November 17, 2007

Something The Lord Made

ESP (English for Special Purpose) is part of the subjects that I have to take; it's run closely with PPD (Personal and Professional Development)- one Thursday it's ESP, the next Thursday would be PPD.

Last Thursday, we watched an HBO film, 'Something The Lord Made' and I have to say it's worth the whole Thursday afternoon in the audi to watch it. It was based on a true story:

"...moving story of men who defy the rules and start a medical revolution. Their patients are known as the "blue babies" - infants suffering from a congenital heart defect that turns them blue as they slowly suffocate (Tetralogy of Fallot- if you're a med student).

Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) make a brilliant team. But even as they race against time to save one particular baby, the two occupy different places in society. Blalock is the white, wealthy head of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Thomas is black and poor, a skilled carpenter whose dream of going to college and becoming a doctor was ruined by the Great Depression, although he was naturally gifted with the intuition and dexterity of a great surgeon"
(More info: http://www.hbo.com/films/stlm/)

We learnt about interpersonal conflict weeks before and there were obvious examples in the movie; not just on that matter but also of ambitions, dreams, hardwork, discrimination and intrapersonal conflicts. People might say how you handle it is entirely up to the individual but then again interpersonal conflict always involves at least two parties and when another party apart from ourselves is involved, it means unless there's effective communication, both parties would feel dissatisfaction, anger and perhaps resentment towards each other.

Similarly I now find myself in perhaps a situation that could resemble somewhat of interpersonal conflicts and perhaps it's involving more than two parties. Sometimes even when we're aware of our surroundings, the different perceptions people are having on us and our own desires to do things our way, we might forget that people have feelings and that perhaps unless we say it out loud, there would be slight discomfort and dissatisfaction simmering around.

I've never been in this kind of situation before and frankly I'm kind of at lost of what to do.

Back in 2000 when we moved to Kerteh, I thought I learnt about life back then. But now 7 years after, life has never fail to throw me aback and ponder have I done the right thing. It was a principle back then that 'life is a great teacher, learn from it' and I think I'm still holding to the same principle...

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