Weekend driver!

For nearly six months, I have driven constantly to and from work on a regular basis. Added with my previous experience of one year weekly commuting between the medical hall of residence and home, I think I am in a position to comment on the state of the roads today.

I'm not stating I am a perfect driver but I have improved over the past half year. Regularly driving, even if it is the same route at the same time of day, does help improve your driving skills. I also drive quite economically, trying to get the best fuel economy out of my VW Golf. That means driving a bit slower than I previously did and knowing when to switch to the left hand lane to allow other road users to overtake me.

Also by being more efficient, I have to be more aware of other drivers and the road conditions, leading to be a much safer and more self-aware driver. That cannot be said for all drivers. You would expect the more you drive, the more courteous and safer driver you are. It does not necessarily work out that way. I think the drivers with the worst manners on the roads are the professional drivers. These are the drivers who are on the roads most of the day as their job dictates it. These include people who transport goods, minibus drivers and taxi drivers. However they are the least likeliest to give way when other cars need to merge and break every known traffic law.

There are a few acts on the roads that I really hate which I will go into much detail about:

1. Using indicators

Whether it is to turn right or left or to change lanes, everybody should indicate with their lights where they are going. It doesn't take much effort and it doesn't wear down the batteries. So why don't more people do it? It is probably down to sheer laziness.

It is a matter of courtesy for other drivers to let them know where you are going. Also it is a matter of safety. You don't want a car suddenly pulling in front of you from the next lane. For pedestrians, you would want to know which way the car is turning or going so you can safely cross the road.

2. Giving way

I hate people who don't give way. Whether it is two lanes that are merging into one or to allow somebody out when they have been waiting for quite some time, you should be courteous enough to allow other cars out when it is necessary. I do believe in karma and I do believe it will bite back or reward you later.

3. Tailgaiting

Maybe not quite a great offence but it is bloody frightening if somebody is following your car pretty closely. Especially if the vehicle is a heavy goods lorry. You dare not brake, you're more likely to increase your speed and you spend more time looking in your rearview mirror than looking at the road ahead.

4. Queue jumpers

My dad those this a lot. When there is a queue on the highway/motorway, he uses the other lanes to queue jump. I hate these discourteous drivers. You should get in lane like everyone else.

5. People who use mobile phones

A lot of Mercedez Benz / BMW drivers in Hong Lok Yuen do this. Just because they think they are driving at a slow speed with little traffic in the vicinity, they think they can talk on their mobile phones. But there are still other road users, there are still pedestrians around and the traffic laws of Hong Kong still apply. Just wait until you get home to take the call.

Remember, not only you are using the roads - there are other drivers on the motorways.

Stuck inside

I cannot believe my luck. Not only am I on-call on a Saturday - the worst day of the week to be stuck inside a hospital - but it happens to fall on the day England play USA in their first group game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Thankfully I'm only working in gynaecology, which means we don't have to admit patients after 17:00 and the wards are relatively quiet during the evenings. I can sneak out to watch the match but it is a late evening kick-off. Currently mood leads me not to watch the match. I just cannot be bothered to wake up at 02:00 to go and watch the match.

As gynaecology is relatively quiet at my hospital, it gives me too much time to ponder about my life. I should be getting on with a presentation that I have to give on Thursday but yet I'm thinking about my existence. Currently I'm not depressed but not totally happy either. I'm just stuck in a rut and cannot get out. The best way to describe my state is dissatisfaction and ambivalency. I'm currently in a good job which is not that demanding. I'm dreading the next year as I will be in Medicine and Paediatrics plus I should start revising for my HKCFP exams. Apart from that my job is OK yet I have an itching feeling I'm not totally comfortable the position I'm in. I cannot complain about the pay or benefits. I have enough cash in the bank not to worry about my financial status, since my parents are not dependent on me. I also don't spend huge amounts of money like dining out or buying DVDs since I can control myself to buy what I only need.

I know I still live at home with my parents at the age of 29 years old but that's normal in Hong Kong and I don't really want to spend money buy or rent somewhere to live when I can save up the money later and economizing by staying with my parents. I currently have an aim to make try to lose weight by eating less and cycling about half hour per day. Maybe that's driving me crazy - the hunger cravings for desserts which I cannot make since I stopped all after dinner snacking. My mum is not helping matters by constantly buying food despite my pleas not to since I won't eat all of it.

I'm not looking for a relationship at the moment, not after the last "relationship" I was in. I am meeting my friends this month, which means I'm not totally isolating myself at home. Maybe all of this is just in my head and is the depression talking to me. Maybe I should say to myself that all is fine, there is nothing to worry or be dissatisfied about. I need to tell myself that once I've lost weight, maybe I can go out and meet women.

Right have to go back and start some exercise...

It's not complicated anymore

One of the features Facebook should put on the website is a notification of when people defriend you. That's what happened to me recently. No sooner had I written my last blog entry and posted it up, the lady in question immediately defriended me.

Am I hurt? A little bit but in the long run I will be OK. Did I do anything wrong? Maybe, by posting up my thoughts on the aforementioned girl so the public could read it. Yet I was careful not to mention her name and none of my other friends know of her. Also everything I mentioned I had discussed with her before, so it is not like she didn't know about it. Also if I did anything wrong, I don't know what I did wrong. All that I mentioned was that I don't want her to be my girlfriend but I was perfectly happy for her to be my friend. If she is reading this, I apologize for what I did.

So now I don't even have to write why I don't want her to be my girlfriend.

Now I'm going through an "episode" right now. I self analyze my life too much. I'm approaching thirty years old. I still haven't had a girlfriend or had sex. When women go about their biological clock, men go about losing their virginity. It's a male ego thing which I would gladly want to shed but cannot. It would be perfectly fine if I was isolated from the outside world. Yet the evil that is Facebook is a constant reminder of my misery.

People younger than me are having relationships, getting married, having sex and having kids!!!! I would be perfectly happy with this state of the world, if it were not the fact that these people are the last you would expect to perform nookie. These are the people who save themselves for sex after marriage because it is the right thing to do and then only roll around in the hay to have babies like it was a national requirement so you can have tax benefits. Don't get me wrong - I'm happy for them. It' just makes me more miserable about my relationship status and it's all my fault.

Once upon a time back in secondary school I accepted that it was perfectly fine to stay not married. I knew the chances of finding a partner were slim, with my complicated upbringing, high standards and my depressive background. I still think that but it is constantly on the back of my mind, gnawing like what my dogs do to their bones - generally eating away until there is no resistance.

So now I'm gone to desperate measures to make myself presentable to the opposite sex. I've started dieting, but only a little amount. It is difficult to diet when other people cook for you and you have to go out to eat with other people during work. I've also started cycling nearly every day to lose weight. However I'm not losing weight quickly enough, so I think I have to start running again.

Oh the things we do to get somebody to love us. Sooner or later I'll probably be crazy enough to start diet pills or prescribe myself thyroxine* to lose weight...

(* I'm joking of course - none of my friends should take it seriously and especially any doctors reading this.)

It's complicated

For all the criticism Facebook has received in redesigning its layout or having its privacy policy attacked, one thing I have got out of Facebook is the best way to describe most relationships - "It's complicated." I never heard of an easy relationship between a man and a woman, or even between a man and another man or between a woman and another woman. You catch my drift - romance is difficult at the best of times and outright insane during the worst of times. That is what I'm in at the moment.

Over a month ago, a lady whom I didn't know asked me to add her as a friend on Facebook. Naturally I had to ask why she wanted me as a friend. She reads my blog and found me an interesting person with quite some unique and thought-provoking ideas. So we struck up a relationship, chatting on Facebook and getting to know each other a bit more. Facebook chats turned to long conversation on the phone and before long, we finally met face to face. So far we have gone out three times, what most people call "dates".

"So what's complicated about this relationship?" you might ask. A lot of things in this relationship are a potential mine waiting to detonate.

First of all, she is really interested in me. I don't know if she is in love with me but her enthusiasm for me is more than my interest in her. I like as a friend but I don't love her as a girlfriend or potential partner for life. I get to the reasons why later. I never thought I would be in this situation where a girl/lady loves me but I don't love her. I thought I would be grateful to have somebody who loves me but I'm not. I just don't love her in the way she loves me.

Somehow her enthusiasm for me is a bit suffocating. Perhaps I'm not used to a person liking me so much. Not even my closest friends pay this much attention to me. She constantly phones me nearly every day to talk about trivial matters of what she has done today and to bitch about work. I don't mind hearing once every so often. Yet to hear the same matter nearly every single day is a bit tiresome. She also constantly wants to me to come out with her and sometimes (actually most of the time) I just want to stay at home. Perhaps that's why I don't have a girlfriend - I just don't want to go out usually. I just stayed cooped up in my bedroom, watching episodes of "Mock the Week" and surfing on the Internet. I do admit I have to get out more.

I also have the feeling she is bossing me around a lot. During our dates, she is the one dictating where we go and what to do. I feel I don't have a say in the matter. Don't get me wrong, she's not asking me to spend lots of money or perform any illegal acts. It just feels this relationship is a bit one-sided and I'm not getting much input or output. The conversations are a bit one sided as well, with mostly her doing the talking.

So am I an evil guy for talking about her faults so publicly on my blog? No, not really. Most of what I've written she already knows. On our third "date" we already established that this was not a serious love relationship and that we were free to see other people. Yet I am still getting signals she wants to pursue this relationship to another level.

Anyway, I've still more things to talk about this "relationship" and I've already used up my quota of quotation marks. I'll write further on why her and I are not compatible.