As I walked through the automatic door into the University College Hospital, Galway this morning I noticed an old lady dressed in a pink robe sitting next to the door there. I put a decent smile on my face as she looked at me. A patient that must be. Here it goes again, I mumbled to myself.

The other day [or actually on any given day at all] as I legged up the passageway connecting the Outpatients Department and the Artassist Clinic I made a purposeful glance at this particular bench outside the window. More often than not I would see a handful of people mostly in blue shirts taking their seats there. Be it if the weather was freezing cold or blazing hot that wouldn't be a huge bother for them [If you want to know those dressed in blue scrubs are practicing doctors]. In fact even if they don't even know each other who are also sitting on that particular bench with them they'll still take the weight off their legs there, and you know what that's because they have something in common: they SMOKE!

Ya in Ireland a lot of people smoke regardless of gender and age, even in the university outdoors! I think they think it keeps them warm from inside for some reason. Interestingly in Malaysia women who smoke will receive dirty looks from their spectators, so no wonder we don't often see women smoking in public in the country. At least from my experience never did I ever see that to be honest.

It is actually merely a culture in Malaysia where the woman-smokers don't smoke publicly because they are dreading people's rough perception on them; not because of the fear of the dangers of smoking itself. What's the difference whether you are a lad or a lass really, the point is that you SMOKE. In any way you're more inclined to develop those tremendous devastating diseases compared to those who remain cigarette-free, still. Heart diseases, lung diseases and diabetes -just to name a few- are all related to smoking. Well established now but who cares?


In fact Islam prohibits its believers from smoking, from any actions that bring more bad than good in essence. So if you do smoke you are not only going against your body's right to stay healthy, your religion that forbids you from doing it [I don't know about other religions], your family and peeps as they are now secondary smokers; in addition you're also afflicting the feelings of those who love you as they're going to lose you sooner or see you suffer if you happen to acquire those awful diseases.

"Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them. He will enjoin on them that which is right and forbid them that which is wrong. He will make lawful for them all good things and prohibit for them only the foul; and he will relieve them of their burden and the fetters that they used to wear. Then those who believe in him, and honour him, and help him, and follow the light which is sent down with him: they are the successful."

[Al-A'raf, 7:157]

The irony is that those people I've mentioned, they all know about the gruesome fact of the complications of smoking yet they fail to assimilate and put them into practice. Let alone the medical practitioners who know very well the pathophysiology of those diseases. Well, to completely wean from cigarettes once you've started is hardly achievable, I totally understand though. Having said that you are then now not entitled to complain if you happened to be diagnosed with a smoking-related disease, 'cause that's the price you have to pay.

There was this one time when I was on the rounds with Mr Sultan's team, apparently Mr Sultan is the Consultant of Vascular Surgery in UCHG. In this one morning when the team went to see this one vascular [pertaining to blood vessels] patient she was not at her bed. With her history of multiple pack years of smoking we suspected that she must had gone somewhere to smoke. Thinking that we'll leave her visit till later we then went down the stairs to get to another ward where we incidentally happened upon her.

I could tell the guilt on her face when everyone in the team watched the consultant emphasizing that she's not helping herself if she still continues to smoke. As I looked at her face I felt like shaking her shoulders [gently, mind you] and question, are you aware of what you are doing? Are you not afraid of losing your limbs?

Sigh, sometimes it's not that they don't want to quit but perhaps they find the longing just too irresistible. Too powerful.

In a nutshell for those who haven't started I advise you not to even think of starting smoking 'cause in simple words once you're in then you're in. Smoking is addictive and is difficult to get away from once you've got hooked up. To those who are giving up smoking, keep on going! Seek help if you need to before it's too late.

P/s: Wondering if hospitals chose not to admit or treat smokers [when they were caught up with a disease related to their own habit], would that result in a plummet in the number of people smoking? -"But doctor, isn't this disease multifactorial?"- Excuses excuses excuses.

*I also have an addiction so I actually kind of understand how hard it is to abstain from something you find pleasure splurging in. My obsession: Food.

I'd say I spent the whole day today doing nothing but shopping. Hurm, sounds sinful ya? Lol!

The story was that I initially planned to go see Gloria the Lecturer in Medical Informatics in the morning to ask about some details regarding the research that I'm doing, unfortunately she already went out to Sligo as I got to her office. So it seems that I will have to in once again early enough tomorrow morning before my meeting with Orla the statistics student doing Masters who'll be helping me with the data analysis. It's just that I found this research a bit complex that I need to clarify a couple of things with Gloria before beginning the data analysis with Orla. If you don't get what I'm saying, I'm telling you you don't have to perplex yourself trying to understand this, just move on to the next paragraph :P.

So without delay I left the hospital, went to sort out our telephone bill at the post office and then headed off to the city centre to get going with an important mission.

I actually don't go shopping that much to be honest, plus the fact that I'm quite a picky and fussy shopper that make it even more distressing to shop with me lol [But I think I'm fairly good at giving sincere opinions on choices :P]. To make things worse I sometimes have this awful thought that going shopping is merely a waste of time, when I actually can't even promise that if I didn't go out I would do something more beneficial- hopefully though. Anyway alhamdulillah today I managed to force myself to make it; with the aim of looking for some stuff for my family and relatives to bring back to Malaysia. Tough mission that was.

Guess what, the mission wasn't accomplished- as expected. Even with the massive sale everywhere in town I couldn't really find things which were suitable or sensible to grab for.


One good thing about the business in Ireland is that retailers or wholesalers pay great attention to the customer's rights. One rule, customers can always refund their purchase to the store if they found the item unsatisfactory as long as it still lies within the specified dates. For example I just refunded a packet of crabsticks to Aldi store after I discovered that they contain wine as one of the ingredients. In a more peculiar scenario my friend once refunded a plain lettuce and when was asked for the reasons for that she just replied "I just didn't want it". And they accepted that without further ado.


Back to the story thank God the weather was just nice, it rained a bit for a while but I wasn't drenched nor soaked to the bone. Despite that I was completely knackered that my legs felt like falling apart and my head was throbbing on my way home out of weariness I thought, or maybe the raindrops. I can feel that at such a young age of 23 I'm already ageing! Simply couldn't imagine how I'd be if I were let live till the ripe senile years if I didn't take a good care of my own health. Indeed health is a huge gift from God to His creations.

This got me thinking, if someone says that I'll surely be a good person and repent when I'm ready, when the time comes or when I'm old as such, the thing is not just how can we guarantee that we'd still be alive when the time has come, but also another question is that when the time comes, how can we be very sure that we'll we be able to materialize what we've promised?

At that delicate age we might have obtained whatever worldy achievements we had always dreamt of; name it wealth, reputation and family but from another angle to look at it we'll no longer be as strong as when we were young don't we? At that time we still have the eyes but we can't see that clearly, we still have the ears but we can't hear that precisely and we still have all the limbs but they're no longer as mighty.


So the main point of this entry is that let's together put away this word off our vocabulary:

"Allah is the One Who created you from weakness, then made after weakness strength, then made after strength weakness and white hair. He creates what He wills, and He is The Knowing, The Competent"

[Ar-Rum, 30:54]

*I admit that I really need to pay extra attention to practice NOT to procrastinate!

I just arrived in Galway yesterday morning after spending more than a weekend in the city that never sleeps, London. The story was that I planned to attend an event organized by the Malaysian Students Department, London entitled "Seminar of Islamic Leadership" over the last weekend. The name had been given and was looking forward to the seemingly grand event but suddenly the department deferred the seminar to a yet-to-be-announced date at a very late notice, where at that time my friend and I had bought the flight tickets already. After having some thorough discussion with my friend, we decided not to waste away the money that we've paid to the Ryanair so that was how we ended up in London for about3 days or so.

Honestly London weather was extremely hot that it tanned the skin and kept us sweating all day. Sweater and cardigan were definitely a no-no, instead their places were taken by shades and a bottle of still water, the latter to keep us well hydrated of course. It was an inch away from Malaysian climate I suppose and the air was even drier than Galway air, isn't this what we call SUMMER?

We managed to stroll across London quite deep down to the depths of it. The three days had us completely jaded at the end of every single walk that we always yearned for nothing as we got home except for some rest and slumber... and food too apparently ;).


The Saturday and Sunday didn't give us any better chance as the Jubilee line was closed on both days so we had to ingeniously find alternative routes and pay attention to the announcements and transportation updates. In spite of this I thought the London transport system deserves a kudos for being able to have everything carefully plotted. The alternative buses provided in place of the not-on-duty tube were very helpful even though we had to walk an extra mile and squeeze our brain hard in order to figure out where to go and which bus were we meant to take. Navigation and map-reading skills progressively developed over that course of time surely ;).

We allotted the Friday for shopping but I ended up getting nothing for myself off the streets. Ya the stinginess and fussiness that once grew in my flesh were just difficult to peel off now hehe. Next we went to Greenwich intending to have a gawk at the imperative line that I once heard the name of in Geography classes; which draws vertically across the globe- the Greenwich Meridian. However the ad hoc plan gave us a rough outcome- the place was closing when we got there. The long walk in the park to reach the line seemed endless that we agreed not to press on but changed our route to the London Central Mosque instead.


The London Central Mosque wasn't the most beautiful mosque in the world but I was completely delighted and thankful that I just realized there it happened to be my first time in the year performing a prayer in a mosque, how pathetic! Furthermore the moment we got lost in the hectic London traffic trying to find our way to the place we incidentally ran into a Portuguese lady who works in London and was also heading to the same place. Alhamdulillah, what more could I wish for then?


Cotswold saw us the next day appreciating the beauty of London countryside in the London suburb. Now I knew that there was also a nature side of London that could be found somewhere within its borders, and the small Cotswold might be enough if we want to take a small break from the hustle and bustle of city life. Following that in the afternoon we paid a good sum of money to go in to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium in London. Once in a lifetime admission would suffice I think given the jaw-dropping ticket price, as what in there were those weird stuff and some videos like what we would watch on its tv programme as well as some games like mirror maze which were not too bad really.

On the subsequent day I stepped my feet for the first time in the largest Carboot sale of London, first time ever at a carboot sale actually. The business is very straightforward, bring out what you've got to offer [off your carboot of course], set a price and simply put them on display. It could be anything at all from gleaming trinkets to potteries to a scooter! The setting reminded me to the morning market or Pasar Tani that I used to go with my mum every Friday back in Malaysia. Oh memories! Anyhow of all the cheap items offered, all I got was the Advanced Banter Book of Quotations at the price of 1 pound when the initial proposed price was 14.99 pounds. Others who went along with me got themselves wall decorations, board games, books, jewelry box etc, fine!

In the afternoon without delay we headed over to the Gunther von Hagen's Bodyworlds & The Mirror of Time exhibition in London that once took place in Dublin. If in Ripley's Odditorium we were allowed to take as many photos as we wished, this exhibition went totally the other way around. No cameras, no foods and beverages, no touching, no everything! [This photo on the right was taken from the link that I put- A man holding up his skin].

Anyhow it was a stunning work I have to say really. The job was so delicately done that he sliced up each layer of real human bodies very carefully to preserve every single part, and it was indeed a huge success. For example there was this one plastinate of a man riding a horse; the man was cut into 3 layers making it looked like sort of three men on the horse; the first man was the one with the skin, the second man was made up of the muscles and the third man was made up of the bones. To make an extra effect even the horse was beautifully dissected exposing its muscles and the horse-rider was holding his brain on one hand and a hockey stick on the other. And they're real human [and horse, I think] body[s]. Impressive! I can't say more to explain how great the work was as you'll only be able to admit it if you saw it with your own naked eyes.

The funny [or annoying? Nope, lol] part was that I was asked not once but twice about my age. On the second time the guard in the room politely asked for my ID to prove that I'm above the approved age i.e 16 as he said I looked so young lol. The reason for this was because there was this one part of the exhibition showing the human reproductive organs which was indeed very frank and overt. No need to explain this further but it was quite disturbing seeing some plastinates with improper acts being displayed. Not really improper as in improper but maybe we don't need to be too honest in sending the message? I don't know.

Seeing how brilliant the dissection work was done sparked in me how skillful Gunther von Hagens is. Yet again that brought me to how remarkable the human body is and so how Magnificent God is. Subhanallah.

"And on the earth are the signs for the certain [in faith] and in yourselves. Then will you not see?"

[Adh-Dhariyat, 51:20-21]

The more we look into ourselves the more we realize how great God's creations are thus how Great He The Creator is.

And so I shall end my travelogue here.