Skyfall

We managed to escape to the cinemas last night to watch the latest James Bond instalment, Skyfall. A departure from the normal plot, a more personal take on the Bond enigma. Not necessarily the best bond, but certainly different. I was sufficiently warned of the narrative to have a lightly different expectation.

This time around, there was no ravishing Bond Girl, no gadgets to dream about, and certainly the villain should I say, less demonic. But a villain there was, and it was none other than the superb Javier Bardem. He was a class act. In fact, this year, we had been blessed by some proper movie villain. Remember Batman and Loki. Bardem's character was just as good, although a lot funnier.

The opening chase was on par with the previous Bond movies, this time it was in Istanbul, and it certainly brought the pulse racing with motorcycle chase on the roof of the Grand Bazaar. Memorable. Then came the first twist in the plot, right at the end of the chase ..... and the story kicked off from there.

There were a few satisfactory revelation at the end of the movie, certainly justifying longevity of the franchise. I would definitely recommend the movie to everyone, as long they do not expect this to be their typical Bond farce. It was more dramatic and personal. Gadget freak should stay away, full stop .....

Lunch with Anita

Wednesday was usually a free morning for me. So, after spring out some stuff at the ward, and finished a meeting, it was time to head into town. I needed to pick up my passport - freshly printed with the US visa - at the Wisma MCA.

Anita and Irfan would then join me at Suria for lunch. I parked the car at Suria, and walked across to pick up my passport. That took only 10 minutes although entering the place was a bit on the scary side security-wise. I had to register at the entrance, took the lift up to the 19th floor, had a metal-detector subjected to my body, before picking up my visa.

By the time I was done, Anita was waiting for me at Suria. We had lunch at Yuzu, which is a rate occasions for us. Even though I have free mornings - which would stop next month with the opening of SDMC Desa ParkCity - it was seldom that I get to meet Anita. She was always busy with the children.

I finally had to leave for the afternoon clinic after a hearty lunch ....

Obama Wins

I had a busy afternoon clinic today and when I reached home, I went straight to the television. Well, I don't really have much interest in who would win the Presidential election, but I jut couldn't help but to be curious.

So, Obama was re-elected. It didn't come as much if a surprise really. But the electoral process was certainly fascinating. I got the feeling that Obama underestimated Mitt Romney and nearly paid the ultimate price. And the he sure did receive a divine intervention in the form of Superstorm Sandy.

The momentum was with Romney prior to the last stretch, but with the hiatus created by the storm put a dampener to that. And while the East Coast recovered, Obama used his Presidential aura to get ahead. Well played that man!

So, Barack Obama remained the 44th President of the United States, be it by a smaller margin. And after having run his last political campaign of his career, one hope that he could concentrate on the issues that matters, for the global good. Fingers crossed!

At ntv7 Today

It wasn't the first time that I was asked to appear on a live television talk show. The last time was about 2 years ago when I was still at the University. It was always at Angkasapuri, and almost always in Malay - I did do a radio interview in English before. So, when I was approached to appear on a show in English, I just jumped at the chance. And this time it was at ntv7, in a women late morning talk show, appropriately called Bella Confidential.

Despite the target audience and gender slant, the subject matter should appeal to everyone. It was concerning the option of stem cell transplant as treatment in lymphoma and leukaemia, my bread and butter subject.

The talk started off by introducing a couple of patients - one had seen me previously - both treated at Hospital Ampang. They unfortunately suffered a relapse after their initial treatment and were currently being prepared for transplant, but in one of the lady's case, she had yet to find a suitable donor. The patient did very well in sharing their experience, and I couldn't help but feel that even without the segments with the doctors, the audience would have caught the geez of the discussion.

Waiting before going on airGroup photo - a lady from KPJ, Scha, Vanessa, Alia, Kim Yen and myselfI was there with a colleague from Ampang Puteri, Kim Yen. She was my predecessor at UMMC, and we took turn in discussing the subject from the medical point of view. Although it only lasted about 10 minutes, I thought we managed to get the key points across to the audience. The pacing was OK, and the moderator allowed ample opportunity for us to maneuver the discussion. I was pretty pleased with it in the end. I remember my discussion at RTM being cut short before when the program had to show a live feed - about a Minister officiating some event in town. At the end of that, I just wondered why they invited me in the first place.

Here, things were more laid back. There were no set script, and as a result, the discussion flowed freely.

And another highlight of the morning was actually meeting Ramli Ibrahim, the famed Odissi dancer. He was bigger in person, very personable, and he was there to promote an even coming on in the next few weeks. He offered me some tickets for the events, but I was more interested in talking to him about other things. Fascinating guy.

Run Out

No proper Sunday afternoon should go without taking the kids out, and heavy rain with nowhere to take them to. Well, that was what happened yesterday. So much for a Sunday afternoon eh?

Idlan has exams coming up tomorrow, and we wanted him to go out for some fresh air. Initially we set out to Pavilion for lunch, but it was packed. I was not able to get a parking spot. We turned back. And headed out to Solaris instead.

Lunch was at B.I.G. A nice simple one. But as long as we had pizza, we were OK. Pizza and salad. And hot coffee. Anita and myself had our lunch earlier.

By the time lunch was done, the rain subsided. A quick rush to Tasik Perdana and off we set out to the park. It only lasted about 20 minutes before the sky turned dark again. We made it back to the van just in time before it started pouring again. But the 20 minutes might just be enough as the place was empty. They had the chance to play with the swings and things. No need to wait for anything.

So, we reached home by about 5. The day was still early but decided to turn in early with the exams on Monday. Went to bed extra early and when I got up this morning at 6, the boys were already waking up. A good start for the week. Happy Monday all.