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Friday, January 04, 2008

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#-Update 311207

Dear All,

I trust the festive season has brought all of you good joy and tidings along with celebrations with family and friends. Now in this New Year, I’m back in London. Rearing up for my exam, a whole new term of studies and learning awaits me and I honestly am excited to begin school.

In the last update, I merely started proper lessons for a couple of weeks in Imperial College. Now that a full term has ended, I feel I owe another update about school and life for the last 2 months.

Had a chance to visit my patient as part of the course. He is a 8-year old boy with juvenile arthritis. He lives with his mum, a single parent, and they are both asylum seekers from Somalia. It was truly a valuable experience for both my partner and I, as we sat down in their home to talk to them and find out more about the condition, their history and beliefs. I prayed before each visit, and I do hope that God can work through me in my actions and words.

An associated part of the course was to train our communication and interviewing skills through a Volunteer Simulated Patient Course. In this exercise, volunteers from the community were asked to prepare some information and pretend they are ill, at a GP’s clinic. Our job as students was to interview them and find out about their ideas, concerns and expectations about their illnesses and treatment. Each student got to interview 3 volunteers, whom we practiced building rapport with and eliciting information from about their background and the illness. This also helped us with the nervousness associated with seeing patients for the first time.

One Sunday, I visited Emmanuel Evangelical Church upon the invitation of a friend due to a special guest speaker. While it was odd that there were so many Asians in that church, the testimony of the speaker Ian McCormack, was awesome, as he retold how he died from jellyfish stings and went to heaven, and then came back to life in the morgue after 15 minutes of being pronounced clinically dead. Rather than miss details of the story, please visit his site for an account of his story, which I felt was very relevant in my university course. http://www.aglimpseofeternity.org/

Before the Christmas break, Imperial College Big Band held a gig at the college union, with quite a good turnout. As I’ve played more with them, I found out that although the horns are tight, the drummer is not as strong and this probably is the main flaw of the band. Nonetheless, as we recorded the gig, it didn’t sound half bad, and if you are interested, I will probably put a few songs on my Facebook profile.

The Singaporean Medics Studying in London society (SMSL) held auditions for a musical they are putting up next year, which I attended. I do not yet know the results, but the script looks quite promising and interesting.

Between the last update and now, I’ve also managed to survive cooking almost everyday, and so far it has come out quite good, if I should say so myself. Of course, to deal with the expired bread left in the fridge, what better food to make than French toast and Bread & Butter pudding? Granted the amount of sugar that goes into the pudding put me off a little, but a friend who tried it said it tasted like the one in Hilton. But for the time being, I don’t think I’ll venture into many other desserts since most take a ridiculous amount of time and copious amounts of sugar.

During the 2 week Christmas break, I came back to Singapore. While I met up with many friends and relatives during this short time, I cannot say I’ve missed home that much. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I’ve only been in London for a short time, or maybe it is because I still cook mostly Chinese cuisine everyday, live with one of my best friends, and have many of my friends from Singapore studying in London as well. Whatever the factors involved, I am still thankful to be able to seek refuge from the blistering cold of London in Sunny Singapore, which wasn’t TOO sunny due to the monsoon season.

At the end when it was time to return to London, my luggage was again full of music and food stuff. I brought cables and a fakebook. Also, due to the lack of stationery in the house in London, I decided in all extremity, to opt for industrial stapler and punch, which took up significant space in the luggage. Also inside is a new recording device to record my gigs with, which I figured would be really important for improving my playing. My Mum exchanged cameras with me, which means she gets the slimmer one, but now mine is 10 megapixels with a macro function, which I’ll just have a lot of fun with. Foodstuff include BaKua, chilli paste and LapChiong. Mind you, only the chilli paste is for my own use, the other 2 were requested by friends.

As another note, for the last 2 months, I’ve been studying a little on grapho-analysis, which is basically reading others’ personality from their handwriting, and I find it quite a fascinating and creepily accurate skill. What this book teaches is how to interpret the different strokes and lines in people’s handwriting, and what they tell you about their personality. So anyone who wants a go at it, write me a handwritten letter. The potential of such a skill is tremendous, and as a medical professional, I can better understand and be more well equipped to handle a wider range of patients with different personalities, just by a sample of their handwriting.

While it may be a joyous time of the year for most people, I have also been thinking and praying, and permit me to share my thoughts. I have but 3 New Year’s Resolutions this year, which I will pray for, and in it give all glory to God.

1. Study hard and learn well to become a well equipped doctor in the future.
2. Develop my music and playing to a whole new level.
3. Freedom from sin. (elaborated in next few paragraphs)

Readers’ discretion is advised about what is written after this paragraph.

I’ve never really been conventional. I groom more than most males, seldom like anything commercial, break mainstream fashion rules by wearing un-bifurcated garments like kilts, aim not to kiss until my wedding day (If I even get married), and in many ways am considered either eccentric or weird. I don’t like to go with the flow, and it is probably evident in my personality. But I too, like many others, struggle from the same temptations and sin.

It was impressed upon me the following verse:

Proverbs 28:13 - He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Therefore, I feel that God is prompting me to be bold and courageous, and confess my sins before others. In doing this, I can build up a network of prayers to surround and protect me from temptations. Also, as I try continuously to gain victory from sin, I will receive the mercy of God. I’ve always believed and known that He has great plans for me, and with such sin creating a wedge between Him and me, those plans cannot succeed, and I cannot claim the glory that He intends for me. And how can I heal people as a doctor if I myself am sick and ill with sin.

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” James 5:16

It’s always been imparted that while porn may be bad, masturbation is acceptable, but after reading the blog, I explored further to find a website about masturbation, and after reading it, I suddenly realized that in order for total freedom from sexual sin, porn is not the only thing one has to stop, but even masturbation. So all those Christian teenage books about puberty and sexual development, saying porn is bad but masturbation is okay, might not be so correct after all. After all, sex is a spiritual connection between husband and wife and masturbation severs that link, creating an emotional misfire. I shall not paraphrase from what is written on the website, but I urge you to take a read and a think about this issue. http://www.blazinggrace.org/masturbation.htm

I remember reading a book called Fasting For Spiritual Breakthrough, and I’ve always remembered a verse quoted in the book: “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Matt 17:21). And so for the year ahead, 1 of my resolutions is to break free from sexual sin. To do this, I have decided to fast from lunch including the weekends, for 6 months, starting with the New Year. However, it is not so much the fasting that I am determined, but as the above-mentioned verse states, whoever confesses and forsakes his sin shall have mercy, therefore I have been urged to confess my sin before man, to ask for your support in prayer, and request that you do not judge me but accept me as a fellow sinner unworthy of the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Previously, I have tried prayer and fasting, I have tried accountability partners, I have tried blocking software. All have worked quite well, but never really completely eradicated the sin. I remember a pastor saying that to get rid of weeds you have to pull it straight out from the root, not just cut it off at the stem or leaves. In the same way, with new perspective toward masturbation, I now ask for you to pray with me as I undertake the long road to freedom and victory, and I ask anyone else of you who suffers from any recurring sin to join me. So with this, please also tell me how I can pray for you.

“I discipline my body and make it my slave…” (1 Corinthians 9:27)

God Bless,
Mark

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