Many years ago, my house mailbox frequently welcomes letters in all shapes and sizes, colours and senders apart from the necessary bills and important documents meant to make Mom and Dad frown, sigh and complain. Most of those beautiful mails were from my long-time Australian and Norwegian. Once in a while I’d also receive parcels filled with little surprises e.g. an assortment of candies, makeup, pictures of my penpals and their family and friends, postcards, keychains, collectible scented erases, bookmarks, etc. Nice eh? Hehe.

The most extraordinary gift ever was a box of Norwegian cheese and a “knife” Norwegians use to slice and serve cheese which looks exactly like our garden spade! I don’t know what made my smart penpal think that she could actually mail me CHEESE by post that arrived 1 week later all the way from Norway to my dear tropical Malaysia. She claimed it could stand the heat, wouldn’t melt so easily (M&Ms?) and need not be stored in the refrigerator. Anyway, the cheese came to me abit squishy in its box and with its weird shape it looked anything but appealing. It smelt good though but I wouldn’t dare to consume dairy products that had travel from one continent to the other for 7 days in a box!

In the end I stored it in the fridge hoping that Dad, an all-time cheese lover would gobble it up so that I wouldn’t feel too guilty for not treating my penpal’s pressy with pride. Well, he didn’t eat it. He pretended not to notice it. He’s crazy about cheese and it’s impossible he couldn’t see that huge whitish yellow thing sitting amongst the usual Kraft Singles cheese packets. And I though Norway Cheese looked almost irresistable, albeit a bit out of shape due to “improper mail handling”. To cut the long story short, Norway Cheese was sent straight to the garbage bin 1 month later when Mom decided that it’s occupying too much space in her fridge.

And I told my penpal it tasted delicious. Yeah, I told a lie but I couldn’t help it!! I kept the spade cheese cutter (whatever you called it) though.

Eversince I studied in UM, my correspondence with my penpals began to lag. What used to be a monthly exchange of stories, joy and woes gradually became an annual affair. Recently, I browsed through her letters and discovered I am 2 years late! =p Although my mailbox doesn’t receive as much exciting snailmails and parcels as before, it is still stuffed with all kinds of other mailing stuff. They are what I call JUNK MAIL. However, they are no ordinary junk mail. They are basically letters addressed to me as a DOCTOR, yes… as in Dr. CYANIDE-THE-COUCH-POTATO, their most valued customer, introducing me to loads of commercial goods with endless sheets of promotional pamphlets, magazines, etc. Among the common ones that I’ve come across are digital cameras, DVD players, Hi-fi systems, desktops, laptops, printers, furniture and the worst of all… housing investment plans!! Somewhere in between the advertising pages are usually order forms with persuasive opening lines to make sure that I’m aware of the high-grade quality of their products and how I’m gonna lose out to the entire world or worse, fail my practice if I do not make a purchase of their prized goods with my CREDIT CARD (where in the hell do I own a credit card when my bank account amount does not even exceed RM300?!).

I seriously do not know how these people got my address and name. The only time I admit being a medical student who would probably graduate in year 2007 written in black and white was when I signed up for the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) membership and subscription for its monthly news. THAT - came by post faithfully each month.

Mom relishes in keeping those irritating promotional letters for me because it somehow delights her to see my name printed with the prefix Dr. The first time she saw it she actually called me on the phone excitedly and laughing away. Told her a thousand times to throw all of that away but she still keeps them for my return during weekends or semester breaks. It’s annoying for me to see my name with that prefix which I don’t even own. Perhaps I’m too sensitive? But I can’t help it! I’m not yet a doctor, and I still wonder if I can still be one at the rate I’m going now. Geez… it sure freaks me out and place unnecessary pressure on me each time I saw my name addressed that way. Paranoia? Maybe. Maybe that explains why I rarely reveal the fact that I’m a medical student unless people asks. The reason? I just can’t take the way they’d make a big hooha out of it exclaiming how smart I must have been, how difficult is it to get into UM, etc making me all red and not sure how to respond. They have no idea I’m very much blank, blur, lost and stressed about this entire medical course thingy. Then as usual, they’d go into my studies, my postings, my idea on future specialisation, all the money-making issues, etc.

I wish… that someday, all of them will react the same way when they get to know that I’m doing medicine:

“What are you studying now?”

“Medicine”

“Ohh.. I see *nods and smiles*” … goes on to talk about something else, anything!

Muahahahhahaha… ok, forgive me. It’s just me, whether you like it or not =p