The Art of Winding Down

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoTuesday had a specific energy to it — the quiet industriousness of someone tidying the house before going on holiday. Not frantic, just purposeful. Everything today carried the faint undertone of get this done properly so tomorrow can be tomorrow.

Clinic took up the morning, the usual rhythm of consultations ticking along at a steady clip. There's a particular satisfaction in morning clinic when it moves well — each appointment finding its natural length, nothing dragging, nothing rushed. The kind of session where you emerge at the other end feeling like the work did itself, even though you know perfectly well it didn't.

After lunch, the ward round had a clear objective: discharge as many patients as possible. There's an unspoken kindness in this before a public holiday — nobody wants to be sitting in a hospital bed over Aidil Adha if they don't need to be, and the ward staff deserve a lighter load too. So we moved through it with cheerful efficiency, ticking off the ones who were ready, making sure everything was in order. It's oddly gratifying work, sending people home. The paperwork is tedious, naturally, but the outcome is worth every duplicated form.

By three o'clock, the clinical side of the day was done. What remained was the administrative tail — the notes, the letters, the various bits of documentation that accumulate like sediment over a working day. I worked through them methodically, the kind of low-intensity task that suits a mind already half-turned towards tomorrow.

The drive home felt lighter than usual. Perhaps it was knowing there was nothing pressing on the other side of tonight. No alarm set to a punishing hour — well, actually, that's not quite true. The alarm would indeed be going off early, but for the best possible reason. Irfan lands tomorrow morning, and I'll be there to meet him. There's a different quality to an early start when it involves collecting someone you've been looking forward to seeing.

The evening was deliberately uneventful. Just the gentle deceleration of a day that had done its job. No grand plans, no elaborate dinner, nothing that required standing up for longer than strictly necessary. Sometimes the most luxurious thing you can do with an evening is absolutely nothing at all.

An early night, then. The kind where you're in bed before the hour feels remotely embarrassing, and entirely at peace with it. Tomorrow the holiday begins properly — Irfan home, Aidil Adha ahead, and two unhurried days stretching out like a cat in a sunbeam.

But that's tomorrow's entry. Tonight is just the pleasant business of stopping.

A Win Carries You Further Than You Think

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There's something about starting the week on the right side of a result. United did the business last night, and I won't pretend it didn't colour everything that followed. The alarm felt less aggressive. The coffee tasted more deliberate. Even the drive in had a certain ease to it — traffic lighter than usual, the sun doing its best impression of generosity, the whole city seemingly in no rush to complicate things.

Rounds went smoothly, which is the kind of sentence that sounds unremarkable until you've lived through the alternative. Some mornings the list unravels before you've finished your first lap of the ward. Today, though, everything held together. Patients stable, plans clear, the team moving with that quiet efficiency that makes the work feel almost elegant. I'll take it.

Lunch, for once, wasn't a thing I inhaled between tasks. I actually sat down. Took my time. There's a minor rebellion in eating slowly on a weekday, a small act of defiance against the clock. The food itself was nothing extraordinary, but the pace made it feel like something worth having. A proper pause rather than a refuelling stop.

The afternoon stretched out in that way clinics tend to — patient after patient, each one their own small world of concerns and questions and histories. Long but not gruelling. There's a rhythm to it when things are flowing, a kind of conversational cadence that carries you through. A procedure at the tail end kept me focused right to the finish, but I managed to wrap up and get out with daylight still in my pocket. Home before sunset. That alone felt like a small victory.

After dinner, I caught a webinar on Heidi AI — the clinical AI scribe I've been using — featuring Alan Teh, a colleague whose opinion I tend to trust on these things. It's always interesting watching someone you know navigate the slightly performative format of an online panel. Alan handled it well, as expected. The tool itself continues to evolve in ways that are genuinely useful, and it's good to see familiar faces helping shape the conversation around it. Technology demos can be dry affairs, but when someone you respect is doing the talking, you pay closer attention.

The rest of the evening was quiet. The kind of Monday night where you're not chasing anything, just letting the day settle. The weekend's result still glowing faintly in the background, the week ahead not yet demanding anything specific. Anita and I exchanged the usual end-of-day dispatches — her day, my day, the comfortable shorthand of two people who've long since stopped needing to narrate every detail. Sometimes a Monday just works. No drama, no friction, just a day that does exactly what it promises and then politely steps aside.

The Art of Arriving Anyway

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The morning began on the back foot. One of those nights where sleep decides it has better things to do — arriving in patches, wandering off, returning briefly as if it forgot its keys, then leaving again for good around four. By the time the alarm went off, I'd been semi-conscious long enough to resent it on principle.

A late start, then. The kind where you move through the house with slightly less precision than usual, where the coffee matters more than it normally does, and where you eye the clock with the weary suspicion of someone who's been let down before. But KL traffic, in a rare act of municipal kindness, decided to behave itself. The roads parted, the lights cooperated, and I arrived on time with the faintly smug air of someone who got away with it. Some days the city is on your side. Best not to examine why.

Rounds went smoothly — the sort of morning where everything clicks into place without fuss, each stop leading naturally to the next, nobody throwing curveballs, no last-minute complications. Finished by eleven, which is the medical equivalent of finding money in your coat pocket. Unexpected, welcome, and not to be wasted.

The paperwork that followed had been waiting patiently, as paperwork does. It neither complained nor hurried. I gave it the attention it deserved — thorough but uninspired — and by the time it was done, lunch stretched ahead without its usual sense of urgency. A meal eaten slowly, without one eye on the clock, feels fundamentally different from one inhaled between obligations. Today it was the former. I sat. I chewed. Revolutionary stuff.

The afternoon brought a VIP patient arriving early to clinic, which required the particular brand of organised calm that looks effortless from the outside but involves a fair amount of quiet recalibration behind the scenes. Everything was in place, though. The preparation held. There's a satisfaction in readiness that's hard to articulate — the knowledge that when the moment arrives, you've already done the thinking. The rest is just execution.

Home before six again, two days running now. If this becomes a pattern, I may have to reconsider my entire identity as someone who's perpetually late to his own evening. Dinner was good — the kind of meal that doesn't announce itself but leaves you properly content, the sort where you push back from the table with nothing left to want. Anita has a knack for this, making the ordinary feel considered.

The evening settled in quietly. No agenda, no obligations, just the slow unwinding of a day that started rough but found its rhythm. It's a useful reminder that a bad beginning doesn't dictate the rest. Sleep may have abandoned me last night, but the day itself held steady, and now the evening is doing its part. Tomorrow I'll aim for both. Tonight, one out of two will do nicely.

Swimming Lessons Restarted

Since Idlan had his summer break, we didn't have much of a swimming lesson. So, it was time to catch up as well as get Irfan to join along as well.

The coach was occupied during the SEA Games and now was the time to get going again. Irfan especially seemed to be enjoying it. The coach started with the basic breathing exercise, and next came floating.He was catching up fast.

Waiting for the coachNice sunshinePutting my feet up ...While they were in the pool, we were at the side soaking up the sunshine complete with a bit of nachos and dips. It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon for me as well, hence I was able to head home from work early.

Shimmering

It was a gorgeous Saturday morning as I ambled my way from bed to get ready for the Saturday morning clinic. I have just returned from Singapore the evening before and could do with a lie in. But this was a Saturday and it would be a riot in store if I start my clinic late.

As I munch through my breakfast, I saw some warm sunshine peeking through the curtains. Got my phone out, and I was blessed with such shimmering sunrise ...

Amazing how even a simple smartphone - a P10 Plus mind you - could capture such beauty ....