The Stuff

I normally go back to Thailand every Christmas.
(Well, it's only been 2 years I've stayed here.)

Each time I go back, I buy gifts such as chocolate and souvenirs for my beloved friends in Thailand.

This year's a bit different.

I bought a laptop for my Mom. Check.

I bought Christmas decorations for a bunch of my friends. (They all fit well in one large baggage. Yes the big one that goes under airplanes.) Check.

One of my supervisors at my old working place asked me if I could get her two iPhones. I ordered them from eBay. Check.

Two of Dear's friends ordered five packages of Philosophy cosmetics and had them sent to my place. Check.

One of my friends ordered a Coach handbag and had it sent to my place. Check.

My Mom asked me to buy a couple of M&Ms for the Christmas party at our house in Thailand. Check.

My Dad wants a particular hairgel not sold in Thailand. Check.

One of my friends asked me to order some bluetooth-dongle-electronic-circuit thingy, whatever you name it, and take it back to Thailand because the distributors don't ship to Thailand. Check.

A new friend here asked if I could take a small bag with some stuff inside back to Thailand and send it to her family. Check.

My coworker asked if I could take to Thailand Crest Whitening Strips. Check.

Somebody I knew recently asked if I could take a super-expensive, non-specified item back to Thailand for him. Still unchecked, but it might be shipped to my place any day.

Boy, am I everybody's hero or not?
If something happens during customs check, I'll let you know in one of my next blog entries.

This Christmas is gonna be interesting.

Residency

So the day before, I had lunch with a bunch of my friends.
On the way back, I had two friends -- Hung and Jerry -- going the same way, so I gave them a ride.

In the car we had quite a conversation. Here's how it went.

First we were talking about our holidays.
I said that I was going to go back to Thailand the following Friday after my wife Dear takes the exam.
Jerry asked me what the exam was for, and I said, "She needs to take the exam if she wants to become a resident."
I was assuming they knew the progression of how one would become a doctor in USA.

They didn't; they thought of something totally different.

They started asking me what the exam was like, and I found it surprising that they found it surprising that Dear had to interview some patients.

Me: (Of course, if you want to be a doctor, you have to know how to diagnose a patient.)
Them: (Why would somebody need to know how to interview a patient?)

More questions followed.

Hung: Really? Why?

Jerry tried to reason about it.

Jerry: Maybe in order to become a resident, we need to be able to help people in case they need first aid.
Hung: Wowwww... USA is so strict. I don't think the Immigration Bereau is being reasonable.
Jerry: But I had a friend who became a resident. I don't remember him interviewing a patient.

Eventually I figured out that we were talking about two totally different stories.

Um: Ohhhh! So here's what I mean. If you want to become a doctor here, first you go to college, then you go to medical school, THEN you become a resident.
Hung & Jerry: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Jerry: So maybe the word comes from the fact that she is becoming a resident in a hospital.
Hung: Yeah.

I don't know the etymology of the word but it was quite funny we were able to maintain the conversation for that long without noticing that we were talking about something different.

Facebook

This blog entry is nothing but a test to see if Facebook sees my blog updates.