Remember that movie 50 First Dates where Drew Barrymore plays a girl who can't form long-term memories anymore? Every morning is literally a fresh start for her on a blank slate. She doesn't remember anything she did or anyone she met the day before.

I always thought that was just fiction. But when I was in my parents' place last week, I picked up the Nov 2007 issue of National Geographic which had a cover story on memory. Yes, yes, I know, 2007 -- nothing like a vacation to help you catch up on things, eh?

The writer wrote about an 85-year-old man identified as EP "who remembers only his most recent thought", and I was shocked. It really can happen! In real life! Oh my gosh!

According to the article, 17 years ago, a viral attack destroyed a part of EP's brain called the hippocampus, the part that turns perceptions into long-term memories. As the writer explained: "...without it [the hippocampus] he is like a camcorder without a working tape head. He sees, but he doesn't record."

That made me gulp. Imagine what life would be like without memory. Our memory is what gives us our sense of identity, knowing who we are, where we are, how we got here, what we hope to achieve next. Not having memory, to me, is like... stepping into a black hole. *shivers*

EP, of course, doesn't even remember that he can't remember. He wears a metal medical alert bracelet, and each time he looks at it, he discovers anew that he has a condition called memory loss. "Without a memory, EP has fallen completely out of time. He has no stream of consciousness, just droplets that immediately evaporate." The writer claims that when EP reads a newspaper headline, by the time he reaches the end, he wouldn't remember the beginning.

How frightening is that? You'd lose the beauty of stories. The wonder of discovering fascinating facts. You can't even form new friendships. (By the way, I hope you guys still remember what I'm writing about :P)

All of a sudden, I'm really thankful for my memory! And that's why I like celebrating my birthday... because I like to look back and see how far I've come, to become the person I am today. Of course I still have a ways to go. But the past moulds us into the people we are. If you were to ask me what I would have changed if I'd had the chance, I'd tell you nothing; to change anything would be to take a different path with a whole different set of challenges, and then I wouldn't be the person I am today. Who knows where I'd be or what I'd be?

And if I'd taken a different path, I likely wouldn't have met some of my closest friends, either. So you know, I'm content with my lot, happy with where I am... no regrets. The memories -- the good and the bad and the embarrassing -- I'd not give them up for anything. Even if they make me blush furiously and wish I could sink into the sand. So there! hehehe

Announcement: Bob and I sedang berfoya-foya! It's all his fault!
 
 
We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

I have come to an earth-shattering realisation: I like having to work. *gasp* *faint*

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't like to have to work TOO hard. I'm not all that industrious, and definitely not a masochist. But, some work is good!

All these years I'd been thinking, "Oh, how nice if I didn't need to work," but when I really sit down and think about it, whenever I don't have work I end up whiling my days away aimlessly. Weekends are always a welcome time to sleep till noon and do nothing, and holidays are a great break away from the usual routine, but I never manage to get anything done during either of those times.

I'm sure there are many of you who tell yourselves, "I will clean up my room, do all my filing and organise my CD collection during the holiday" and actually do it, but me, I will say it and then two weeks will have gone by and my messy room would still be staring at me accusingly. I swear I always mean to do it, I have the best of intentions, but then I'm like, "But it's a holiday!" and "I have plenty of time!" and then before I know it, the holiday's up.

So while I love my holidays, they make me feel aimless and unproductive. I actually need some structure in my life -- not too much, because rigid structure makes me feel caged and trapped -- but a reasonable amount of structure is a wonderful thing. Having to wake up at a certain time every morning to go to work, and then being at work and doing the stuff I need to do gives me the structure I need. It makes sure I actually Get Things Done.

Working makes me feel like a useful human being, and doing my job well makes me feel like a valuable human being. In fact, studies have shown that our jobs affect our self-esteem, and if a person loses their job, their self-esteem takes a direct hit. Coz for most of us, part of our identity is tied up in our job. Think of how you introduce yourself to people, or how your friends introduce you to others. When I was a journalist, people would always introduce me by saying, "Hey, meet my friend Sunflower. She's a journalist with [name of newspaper]." It's inescapable: our job forms part of our identity.

Maybe that's why being in a job one hates is so soul-destroying; it's part of your identity, and if you don't like your job, you aren't going to be happy with yourself. I've been fortunate that, with the exception of one particular job, I've liked all my previous jobs. That job was a bad fit for me, and when I quit, I stopped feeling like I was trying to fight myself all the time, forcing myself to go to work, to do the things I needed to do, see the people I needed to see.

So I'll qualify my opening statement: I like working, but that's also because I like my job. That's important. Of course a person who doesn't like his job isn't going to like work! Makes sense, right? But since I love my job, I like having to work. I really do think work is something I need in my life, and I don't mind it; I welcome it. I love my weekends but I enjoy my weekdays too. Unbelievable? Yeah! Amazing? Yeah! Crazy? Oh, you guys have always known I was crazy anyway ;)

I went to SIB KL for the Stations of the Cross tonight. I find it meaningful, the meditation and prayerful introspection... my church doesn't have them this year, but I heard that both DUMC and SIB were doing them. DUMC didn't respond to my email query; SIB did. Thus I ended up in SIB.

As I was taking the journey, most of my reflections centred on loneliness and the things I've been doing to try and stuff the void. You guys know I struggle with the occasional "lonely blues", but everything intensified over Lent due to the issues with my boob. The worst was the day I went in for surgery -- I cried in hospital when I came out of anaesthesia and my boob felt like it was on fire but there was nobody to hold my hand; I cried again when, due to unexpected delay in getting discharged from the hospital, none of my relatives could come to pick me up. (Bob came instead, bless him.)

But, since then, I've been okay... through the continued hospital visits and long waits in the surgeon's waiting room, driving myself there and back, and all that other stuff. I just don't dwell on it, that's all. Self-pity isn't pretty ;)

Except that deep down inside, I am terribly, terribly scared that I will always have to face such things alone. This wasn't such a big deal, but just the thought that if anything else happens in the future I'll have to deal with it myself, no matter how overwhelming or scary it is, and have no one to walk with me through it or hold me in the dark of the night when I'm wracked with uncertainty and physical discomfort... that makes me quake with fear.

So I was thinking of all of this as I was moving through the Stations of the Cross, as well as considering the things I've been doing to distract myself from the loneliness, or to pad it. The meditations actually went along those lines, prodding me in that direction.

Got to the last station where they ask you to fill in a prayer on a sheet and then hang it on a cross. The wording was, "Father, into Your hands I commit..." I wrote, "my fear of always being alone and unloved" and broke down in tears.

I was sitting in church this morning listening to the Palm Sunday sermon and realising that next week is Easter... and it hit me that Lent has kinda been a washout this year. I said I was going to try to wake up earlier to read the Bible, and then this nonsense with the boob blindsided me. Lent has passed in a blur of hospital visits.
 
The good news, so far, is that there is no infection. Thank you, to all of you who prayed for me :)  The... hmm... I wouldn't say bad news, coz I am actually happy about it, is that I got two new stitches yesterday, to help the edge of the incision close up, coz it wasn't healing properly. The... a bit WTF news is that I discovered this morning, the other corner of the incision doesn't seem to be behaving, either. Back to the surgeon again tomorrow, methinks.
 
So I was thinking about trials and tribulations and suffering -- this is Passion Week, as Sivin explained; 'passion' not in the modern sense of having strong feelings, but in the original sense of suffering. I suppose the boob thing is a suffering of sorts, although I hadn't thought of it in that way. I mean, it really isn't all that big a deal, and many people go through worse things: cancer, for example.
 
All the same, it's been a bit of a challenge, especially since post-surgery recovery hasn't been going as smoothly as I expected. Every day I look at the boob and worry about it. Is it okay? Is it not okay? Should I go back and see the surgeon again? Ow ow ow pain! Why is it taking so long to heal? Eek it's leaking fluid! How do I shower without getting it wet? What if I squish it in my sleep? What's going on inside there where I can't see?
 
The strange thing, as I was telling a friend this morning when Sivin asked us to share with someone how our walk with God has been over the past week or so, is that all this hasn't made me pray fervently. I mean, you usually end up praying fervently and desperately when you're in need, right? And the boob has been worrying me and disturbing me but I haven't been praying about it all that much, at least not in the "Lord, please heal me asap and make my life easy & smooth again" manner.
 
I'm not sure if this is a good or bad sign. Just like how in the beginning I didn't think of asking my cell group to pray for me, I simply didn't think of this as something that I would need to pray about, very much. It seemed like something that would heal itself over the course of time, like, you know, the common cold. You just gotta ride it out. Not really something that requires or justifies Divine Intervention.
 
Maybe it's a good sign -- I no longer hold God to certain expectations, wanting Him to act the way I want Him to act, or to always act on my behalf and prevent me from suffering. Or maybe it's a bad sign -- I'm not involving God in my life enough, pushing Him out of the picture, getting complacent. I tend to think it's the former because it's not like I haven't been thinking of Him or talking to Him about the boob; I just haven't asked Him to heal me, is all.
 
 
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Come So Far (Got So Far To Go) from the Hairspray movie soundtrack
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I've been listening to this song on repeat for days. I can't even fully explain why I like it, except that I feel it puts things beautifully in perspective, juxtaposing the past against the present and then looking into the future. I like how the songwriter says, "It's so clear every year we get stronger," but then reminds us that we can't just sit on our laurels: "I know we've come so far, but we've got so far to go," and goes on to encourage us to move past the bad times, learn from our mistakes, push ahead and not give up.
 
"The road was filled with twists and turns but that's the road that got us here" -- that's very much how I feel, too. It hasn't exactly been the smoothest path, but it's all been part of my journey and what has led me to be where I am & who I am today. I know I've come so far, and I'm thankful for that, but I also know I've still got a ways to go. At the same time, seeing how far I've come and how I keep getting stronger gives me hope for the future and encourages me to keep pushing on.

This is turning into the boob saga.

After having similar surgery twice before, I never expected that the third time would be any different, but it's been TOTALLY different from start to finish. Um, except that it hasn't finished yet, which is also part of the difference.

The incision looks mostly healed but keeps leaking fluid from one corner. Saw the surgeon on Monday because 1.5 weeks after surgery, the boob was painful again. She stuck a needle in and extracted some fluid. It was clear, she said there was nothing to worry about, and sent me back with some antibiotics, "just in case". Saw her again yesterday, she stuck another needle in to extract more fluid, it was cloudy, she thinks it might be infected. Boo to the antibiotics. Ironically, there's no pain now o.O

The fluid has been sent to the lab; we'll get the report on Saturday. If it really is infected, the surgeon said she'll have to reopen the wound (ouch) and clean out the inside (double ouch) and then I will have to see her every other day to replace the dressing (triple ouch + inconvenience). Gaaaah.

I really hope this won't turn into a long drawn-out process; if you are the praying type, I'd appreciate it if you could pray against infection. I have NEVER in my LIFE stared at my boobs so much, I swear. My eczema is popping out all over because of the stress - well, it was already popping out even before surgery, when I wasn't feeling all that stressed yet. Apparently my body is more stressed out than I realised. Meh.

A friend from my former college Christian Fellowship chided me for not informing the gang about my surgery. "Should have SMSed us to let us know," he texted.
 
Hey, it was on my blog, on Facebook status updates and also in my Gtalk status. I didn't even inform my church cell group in the beginning because I didn't think of it... until my group leader saw my Gtalk status and got alarmed. "Why don't you tell the CG, so that we can pray for you?" Well, coz I hadn't thought of it as something that needed prayer. Not as if it was something that needs healing, like cancer.
 
And that's another thing. When people hear "lump in the breast" they start panicking. I did, too, when I first went through this ten years ago. Breast lumps are inextricably linked in our minds and consciousness to breast cancer. I know this, you know it, everybody knows it. So the moment I mentioned the lump to anybody, I also had to go into damage control mode and calm them down by telling them that it wasn't a growth... and then I'd have to explain what it actually was.
 
Then they'd hear "surgery" and start freaking out again, coz that's one of the big scary words, and I'd have to immediately reassure them that it's minor surgery, in-and-out, no overnight stay in hospital, no biggie. I don't want to panic people any more than I have to, you know.
 
So all in all the whole thing took a lot of explaining, and it ended up with me reassuring people more than they were comforting or supporting me. Life is that way at times. Mom called and said she was feeling guilty coz she isn't here with me, and I had to reassure her, too. It all amounted to extra stress on top of having to deal with the boob, you know?
 
 
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A friend boiled soup and brought a bowl of it to me today, and I realised this was the first concrete expression of caring I've received from anyone. (She also brought me ice-cream and DVDs yesterday \o/)
 
I both love and hate modern communication... I love it for its ease of use and how it instantly connects me to people all over the globe, people whom I'd otherwise not be able to talk with in 'real time'. On the other hand, I hate it because in some cases it actually widens the distance, because it makes communicating too easy. Sitting at the keyboard and typing into a website that's already open is much easier than, you know, picking up the phone to call or getting into the car to drive over.
 
So I got loads of concerned messages on Facebook and maybe about 6 or 7 SMSes from closer friends. And I'm trying to think of my own responses in similar situations and I'm wondering, is this what we've reduced friendship to? A text message by phone or, worse, on the Internet?
 
I think modern technology is actually disconnecting us more than it is connecting us. Back when I was still staying with 5 girls, Sze Hui and I would occasionally IM each other on MSN, me on my desktop PC in my room upstairs, and her downstairs at her study desk with her laptop. Then we would laugh at ourselves for being so silly or lazy.
 
That's an extreme, and one you'll often see depicted in comics, like this one:
 
 

 
 
The truth is, it makes us laugh, but only because we could so easily go that route, and we know it. We're already half-way there. When I sit at my desk and complain on a social network that I'm lonely and get a dozen virtual hugs... I think it says at lot about my life, my ways of communication, my friends' ways of communication and modern technology. As a LOLcat would say: Technology... we're doing it wrong. A virtual hug can never take the place of a real hug, more's the pity.