuff, it has edemame , tampuras, rolls, sashimi, teryaki, different kind of rice and even ice cream .. VERY IMPRESSIVE and u could order 100THING U WANT !! 3aaaaaaaaadiii !! but there's one rule, if u dont finish your plate, ull pay for it on top of that 20 dollars .. wa3lia 3lina bl kuwait, el roll bs eb 6 kd. we went for a walk around the city till midnights and then i had to run back home while the girls actually continued their night out :S .. i think they came home around 2 am :s .. wow sure things are different here ... ohhhh on our 1st day of moving in, the fire alarm was on and all the fire department were here and stuff lol .. what a start .. but it was a false alarm .. they say things like these are very common .. ohhh we also been to marche, a very nice interesting restaurant here .. its like a big restaurant with different cuisines.. they have basically EVERYTHING .. italian, vegetarian, japanese, indian, american .. and you walk around with a card and you have to swipe it with every plate you take and then you pay at the cashier .. so its like an open buffet with FRESH FOOD that gets cooked infront of u :D

day 5

i feel so drained out, mentally and physically .. my whole body feels like it was run down by a truck and no sleep can relief that aching back of mine .. and mentally, i feel overwhelmed .. guess its expected .. new weather .. new experience .. plus with all that walking and stuff .. i just hope my body will adapt quickly .. yesterday was a crazy day .. so i was told early the day that the landlord of that condo is giving us hard time .. then around 4pm, i get a call telling me that i got the condo but i need to finish some stuff before 5 pm !! so i run back and forth like a lunatic from banks, insurance, hydro companies .. i was literally racing time .. i had so much to finish within that last hour and i actually failed. i managed to finish the insurance but coz it was late during the day, the only company i found was an expensive one so i payed 270$ instead of 150$and the hydro closed before i could reach them. the bank could only issue two cheques and the rest of them will be out in 2 weeks. then i had to run to rogers to get the internet and cable. if i did this earlier, i could have the internet today but i was too late and now i have to wait till monday . i decided not to get me cable.. i mean, ive downloaded ZILLIONS of shows/movies/anime/documentries .. so guess ill watch these first! why would i pay 100$ a month when i wont be using the tv much. so yeah thats about it ! ill be moving in in an hour or two . the apartment is amazing , it has modern furniture and everything.. all windows but the owner is nuts .. he had restrictions on everything .. no pets , penalty if i break any of the dishes/glass or anything.. the floor is made of wood so i better be careful when i drag things around .. i dont know, i feel like im going to be tip toping in the apartment .. walla feels like living on eggshells :S .. the good thing is, that i THINK wont be spending alot of time in the apartment since the first year is the busiest .. so guess i dont have anything to worry about .. definitely next year, IM SO MOVING OUT .. i kinda like the complex though so i might try to find an apartment in the same building . ohhh wanna know el qahar .. today i checked the online rental forum and found an unfurnished apartment in the same building .. damnnn .. if only i havent signed that contract, i would have gotten that one .. it looked bigger and definitely cheaper.. and yes i prefer to rent an unfurnished condo because then i can design it my own way plus i wont need to worry about damaging any of the furniture . inshalla next year.. inshalla .. so today, we will be moving in, doing some major grocery shopping .. ill unpack and all and make myself feel as home .. i noticed that i started coughing lately .. i wont be shocked if i got sick .. the weather keep changing here.. one day its freezing cold and the other day is hot as hell. ohhh i need to buy a scanner and printer and start sending those papers ASAP or i wont start my work until next year :s

Stressed.

Im getting really stressed out with the apartment search! Not only my work is delayed coz of not having a mailing address but also all my clothes are still in the bags .. I dont know! Im just feustrated! Now that the weekend is coming, no condo showing will be possible untill monday.
sugh

slow transition

things are going a bit slow here .. i havent fitted myself in yet .. not physically or mentally .. im still jetlagging .. me and dad chena dyay .. we sleep at 8-9 .. and wake up around 6-7 .. keep in mind that 8:15pm is maghreb prayer and 9:30 is isha prayer .. anyway, i dont mind that kind of sleeping, atleast we know i;ll be up early for my hospital . we are still struggling with the apartment .. we found one and we liked it alot but it seems tat our agent has made a mistake .. the apartment was already taken and he didnt know .. so yesterday, we went to see more apartments .. we saw one with great location, a minute away from eaton centre/dundas square ( where all the fun is ) and underneath it, the world's biggest book store .. the complex was full of s3odis .. the apartment was HUGE .. but i dont know why, i didnt like it, although ive always wanted a BIG apartment .. i dont know .. i mean it had everything i wanted , spacious , close to everything and the advantage was having that bookstore but i just didnt feel comfortable .. then we went to see another place , a place that i was hesitant to even go see .. he told us, it was FURNISHED ( im looking for unfurnished ) , it was expensive and it was the furthest from dundas square .. not far from the hospital .. its like 10min walk vs 3-5min walk from the other apartments we saw. like i said, i didnt even wanna go see it but since i was feeling like crap .. i was like WHY NOT ! and im glad i did .. it turned out to be amazing .. i mean, it was full of glass .. had an amazing view .. the furniture was amazing too .. the place looked modern...

the only problem was that the owner of this condo is really restricted .. he made all these silly stupid rules .. such as he will be coming to inspect the place once every 2 months :s .. anyway, im really desperate so i think ill be taking this for one year and then by look for another one next year .. i really love his condo but i dont think i can deal with his rules ... i really need to find a place ASAP because all my paper work needs an address and i dont have one yet and if i dont finish the paper work, i cant start working :s ohhh .. ysterday me and dad met mohammed alswedan .. and he said something that made me really happy .. i dont know if he's just saying that or he meant it, but it really made me happy .. he said during his 7yrs working in university of toronto and interviewing all those residents, no one impressed him during the interview like i did .. awwww .. you know coming from such a person, it really means something .. i mean he's the son of tariq alsweedan and hes been surrounded by all those intelligent people all his life.. so impressing him shouldnt be easy but i did .. wanasa .. im super flattered .. and super stressed now that im under the pressure lol .. naaaah its gonna be fine .. sara enty qadha mo !! ee qadha lol .. so today, ill be trying to finish as much paper work as possible and then at night, im gonna go make some friends ... good news, the weather is getting warmer yaaaay ..

hungry

im really hungry.. like really hungry .. but dad is sleeping urghhh.. its around 7 pm and the sun is out there and its almost 2 am in kuwait .. this is not fun .. i got no one to talk to :( ..everyone is sleeping back home .. maybe i should really make toronto HOME from now on ..

the apartment hunt

finding an apartment isnt looking good .. you see, i was told that finding an apartment is really hard and thats why my friend suggested that i should take over her apartment since she's leaving it.. and we agreed to that .. but she's moving out on august so im supposed to be looking for a furnished short term apartment untill august .. and what i found out that SHORT TERM APARTMENTS ARE NOT COMMON HERE .. most of the leases are for 1 yr minimum .. i could only find one apartment and it sucked .. so plan B is to ltry to find THE APARTMENT .. as in forget about my friend's and try to find a new one .. so today we went to see a couple of them .. we found one right infront of my friend;s building , so thats gREAT LOCATION, its one block away from work .. it has restuarants and grocery stores downstairs .. actually its a very lively place .. the apartment looked good .. not perfect but its good.. but then we faced one problem .. now you see.. my friend's lease ends in april and she was supposed to be kicked out by april but she told the land lord that a friend is coming ( aka me ) to take over the apartment on august, thats why he agreed to extend her 4 more months and they never do that , u either have it for 1yr or ur out .. and they agreed on that verbally. now since i couldnt find any good furnished ones, im stuck gettin me a 1yr unfurnished one so i cant take over my friends apartment . she's afrad that thy will kick her out .. coz the only reason they made her stay is because she's bringing some one in .. so now i dont know what to do .. i dont wanna get her kicked .. hal bent 9eg 9eg ma qe9art m3ay and i cant screw her like that .. dad is insisting to get an unfurnished NOW and not in august coz he wanna make sure that im settled in and everything is okay .. so i really dont know what to do :(

the transition

now, althought ive been dreading this day .. i dont think it has hit me yet .. i mean, yesterday i was too exhausted to even think about it .. but today things are a bit different ... when i first bought me that phone chip and signed those agreement and stuff .. it was wierd .. it wasnt one of those chips that i buy them whenever i travel .. it was a chip that i chose carefully.. tra i love my number lol .. and i dont know .. but what scared me more was issueing a bank account .. u know, sitting there and just talking about those long term plans and stuff .. that freaked me out a bit.. u know .. it is happening .. I AM MOVING IN !!! ohhh speakin of mobiles .. mobiles services here are wierd walla .. imagine that u have to pay for everything .. if some one calls u from a mob or land line, u r charged . u have to buy your internet service and they dont have unlimited service like in kuwait and what shocked me the most is, U HAVE TO PAY TO SEE THE CALLER ID !! what thaaa !! ya the phone company wont display the caller ID if u dont pay for that service .. i ended up signing with rogers .. lets see how much of a rip off it is :P also their banks are wierd .. i signed up with CIBC .. imagine.. i have a limit on how much i can withdraw everyday .. a limit of 500 dollars .. so i cant withdraw more than 500dollars/140 kd a day and if i decided to pay using the debt card, i cant spend more than a 1000 dollar per day/280 kd. THATS STUPID !!! i mean, what if i wanted to buy lots of electronics and that costed me more than 1000 dollars !! WHAT DO I DO !!! so i thought of getting a VISA or master card and they said its REALLY hard to do that if im a new comer !! im very disappointed to be honest .. very very disappointed with such services. i think ill be using my kuwaiti credit card after all.. now, allah yesami7 elly kan el sbab but what i packed, they told me no need to pack warm clothes and when i reached toronto, it was freezing cold ..i was jumping around to stay warm .. dad gave me his xxxL thermal to wear and i had a hoodie on top of a shirt and i was still freezing .. yesterday was hell .. so the 1st thing i did in toronto is go shopping.. now u can shoot me .. i bought me one rain jacket and one regular jacket and god life became so beautiful when i had that jacket on .. seriously .. i was sweating like hell in kuwait and now i cant stand still from the cold !! once i settle in, im going for real shoppin .. yuck .. if i dont, i;ll freeze to death .. i actually feel a bit sick .. i can sense a flu coming on .. dad is already sick .. poor dad :( u know what made me happy the most .. TIM HORTONS FRENCH VANILLA AND BREAKFAST BAGEL FROM ESPRESSO CAFE !!! this morning, we walked all the way to my old hotel coz this is where espresso cafe was located only to find out that it was closed .. i really felt sad coz i was craving it since forever now .. but they had a paper sayin it was relocated and we really walked long for the new location and then i found out that the new place is a block away from the hospital, WOHOOOOO !! im so gonna have that for breakfast for the coming 5 yrs lol .. yeah IT IS THAT GOOD !! im actually hungry right now but dad is snoring and id feel so guilty if i woke him up ...