Why is it, can someone please tell me, that families find it so damn difficult to get along peacefully? I seriously dont understand it. But everytime something good happens to one person, why do the others keep looking for ways in which to induce some misery amongst all the good things that are happening? Are we, as Indians, so starved of any drama in our lives, that we keep looking for opportunities to create any drama anywhere we can? Just so that we wont be bored? It certainly explains the popularity of all those stupid family saga/soap-operas that Indian TV is flooded with these days. The bold and the beautiful cant hold a candle to these paragons of indian television, they are that bad.

But what i dont understand is, why do people feel it necessary to imbibe the principles of those soap-operas in their day to day lives? Some people, in particular, find it so difficult to be happy for others. Even when the others are their own so-called “flesh and blood”. Everything is about me, myself and I. And if I am not happy, I am not gonna let anyone else be happy either. Coz my misery loves company. Now that bit, I can understand. But what I dont understand is why they wont recognise that the person who is happy is not the cause of their misery, and blaming that person is not gonna solve anything. Nor is trying to make that person miserable gonna make you any more happier. If you are not happy in your own life, you got to find the reason for it, and fix it. Begrudging other people their happiness doesnt achieve anything.

Why, oh why, wont these social menaces realise that they are being a pain in the butt?

OK….Now i dont know if this is freaky or not. The day after I wrote the last post about Mercury, I had to go see a new doctor. So I walk into his office, and what is the first thing I see? Right there, in the main foyer entrance, is a huge, life-sized sculpture of the wing-footed God himself. Made entirely out of…..wait for it…..SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS. Now that in itself is not a big deal, but I just walked in, and froze. It was too much of a coincidence. What was I being told here? I dont know, it was a very weird moment, my head was just swimming, and i was just staring at the sculpture, transfixed. Weird. Very weird. 

Mercury……The planet that controls all things to do with communications.  Astrologically speaking. Mythologically, Mercury was the wing-footed Roman God of communication, commerce and everyday routines. Astronomically, there are certain periods when due to the relative difference between the orbital distances of earth and mercury, mercury is percieved to be undergoing retrograde motion. This happens approximately once every 3-4 months, and on average, Mercury remains retrograde for about 24 days. 

Now in astrological terms, whenever a planet goes retrograde, everything associated with that planet goes haywire. Mercury, however, is the one that has the most bearing on our day to day lives. We are currently experiencing one such mercury retrograde, that started on March 2, and is going to continue until march 25. Usually, I dont take much notice of such things, but this time, Mercury is giving me a whole lot of trouble, and i need to rant about it!

"Communication, commerce and everyday routines". Right. Communication first. Laptops break down! You can take it all apart, and put it all back together, but the damn thing will continue to not work! My friend’s cellphone mysteriously just decided to stop working one morning. Lucky for him he had a spare one lying around. Voicemail services refuse to record voicemail messages. My favourite torrent site gets closed for maintainence!!! AARRGGHHH!!!

Everyday routines. Now where do i start with this one? The biggest everyday routine that most of us do is work. So what happens? I get conveniently allocated to work in Raglan for the next three weeks (ending on the 24th!!!). Raglan is a bloody hour’s drive away, and to get there, i have to drive along this horrible road with a million hair pin turns. On top of that, i injured my back (again at work), and now i cant sit still for more than half an hour or so without being in agony. So making the drive back and forth to Raglan everyday is just a marvellous experience. The other everyday routine that most of us do is sleep. Well, currently, Mercury is retrograde in the sign of Pisces. Now Pisces is a sign very strongly associated with the sub-conscious, and the inner being, and manifestation of that through dreams. So when Mercury goes retrograde in Pisces, ur dreams get affected too. I am having the most weird dreams that freak the hell out of me, and scarily, even continue into wakefulness. Horrible, horrible stuff.

So, dear Mercury, hurry up and get back into antegrade motion, coz the 25th couldnt come soon enough for me. I have had enough of this already! And i bet I am not the only one….

I just finished my last day of urban general practice today. And I had a really nice surprise today. My GP organised morning tea for me. And they even got me a very fancy digital thermometer as well. Coz I had been talking the other day about how difficult it is to get the temperatures of squirming babies. So they got me a superfast thermometer! And my GP wrote in the card, "Ur gonna be the fastest temperature taker in the west"

But to be honest, GP has been hard. I have had three weeks of incredibly long days, finishing at 6 most days, some days even 6.30. i have worked with a screaming backache, stumbling out of bed at 7 every morning, rushing between patients when at work. All the ingredients for a thoroughly hateful time. But the surprising thing is how much i have enjoyed the last three weeks. despite the horrendous early starts or the awful late finishes, i have enjoyed it like you wouldnt believe it. Most days, I have at least one patient per day who walks out of the consultation and tells either me or my GP what a good doctor I am gonna make. In most cases, I can handle a consultation on my own. I can diagnose correctly, and more importantly, manage correctly. I can sit and hold a conversation with any patient, be it a kid or a 85 year old lady. or the 45 year old waikato bloke. And those are some of the secrets of being a general practitioner. GP takes patient rapport to a whole new level. You know, just recently I have been thinking, I actually wouldnt mind being a GP, i quite enjoy it. Even the screaming babies with the repetitive ear infections. I enjoy it all. Surprise surprise!