The final stretch

We had more pre-internship during this week. For the past two days my timetable has been filled with lectures, filling out forms and re-acquiring skills on the practical aspect of my life for the next year. It has been a non-stop barrage of information which will require time to process and develop into skills. I just hope I don't kill anybody along the way and don't screw up too much. That is all I ask for.

My eyes have certainly been opened by one person in this pre-internship block. I think this person is the most remarkable person in the world. Her name is Rachael and she came to Hong Kong from UK to perform an internship. According to what I know she has already done her internship in UK and been practising for quite sometime before coming to Hong Kong to take the licensing medical examinations.You might be thinking a lot of people do that and you are right. The most remarkable thing is she 100% English and doesn't know a single word of Chinese. She's coming to Hong Kong for her boyfriend, who is working here. How romantic is this situation? Can you think of anybody willing to give up their comfortable life in a place they know and move halfway around the world to a place you don't know that well, a language you cannot speak and into one of the most difficulty jobs in the world. All of this takes courage, commitment and love. I really wonder if anybody I know would do that and I can't think of anybody who would. I just hope that everything is easy for her and everything turns out alright. I just hope I can help her in any way I can.

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I haven't been commenting much on the news lately. I have a lot I could talk about but I think most people get bored if they hear too much on politics. One story I think is important to my heart is the withdrawal of Morgan Tsvangirai from the Zimbabwean elections. It is disappointing that he is giving into intimidation from Robert Mugabe and his cronies. On the other hand he needs to consider the lives and safety of his party, with about hundred supporters being killed so far. I know people should stand up to dictators like Mugabe and think democracy will live on. However we all live in the real world and people die in these situations - fathers, breadwinners. You can't ignore that fact and neither can Tsvangirai.

It's also a pity the outside world cannot do much. All the other nations on this Earth can do is impose sanctions on Zimbabwe. It's not like we can invade the country and put in a person we think could do the job better. It will be just like Iraq and Afghanistan all over again. I have these views about Burma, North Korea and many other countries but dabbling in other countries matters is a direct violation of their sovereignty. Yet there must be a limit to what we can accept.