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 ...