SSDD is a term that I came across around 8 to 9 years ago in a Stephen King book a friend of mine was reading, Dreamcatcher if I’m not mistaken. SSDD is the abbreviation for "Same Shit Different Day". Never did I expect that one day my life will be defined by this four letter abbreviation.
At the moment, that’s how my life looks like. My everyday activities have become such a routine that there is no more excitement in it. Weekdays are the worst. My day starts at 6.45am when I’m awoken by my mom. I would need to get her to work with my Honda Wave motorcycle by 7.00am. With whatever energy that I can muster, I would ride my motorcycle half awake and get my mom to work on time.
 |
| SSDD |
The ride back home would be torturous. I would be clinging on to my consciousness trying not to fall asleep. As soon as I reach home, I would hit the couch and get back to sleep. Even though I have told myself many times to get up early so that I wouldn’t be late for work, I never seem to listen. By the time I wake up again, it would be around 7.50am. I have to be at work by 8.30am. You would think that 40 minutes is more than enough. Not in my case.
I don’t know how I do it, but I always manage to be late. The amount of things that I need to do to get ready is quite few; brush my teeth, unload in the toilet, shower, get dressed and drink a cup of Milo before I leave. Doesn’t seem like much does it? Well it’s the things in between that delay me. Sometimes I get hooked on the sports news and lose track of time. Sometimes when I am just about to leave for work, the stray cats around my house will be waiting at my doorsteps with their huge eyes begging for breakfast. I would spend my time making sure they get enough to eat to last them until mom comes back from work. Many things like this would crop up to make sure I am delayed. But sometimes, I’m late for no reason what so ever.
I would reach work at least 15 minutes late. By the time I reach work, some patients will already be there waiting for me. Not my fault. I always tell them to come after 8.45am, but they will turn up early. Some of them will come late as advised. As soon as I reach my work place, the first thing I would do is turn on my laptop and access my e-mail. I will glance through my e-mail, noting the work that awaits me for the day. After spending less than half a minute on my e-mail, I will tend to the patients.
Usually there are never more than four patients in a day at my place. By the way, I work at the Clinical Research Centre (CRC) in Hospital Taiping. I’m a Study Coordinator that assists my boss, an Endocrinologist, to run Industry Sponsored Research (ISR). So, the patients that come to our centre are clinical trial patients. My routine with the patients are almost the same. Even though they might belong to different type of clinical trials, the procedures are not that much different; measuring BP and weight, collecting blood samples, performing ECG, administer questionnaires and doing any other procedure required in the protocol. After preparing the patients, I will wait for my boss to arrive.
I have a wonderful boss. One of the nicest people I have ever worked with. My boss will come and see the patients. We will discuss any issues that might arise with the patients. Once my boss is done, it’s my turn again. I would need to dispense study drug to patients, inform their next appointment, give any special instructions for the next visit and pay them their reimbursement for the clinic visit.
Seems easy, but even this process alone can be quite the trouble. Study drugs are dispensed using an “interactive system”. It’s a choice between Interactive Web Response System and Interactive Voice Response System. Sounds quite technical doesn’t it. Well it’s not, is either we use the web or the telephone to get the appropriate study drug number that needs to be dispensed. It’s troubling when either the web or the telephone decides to fail you that day. The worse is when both decide to fail you. But ‘touch wood’, that has not happened before.
After I wave my patients goodbye, I would proceed to process the blood samples. The samples need to be centrifuged, transferred to the appropriate tubes and packed according to the International Airport Transport Association (IATA) requirements. The courier company allocated to the specific study has to be contacted to arrange pick up for the samples. Usually the samples are sent to Singapore. By the time I finish processing the samples, it will almost be lunch time. Sometimes, it would have exceeded my lunch time.
I always try to inject some variety into my lunch time. I never eat in the same place in the same week. So I would go to five different places to have my lunch throughout Monday to Friday. But after a certain period of time, I realized that I only had around ten places that I usually go to and I keep rotating between these ten places. So much for adding variety to my lunch. As the clock strikes 2.00pm, I will be heading back to the office. Sometimes I’ll be late. I must be real bad at being punctual.
After I come back from lunch and until I go back, everything that needs to be done would have already been listed. It would have come from my e-mails, instruction from my boss, phone calls from the CRAs and also the patients. I would try to finish as much work as I can, but as all other work, it is never ending. By the time I become exhausted and couldn’t go on, it will already be 6.30pm. I’m supposed to finish work by 5.30pm. I’m even late when it comes to going back home.
Before going back, I’ll make a quick phone call to my mom asking whether she needs anything for dinner or whether I need to get something from the shop. Usually the answer is yes. I would need to make a few stops before I go back home. But there are days that I can go straight back home. During days like these, my mom would have cooked dinner. It’s a pleasant feeling to come back home to mom’s cooking. I would not be able to taste my mom’s delicious cooking if I was working out of Taiping, and trust me, my mom’s cooking is really delicious. She works as a cook; of course her cooking would be delicious.
Well, back home, a quick shower and after having my dinner, I will try to watch a movie, a series or probably read a novel. But it will be difficult. I will be dead tired and would not be able to concentrate. I’ll talk with my mom to find out how her day was and also will tell her if my day was filled with anything interesting. Usually I won’t have anything interesting to tell. I’ll try to go back to my movie or book, but my efforts will be futile. I’ll be dozing off on the sofa and either the movie will be watching me or I would have dropped my book. Realizing that I’m not getting anywhere, I’ll decide to hit the bed.
What happens the next day? Well, the same thing that happened the day before and the same thing that is going to happen the day after. What you have read above is what I do every week from Mondays to Fridays. Are the weekends any different? Compared to the weekdays, of course the weekends are different. I do not work on weekends, some of the weekends to be exact.
Most of the time I do not know what happens to my weekends. It’s usually over before it even got started. My mom works on Saturdays but she only needs to go to work at around 8.30am. After I send my mom to work, I would go for breakfast. This is probably my favourite time of the whole week. I would ride my motorcycle around Taiping and choose which ever place to have breakfast at. I would eat anything that my heart desires. After that I would ride around Taiping for awhile before going back. I would not think about any of my problems. I would not think about anything from the past or anything about the future. Saturday mornings are the time that I truly live the moment.
Back at home, I will watch the movie that I have failed to watch throughout the week. By the time I am done, it will be time to fetch my mom back from work. On Saturdays she only works half day until 1.00pm. Mom will cook lunch and we would have lunch together. From around 3.00pm to 6.00pm, I usually have no idea what happens. If I take my mom to my uncle’s house, I remember what goes on. But if I am at home, I can’t remember what I do or what happens. That certain period of time will pass by so quickly without me noticing.
Saturday nights will only have two activities. Either I watch a Premier League match or go out with any of my friends that had decided to make the trip to Taiping from Kuala Lumpur for the weekend. Saturday night outings usually are quite long. When I say long, they are really long. We end up going back home at around 4.30am sometimes. Usually we go back at 4.00am. But that doesn’t mean I wake up late on Sundays. I’m usually up latest by 9.00am.
Sundays is all about lazing around. Not doing anything in particular. Might watch a movie, might not. The lazing around continues until lunch time when I have to bring my mom to my uncle’s house. My mom goes to visit my grandmother there. I leave her there and come back home. Mom is there until evening. So what do I do at home while I wait for the time to go and fetch my mom again? As I said, it’s a Sunday, so more lazing around. I fetch my mom, dinner and then Sunday is over. Looks like I really waste my Sundays.
Well there you have it. This is what I do from Mondays to Sundays. It doesn’t seem that bad does it? The bad part is I do the same thing every week, every month, throughout the year. There is no change. I rarely or almost never do anything different. I might go out for a movie every other week. But that’s not doing something different. I do not hate what I am doing every day, but things have become such a routine that every day is just full of boredom. It’s like I know what’s going to happen next.
This is how it has been for the past 2 to 3 years. But in 2014 all this is going to change. I refuse to stick to routine. I have to break out of this trap that I have build for myself. I know I won’t make surprise trips or anything. But the least I can do is try to do something different every day. So I’m going to try and do as much as mini projects as I can just to change things up. Most importantly I want to do a lot of something that I really love doing, writing. This is going to be the year that I write almost every day.
No more SSDD. Fingers crossed.
