hug

A hug can do wonders.

Today, my female owner attended a clinical placement orientation where the clinic manager briefed the class on the requirements of the placement - hours to fulfill, write-ups to hand in, presentations to prepare for, assessments which are not graded but if you dont pass, you fail the internship (i.e. you fail the entire programme), administrative procedures to adhere to, etc etc. Each presentation slide added more doom and gloom, not only to her, but the rest of the class. Suddenly the programme seems like a boot camp, where the weak would be weeded out, and the strong would remain, albeit wounded and half-dead.

By lunch time, my female owner was wallowing in self-doubt and hyper-flustered (is there such a word?). She then rushed into the computer room to check out something for the placement. Lo and behold, she met an acquaintance from Singapore. This person used to intern at my female owner's alternative office. Because my female owner was hardly at the alternate office, she didnt know that this person was also going to be at the same university doing a parallel programme. My female owner only found out when they happened to meet at the school's photo-copying room (in her usual blur fashion, she didnt even recognise the intern).

Anyway, so this acquaintance saw my female owner rushing in to use the computer and asked her what was going on. As my female owner was rattling on about the bad day, the acquaintance just opened her arms wide and gave my female owner a tight, warm hug to calm her down.

hmmm... such a sweet gesture.