just when i thought how meaningless my life is, it came across to me i should be thankful i have the ability to even complain. just last sunday when i was going home from work (which ended at 12 midnight!!) i saw this girl collapse on the ground at the telephone booth. initially i thought she was crying so hard, perhaps due to some groundshaking news received over the phone. as i was quite a distant away, i just walked past and didn't think much. but as the car drove past her, the 2 banglars stopped the car and asked if we knew how to speak chinese. apparently, the china girl was on the phone with her friend when she suddenly collapsed on the floor and they couldn't communicate with her friend, who was on the line, in chinese.
and so i immediately got out of the car to check on her. she was sitting on the ground, with her hands were clenched over her chest and was gasping for air. i tried taking to her, asking her what's wrong but she seemed too breathless to say anything. and so i picked up the phone and asked her friend what was wrong. her friend sounded so relaxed and told me it's ok, she has a weak heart and just get a cab for her and send her home. hello?? your friend is here uncontrollably gasping for air, it may be a life and death matter...
at that point of time, i thought of 2 things to do, one is to call the ambulance and two to call my doctor, hopefully he will still be around, since i just ended work about ten minutes ago, and see if she can get any professional immediate medical attention. but she insisted she's ok, and reassured us that she just need a bit of time to catch her breath. well, she looked a lot better than a few minutes ago, at least she could talk and move, so we just sat with her and made sure she was ok. i felt so useless, as a pseudo medical student and a sinseh-to-be, i couldn't do anything to help her. and seeing that she was a lot better and had people to attend to her, the 2 banglars left (not that i'm a racist). one of them said something like "although you are not s'porean, but you're still human.." i think she was lucky they were there to give her immediate help.
after sitting down for a while, she was a lot better and i found out that she was a student at np and she had a weak heart, on long-term tcm medicine. and this happened before but it was the first time in s'pore. perhaps because she hasn't been taking the medicine regularly recently. we sent her home after that. hope she's ok..
sigh... yes, i have seen right before my own eyes, tcm is indeed effective. but i'm starting to doubt the value of education. i am sure education has thought us to help and care for one another. but isn't that something that ought to be innate. i am pretty sure the 2 banglars are not highly-educated, probably just workers on work permits, but they tried their best to help, and only left when she was a lot better and we said we'll stay to look after her. perhaps the old saying of 人之初，性本善 is indeed true. and what has education done when undergrads point the gun and take lives of so many innocents?
yes, there's really more to life than studying and grades..