no matter how hard i've had it so far here in this big city called jakarta, i always cling on the fact that someday i'm gonna be able to tell my kids(adopted or biological, that another issue next time) how i survived six years abroad, though is quite near to malaysia, but totally have different set of life, set of mind, setting and backdrop, totally different.

what friends gonna say is jakarta is just over the sea. as malaysians tend to measure success in miles or kilometres, the farther you go the more successful you are. the fact remains that and i have no intention to correct it. i'm not out here to preach to the choir, i'm just a guy trying to figure everything else. i don't really care if you go ireland or even south pole to do your study, one fact remains is that i will be a doctor.

i am sorry if i take a little pleasure in bragging that my job is more superior than yours in any aspect. except payment. maybe the long hours and longer years we had in school don't really being compensated by the medium salary....but i'm 22 and i already thought that money isn't what drive me to push forward.

okay it's a factor but hardly a reason. and i am proud  to say  that i'm doing this just for me in the first place. sure it's hard and i complain a lot, but really i am doing what i think i should be doing. i've had hundred occasions, mainly during the shower, rethinking the decision i made taking this road not taken. i'd probably be happy doing engineering, or biotechnology, or some science related, but i don't, couldn't, and won't see me in any of those position. long hours in laboratory, peeping through microscope, dealing with algebra, maths and between all that, i couldn't see it.

however, i have always wanted to take art.any kind of art. films, documentary, writing, journalism, fashion...things like that. but then i thought...those thing hardly pay, and would i be able to just erase the whole childhood dream stuff of being a doctor?

so, whenever friend asking, or saying "hey look at him in the US, australia, ireland, UK, having it all with all their money and all"...honestly, i hardly envy. sure, it's great, and all...but i wouldn't trade places with them in an instance, i probably wait for several years. for a reason i am not willing to share, it's safe to say that god is great, and he has a plan laid for me. maybe if i pray harder, and hard enough, he let me live throughout the plan.

and for the time being, let the friends say what they want to say, i'll just humour them with answer like this one; "this place builds character." and that's the truth.

what concerned me, really, is that would i be able to have the best of both world? my personal agenda and my ambition? would they, in the field, would walk hand in hand. i wanna be the kind of doctor that treat patients, help poor and the stricken, maybe the african countries, or those in borneo or timur timor, or be the field doctor in war-ridden countries, basically i just want to do something in this not so pretty world. i also have the personal need to travel, to go around the world. maybe it have to do with the childhood deficiency i had in which we were too dirt poor to even go on vacation. really, we hadn't go anywhere, at all, when i was a kid. that's nothing, i'm fine. my concern is, would these two, and money, and time, and age, would be fulfilled?

anyway, the next monday marking a little occasion where i'm moving a step up in the running of my years here in indonesia, the journey to be that man in white coat. i'm getting into 4th year, and that's mean next year, god's willing, i will be doing clinicals in hospitals....which should be fun because lots of things happen in the hospital, if the viewing episodes of grey's anatomy and house are correct. here's to a future, bleak or bright, here i  come! :)

g