I'm broke but I'm happy, I'm poor but I'm kind, I'm short but I'm healthy...yeah!

Geneva is a nice, picturesque little city. The only thing is that it is fucking expensive. It doesn't help that I've been going out with my fellow interns who all seem better able to afford things than I can. I mean they're great people, friendly, some of them quite down-to-earth even. But I realize if I go out as often as they do, to the places where they go, I'm going to be broke sooner or later.

The sobering reality that your pockets are pretty shallow around these parts make you think. Think about the people and organization I'm working for. Think about others from lesser socio-economic backgrounds who might want to come.

The truth is, if you can't afford the air ticket, the cramped yet pricey rented room, the spoilt-for-choice yet fairly expensive groceries for you day to day subsistence or your occassional excursions to the nearby bar for a session of networking (because face it, it's all about connections, connections, connections!), this place isn't for you. I barely even feel welcome.

A recent report by the organization claimed that a person's state of health was not only directly related to their level of income, but also due to other social, political and economic circumstances. Apparently this report took two years to come to said conclusion. Most people who are living those circumstances can probably tell what the problem is in an instant when they're lying on their beds shivering from a tropical disease for which they have no money to buy medicine for, or suffering from violent diarrhea and vomiting profusely because they don't have access to clean water and had to drink from the river where their neighbor pooped in upstream.

I know it sounds cliched, but this isn't exactly rocket science.

So the point about the organization is that the people who need to come here can never afford to. And often, the people who can come often don't need to. In the end, and I had the same impression even before I got here, it seems more like an exclusive, upper-class country club than a place that's supposed to help the poor with their health problems. I don't mean everyone inside is an arrogant, superficially self-righteous snob (some are genuinely committed to the cause) but I just can't help but feel it's all a big scam.

Well here I am!

In Geneva! I'm so excited I'm speechless!

Why?

I'm absolutely pissed at this point, but I just had to say that it's ironic that my motherland Chinese brethren treat me more as one of their own than the rest of my Malaysian brethren. Lin Dan may have beaten Lee Chong Wei, but I can't feel any animosity against the Chinese. I just can't. God damnit.

Wearing your emotions...

Love unrequitted,
Is like an ill-fitting T-shirt.
You know you can't wear it,
But you don't want to throw it away.