95% of the time, I actually like the rain: the thunderstorms that is spectacular for the ear, the downpours that pleases the eye, the gentle drizzles that clears a heat wave, which comforts the senses. But the neverending rain that was too much to be a sprinkle and too little to be a shower, that was heavy enough to soak me but not heavy enough for me to bother opening my umbrella, that slants in stochastic directions with winds that pierces through my clothes, all while I was hurriedly walking/jogging towards the bus stops from home, slightly stressed that I would miss the bus then miss the train then miss the time for my grandfather's appointment at the Eye&Ear Hospital, which I was to accompany and interpret for him and would incur the wraths of several female members of the family if I had failed to do what I promised... - was a tad bit frustrating. Not to mention it then haphazardly turned into fine needle-like hail which reminded me of the mini messager the hand therapists used on my wrist except this hail was messaging on the wrong places. But this is enough whining already, especially since I did manage to evaporate all the rain that landed on me with my body heat during the train trip.
We ended up waiting until 12:30 for the 15 mins appointment, despite having arrived at 9:35. It was not that all appointments were running behind schedule so much, but the fact that the mandarin interpreter that the hospital has booked for my grandfather was running late for 2 hours. Despite my request for the interpreter to be cancelled and I do the interpretation instead, the nurses still managed to shove my grandfather's file to the bottom of the pile, and pushed it behind time after time, much to our puzzlement. Then the interpreter finally arrived, and the file finally surfaced to the top of the pile, but all opthalmologists were still seeing patients, and the we waited for another 20 mins and the interpreter decided that she couldn't wait any longer. So I ended up interpreting anyway, which was fine because I also told my grandfather what the consultant said to the registrar who was taking his final exams soon, so he was satisfied with the additional information. The amusing thing was that after I told the registrar I will be interpreting his instructions, he kept on saying things like "look here", or "look that way" and pointed his hands which, because of the way I was standing, and the machine between my grandfather and him, I couldn't actually see... Ah well, he had better wished that in he won't be getting a non-English-speaking patient in his exam.
And I'll finish my rant here. Off to see Dali now!
That sounds like a particularly stupid system at the hospital. Why would they give you an interpreter when there's a medical student who is fluent in both languages there... Especially when the interpreter was running late. It's pretty poor that the interpreter didn't wait after stuffing you around, though...
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