last saturday, my team of debaters were discussing the pros and cons of representing the hospital in the debate tournament. it's true that the debaters tend to get more privileges in terms of career advancement, off days, leave applications, etc. things that matter most to the average hospital employee seem to be made readily available when you ask for them. it helps that one's status as a debater tends to lend an air of intellect and credibility, thus facilitating the job in more ways than one.

however, there seem to be more drawbacks to being a debater, some of the precariously balanced on the fences of being a pro and a con. because of this stellar image of the intellectual nurse that you portray, everyone tends to hold you in high regard. a minor cock up seems to disappoint the bosses a lot more than the average employee. perhaps it's true what they say then, that the higher you climb, the harder you fall.

the cons list doesn't just stop there though. there's still the post-debate events that the debater has to attend. in fact, we just received our certificates of participation last Thursday at Changi General. and i had to say that i didn't enjoy myself at all. falling short of a packet of kleenex, certificates of participation are the society's method of saying 'you suck, so thanks for making this competition easier'. the only saving grace was the beautiful trophy that every debater received for participating in the tournament. i haven't received a trophy since the age of nine, i think. and that was the second prize for a bible quiz competition in church. what can i say? i am as familiar with the bible as i am with the masculine anatomy.

event number two that the debaters had to attend was the Ministry of Health's Nurses' Dinner & Dance. with august coming up soon, the nurses' schedule is normally packed with events. after all, august the first is nurses' day in Singapore. it doesn't mean much to me other than a whole barrage of corporate gifts with very little appreciation and plenty of corporate intents for all the nursing staff. the debaters had the 'privilege' of attending this particular dinner as we had represented the hospital and done them 'proud'.

sad to say, i can't really agree that i enjoyed myself. the dinner and dance which was held the Meritus Mandanrin, right smack in the middle of town, was a really good location. it gave one plenty of activities to do post-D&D. which is all fine and dandy if not for the fact that the average age of the attendees of this dinner ranged from thirty-nine to forty-five. it was a bit like a class reunion for the graduands of the nursing class of '62. the whole ballroom was flooded with veterans in nursing, most of them having been in the line for 20 years. and the men to women ratio was like 1:10. this made me banish all thoughts of eye candy for the night.


throw in the theme for the dinner, 'A Night In Beijing', and you have a fashion disaster in the making. practically all the grand ladies of nursing came to the dinner decked in cheongsams embroidered with peonies and lotuses and dragons. i was actually anticipating a silk dress with fortune cookies sewn onto it. one could say that the ladies were dressed to kill. and indeed, they have massacred whatever sense of fashion there was left on that night.

one of the ladies whom i had the bad fortune of talking to was a nursing lecturer who taught me Clinical Skills back in the polytechnic days. she's now the Assistant Director of nursing of a nursing home. i didn't really like her because her lectures never made sense. and she loves to talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. God prolly created her with a nonsensical mouth in mind. i remember one time when i was supposed to host a new year's day event during year one of nursing and some of the performers for this event withdrew, citing studies and poor results as an excuse. this particular ex-lecturer called me on the phone and started complaining about the people who withdrew. she started from point A and diverted to point B, took a U-turn back to point A, made a detour to point G, realized that we had to go back to point A and instead, arrived at point A 4.0. total talking time? one hour and fifteen minutes.

when i talked to her at the dinner, she was relating her experience at the hairdresser's prior to the dinner. if you looked at her hair, it was a very bad interpretation of the 80s rather than the 60s. plus, the hairstylist decided to grab a whole tube of glitters and sprinkle them all over her hair, most of it having fallen on her pudgy arms instead. so the end result was a very shiny-looking woman with enough glitters to blind the sight out of an ophthalmologist. when the stage lights shone on her, she looked like a walking disco ball. as usual, she made an entire spiel about how the hairstylist did her hair and ended up telling us about all her other visits to various other hair salons in Singapore. damn the fact that there was no alcohol served to speed up the rest of the evening.

you can't rely on the people at the dinner, you can't rely on the performances and you can't depend on the alcohol to help you through the evening. thank the heavens therefore, there was the food. we arrived at the dinner at 6.30pm. the food was only served at 8.30pm after an awfully long-speech by the Chief of Nursing in Singapore, an even longer awards ceremony and three glasses of carbonated drinks. it was a typical eight-course Chinese dinner with the cold dish, shark's fin soup, sea bass, veggies with mushroom, some random dessert and some other side dishes to impress. the food was excellent, but the servings were so bloody small. each person was technically allowed one serving, which would all work very well if not for the fact that we had two empty seats at our table of ten.

and this is very typical of Chinese dinners. when everyone has already taken their fair share of a dish, there tends to be a small portion left that enough for one person. to take or not to take, that is really the question. the typical Chinese person wrestles with their emotions and guilt and the social setting to make a decision of whether to help themselves to the last piece. and when that person has finally decided to grab the last piece off the plate, another person would prolly have decided too. the two epic chopsticks swoop in to grab their share of the remnants and clash in the process. thus resulting in both owners of the chopsticks dying to give way to the other. by then, another Chinese person would have already started digesting that last piece that was left on the plate. it's what i would like to call... the piece de resistance.

a fellow debater and i decided to make our exit at the entrance of the sea bass. i'm not a big fan of steamed seafood and neither was she. all the bones and ginger just make eating fish such a hassle. the rest of the evening was extremely pleasant. we were starving and decided to do smokes, coffee and dessert at an NYDC chain opposite the Meritus Mandarin. it was bizarre though because we were dressed to the nines. she was wearing a red hot dress and a shawl, while i was in some chinky top coupled with skinny jeans and a blazer. but who cares eh?

at least we look way better than that walking disco ball.

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