getting in the mood...

..for blogging.

Oh dear! my brain has turned to mush since i have not written for a long time. not that i am claiming to be a spectacular writer/ storyteller (dear gertrude,no!), but as the age old saying that goes, "if you dont use it, you lose it", i do believe that the more you write, the more the 'language' centre of your brain gets developed. thus,whatever little skill i had in writing along as i think, is now totally kaput.

the most practice i have with writing (daily, from monday thru friday and sometimes the occasional weekend on-call work) are SOAP notes. SOAP notes are our clinical notes/report we have to write after every patient/ clinical treatment. [To give a more specific example:  S- for subjective ( " Seen patient for upper limb rehab. Patient consented to therapy..") O- Objective ( "Patient was assessed using thera-putty and upper limb sensory work, using texture for sensory integration..so on and so forth"). A- for assessment (Patient still has minimal sensation on right upper limb on dorsolateral part of her arm...etc etc.") P-for plan (OT to continue sensory integration using textures and upper limb domestic tasks..etc etc)]. Documentation which requires strict guidelines and the use of clinical terminology that disables interpretation, as each report are stored and logged in a national database (for patient's records) and which are liable to legal scrutiny. Hence, my brain's creative lingual part is so underused that i am craving to write and stretch that part of my brain.

the last few exchanges with Aileen and Ate Lou over at facebook, made me miss multiply, our old hangout where we write stories of our days/lives and anything that we deem worthy journalling and sharing to like-minded people. there, friendships grew, talents shared, skills developed. it was an amazing part of my growth over the years, being away from my immediate family. i found friends and allies over the internet. but because multiply is no longer, and together with some coaxing from Aileen (one of my idol bloggers) and Ate Lou (who also is another admired person and blogger) for me to blog more, my soul just wanted to jump out of where i was that time (in the living room, on my phone, with the telly on), and start pounding on my Mac keyboards.

alas, i could never concentrate and hear myself think when the tv is on. i also do not like the lights on in the front room for that matter. it made me tired and uninspired. i promised myself, i need to find enough energy to be awake and set myself up to pour my thoughts onto a blog, thus, last night didn't happen. i was tired from too much moving and handling paralytic patients. tonight, i made sure, we ate dinner early enough so i could fight my jetlag without the heavy interference of food weighing on my stomach. i begged Adrian to turn off the tv and go to bed and read from his tab. he did, bless him.

now,i have this room to myself. and i write...about how i got here.

i suppose the point is: when i am not sad, or emotionally crippled, or undergoing some turmoil, i feel whatever i think of writing will always be nonsense, or basic, or irrelevant, or all of the three. when one is melancholic, the distress of whatever drama one is in is enough to yank open the door of my "writing geni", and the emotional baggage will act as doorstop to its hinges.

so when i am happy, satisfied, no dramas, no turmoil: my trick would be is to have the distractions of whatever it is around me minimised, and hidden. i need to hear myself think. to coax the story out of my psyche and buoy it with feelings.

to listen to my chest beat the crap out of my words.

blechhhh!

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shakespeare's workplace