... or so I hope. Had been pretty wrong when I thought all was left was the cough in my past blog entry. :S
Went to see another doctor in UHWC on Monday. The previous doctor whom I saw on Friday asked me to do a blood test first before anything else so I did. I don't know why but I have this incomprehensible fear towards blood tests. I know it doesn't hurt that much and all, but somehow I hate the idea of people taking blood out of my body. The blood test done on Friday left me with a bruise on my left hand, so the nurse decided to do this one on my right. She was very kind, and explained that the bruise was because I haven't been pressing on the wound hard enough after the blood test was done.
I didn't really expect to have the test done on my right hand so I had to brace myself for it. And the nurse saw how nervous I was, so she used the typical tactic of asking 101 questions on how I was feeling and which doctor I was seeing, etc. She had my blood out quick enough, and I gingerly took it to the lab.
The doctor thought my problem was only bacteria infection in my throat at first, and told me that the blood test needn't be done at all, and it was an 'uneccessary puncture'. But when she caught sight of my high white blood cells percentage (20 over percent, I think usually it's around 1 percent or something), she asked me to do another blood test! I almost fainted. When the nurse in charge saw it was me again, she went over to the lab to check if the test was really necessary. Sadly it was. So now I have three bruise prints on both my arms. I suppose I still haven't gotten the art of pressing my wounds well enough.
Doctor concluded that my problem was viral infection. Or something like mononucleotide glandular infection. I was very, very tired all day. And kept coughing non-stop. Sweated a lot at night. Couldn't sleep in the day. I couldn't eat more than a quarter of my dinner, found climbing stairs hard, and couldn't concentrate in the classes that I didn't skip. It was terrible. Viral infection does take time to heal. The worst was at night when I tried to fall asleep, and I hallucinated (thinking I'm supposed to cough my phelgm into test tubes, aliens, pillow turning into cucumber!), coughed, tossed, turned, and sweated until it was almost morning, before I could finally fall asleep.
Thank God for protecting Tirza from ALL my germs throughout this period. These two weeks are light for me but not for her. She tapao-ed my dinner, slept through (I dunno how but somehow she did) my thunderous coughing, and did not catch any of my sicknesses. And she lent me Catherine Marshall to read too, which I finished yesterday. Was a very nice and encouraging book, especially when you're ill.
Today my energy level is finally higher than before, so hopefully my condition had turned for the better. I managed to have my first proper meal yesterday, which was pretty good (though I vomited a bit of my porridge out in the end). Finished lunch and attempting dinner today :) It's such a blessing to be able to eat normal food! I missed what popo used to cook when I was young and had fever. The mee in soup with ikan bilis inside, or the porridge with fish. Super nice la! Now my number one diet when I don't feel like eating anything is milk, Koko Krunch and Ah Gong's prunes haha!
I started printing my FYP readings which proved to be more horrendous than I expected. Hopefully I'll get started and finish them up good and early before my supervisor asks me about them. I'm lucky to work under a nice professor this year. The project is about bacteria genome reconstruction - and it's a calculation based project. Guess I shouldn't go too deep into what it's about here in a public blog, in case it's supposed to be secret or anything. But it does look interesting! :)
I want to get well soon and live a normal life! Jerome has been covering all IHG articles everyone can't take now, and I feel bad not helping haha. And I'm so out of hall dinners and hall activities (though it is a nice change lazing in the room instead of going down for activities). And my module readings which I haven't even printed. :S Argh. I have been numbed from the life of a Chem Engineering student for over a week, and now everything is coming back to haunt me. Thank God this semester I'm not doing Industrial Attachment after all. How in the world am I going to survive living like a zombie and resting for over a week, if two days MC is all I could get!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sick in Week 1
It's week one of my 6th Semester in NUS and I started it downing Panadol pills :(
The headache started on Sunday night when I was back from Kow Fu's house. I didn't know what it was then but yesterday I managed to conclude that it was heat stroke. The cause was rather stupid - I just spent less than a few minutes under the sun (but it was really blazing hot that afternoon), coupled with lack of rest due to room moving and unpacking. I guess I should really have slept instead of unpack my room before going out again at night, but I didn't know it would make me that tired the whole night. It was quite a strain to open my eyes as it got later (but I must say dinner was really superb). And when I was home I was down with a headache, and a body simmering with internal heat.
Monday was worse. Still feeling the heat and headache, couldn't sleep too, though I tried for hours and hours all through the day. Also, a couple of admin issues in school added to the stress, plus other personal stuff. The weird thing about my feeling hot was the heat was all inside me, but my skin was at a normal temperature. It was very bad. I couldn't eat much dinner. I couldn't do work at all, and FYP balloting has to be submitted in two days. :(
Tuesday. Went to Chinatown to buy bus tickets around 9 something in the morning, before they run out. Had breakfast in Chinatown - and again couldn't finish my food AND drinks. (The cleaners must think I'm a horrible food waster or something). Fortunately Chinatown wasn't too far away from NUS... the whole trip back and forth amounted to around 3 hours only. And there were bus tickets left so I could go back home with Yew Hong and friends. Thanks Yew Hong for calling me to give directions, and for replying the tonnes of sms's I sent. :S
After coming back from Chinatown I had a business lecture from 3-6 pm. The lecturer was a handsome German, very friendly too. Once my classmates knew class participation was 25%, there were enthusiastic remarks from beginning to end (especially the SEP students). Me? With phelgm stuck in my throat (yes I was having cough and cold as well), as well as a body both freezing and burning (air-con was cold but I was hot, yet I was shivering), I couldn't bring myself to say (or think of what to say anything at all). In the end what I did was riase a hand indicating that I was the only Malaysian in class, and ask the lecturer one (rather stupid) question at the end of the class. Sigh. But it was a nice course and a nice lecture. Will elaborate about it in other blog posts.
RHOC chose to have an ice-cream party at night - and I had to settle FYP balloting in that very night too. I had to forgo the ice-cream, but Jon did bring a bit up after it ended. What a horrible task it was to just select 15 projects out of 128 and rank them. You might just end up with any of your choices so I don't want to be doing something that results in my tearing of hair, and gnashing of teeth. After a very small dinner (rarrr going to lose more weight) I went to sleep for an hour or so waking up to feel hot all over. The heat had finally moved from inside my body to near skin surface (like typical fever). It was then that I knew I had a heat stroke. It wasn't nice, but I felt quite relieved knowing what it was. I settled the projects after a few hours, feeling rather brain dead. One big load off my shoulders.
I tried drinking 'liang cha' to reduce my body heat, but then it worsened my cough (cough virus is really rampant in NUS now. Even my professor was coughing.) Pei Pa Koa wasn't effective enough. Hence the deadly resort: Panadol, after tossing for an hour or so on bed (poor Tirza, I was quite noisy). And today my temperature is gone. Cough and blocked nose still lingering though. Hope they'll be gone soon enough too. And I do hope my appetite will come back. I couldn't finish the porridge I had for breakfast this morning, and it really wasn't a lot.
I think I haven't really blogged about being sick before. Thank God this is week 1 and all the late night mugging and stuff hadn't started yet. However, there were hall activities like block initiation this week, and I acted really anti-socially, even during hall dinners. :( I will still need to go out to settle some personal issues these few days, so I'm really glad I have no more fever. :) Now I'll work hard to get rid of the cough instead.
The headache started on Sunday night when I was back from Kow Fu's house. I didn't know what it was then but yesterday I managed to conclude that it was heat stroke. The cause was rather stupid - I just spent less than a few minutes under the sun (but it was really blazing hot that afternoon), coupled with lack of rest due to room moving and unpacking. I guess I should really have slept instead of unpack my room before going out again at night, but I didn't know it would make me that tired the whole night. It was quite a strain to open my eyes as it got later (but I must say dinner was really superb). And when I was home I was down with a headache, and a body simmering with internal heat.
Monday was worse. Still feeling the heat and headache, couldn't sleep too, though I tried for hours and hours all through the day. Also, a couple of admin issues in school added to the stress, plus other personal stuff. The weird thing about my feeling hot was the heat was all inside me, but my skin was at a normal temperature. It was very bad. I couldn't eat much dinner. I couldn't do work at all, and FYP balloting has to be submitted in two days. :(
Tuesday. Went to Chinatown to buy bus tickets around 9 something in the morning, before they run out. Had breakfast in Chinatown - and again couldn't finish my food AND drinks. (The cleaners must think I'm a horrible food waster or something). Fortunately Chinatown wasn't too far away from NUS... the whole trip back and forth amounted to around 3 hours only. And there were bus tickets left so I could go back home with Yew Hong and friends. Thanks Yew Hong for calling me to give directions, and for replying the tonnes of sms's I sent. :S
After coming back from Chinatown I had a business lecture from 3-6 pm. The lecturer was a handsome German, very friendly too. Once my classmates knew class participation was 25%, there were enthusiastic remarks from beginning to end (especially the SEP students). Me? With phelgm stuck in my throat (yes I was having cough and cold as well), as well as a body both freezing and burning (air-con was cold but I was hot, yet I was shivering), I couldn't bring myself to say (or think of what to say anything at all). In the end what I did was riase a hand indicating that I was the only Malaysian in class, and ask the lecturer one (rather stupid) question at the end of the class. Sigh. But it was a nice course and a nice lecture. Will elaborate about it in other blog posts.
RHOC chose to have an ice-cream party at night - and I had to settle FYP balloting in that very night too. I had to forgo the ice-cream, but Jon did bring a bit up after it ended. What a horrible task it was to just select 15 projects out of 128 and rank them. You might just end up with any of your choices so I don't want to be doing something that results in my tearing of hair, and gnashing of teeth. After a very small dinner (rarrr going to lose more weight) I went to sleep for an hour or so waking up to feel hot all over. The heat had finally moved from inside my body to near skin surface (like typical fever). It was then that I knew I had a heat stroke. It wasn't nice, but I felt quite relieved knowing what it was. I settled the projects after a few hours, feeling rather brain dead. One big load off my shoulders.
I tried drinking 'liang cha' to reduce my body heat, but then it worsened my cough (cough virus is really rampant in NUS now. Even my professor was coughing.) Pei Pa Koa wasn't effective enough. Hence the deadly resort: Panadol, after tossing for an hour or so on bed (poor Tirza, I was quite noisy). And today my temperature is gone. Cough and blocked nose still lingering though. Hope they'll be gone soon enough too. And I do hope my appetite will come back. I couldn't finish the porridge I had for breakfast this morning, and it really wasn't a lot.
I think I haven't really blogged about being sick before. Thank God this is week 1 and all the late night mugging and stuff hadn't started yet. However, there were hall activities like block initiation this week, and I acted really anti-socially, even during hall dinners. :( I will still need to go out to settle some personal issues these few days, so I'm really glad I have no more fever. :) Now I'll work hard to get rid of the cough instead.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
My Autograph Albums
I just saw my two autograph albums which I let my classmates write in when I was in Form 5 and Upper 6 on a heap of books. I was glad that I bothered to start letting people write in those - though it was quite troublesome to keep track of where they went, and who has been keeping it for weeks and never returned them. Those two books made me miss my old classmates so much. Or rather, miss those times when we have been classmates.
I really enjoyed my Form 6 years. The two years where I've started to 'open up' instead being 'unusually quiet' in school, as quoted by my classmates. Actually I don't think I'm that unusually quiet myself, it's just that the people I mixed with during my Form 5 days are generally non-Chinese, and my social circle was indeed a rather small one. I mixed more with the Chinese when I was in Form 6. What else can one do when over 80% of the class were Chinese? That was when they had the impression that I was opening up socially.
It's funny to see how people used to think of you in those years, things that you thought you'd always remember but eventually forget. Everybody used to say that I was freakingly smart but quiet, until I started joining in the Ting Fang kepo gang, and of course, helped the others with their school work. I miss those days in the library when all of us used it as a sort of meeting ground besides the classroom, pore over the revision books inside. And then we as the library committee would have to clean the shelves and rearrange the books. The library was my favorite place in school. I'm not that hardworking myself, but being surrounded by books is a nice feeling. It almost makes you feel more hardworking then you actually were.
My capacity to care for my classmates during those days was so much wider than what I have now. Much deeper and wider. It made me happy to help them, and to talk to them, and to just be with them. University life has changed me so much. The stressfulness, the reminders of my mother not to waste time which still stuck firmly until today, and the competitiveness of my course had contributed to this change. I try to reach out to my friends as I did before, but it was not so genuine, and not as frequent as I would have done in those days. I guess this is what it means to know a person's true colours just by putting them into a tight spot. I failed this litmus test.
People used to try and avoid going through Form 6, but I thought it was a good learning process. To stay for two more years at home before venturing outside. To stretch yourself beyond what you think you can. To have two more years to lead the school in whatever posts you're in (being the eldest in the school). And that part of me, seen through the eyes of my classmates, have been recorded in those autograph albums, as a reminder that there is no time when it is ok to stop serving God, to stop having a big heart, to stop dreaming dreams. There's no end to a life of stress in Singapore, but even when fighting to grow intellectually, there's no use draining all resources to do that, neglecting the need to go spiritually, emotionally, and socially. Easier said then done though.
After looking back, one must look forward. I do with the hope that I can be once again the someone I used to be once upon a time, and even strive to be someone better than that in the future. There is this need to grow in those areas, and I shall draw on God's strength to do it this year :)
I really enjoyed my Form 6 years. The two years where I've started to 'open up' instead being 'unusually quiet' in school, as quoted by my classmates. Actually I don't think I'm that unusually quiet myself, it's just that the people I mixed with during my Form 5 days are generally non-Chinese, and my social circle was indeed a rather small one. I mixed more with the Chinese when I was in Form 6. What else can one do when over 80% of the class were Chinese? That was when they had the impression that I was opening up socially.
It's funny to see how people used to think of you in those years, things that you thought you'd always remember but eventually forget. Everybody used to say that I was freakingly smart but quiet, until I started joining in the Ting Fang kepo gang, and of course, helped the others with their school work. I miss those days in the library when all of us used it as a sort of meeting ground besides the classroom, pore over the revision books inside. And then we as the library committee would have to clean the shelves and rearrange the books. The library was my favorite place in school. I'm not that hardworking myself, but being surrounded by books is a nice feeling. It almost makes you feel more hardworking then you actually were.
My capacity to care for my classmates during those days was so much wider than what I have now. Much deeper and wider. It made me happy to help them, and to talk to them, and to just be with them. University life has changed me so much. The stressfulness, the reminders of my mother not to waste time which still stuck firmly until today, and the competitiveness of my course had contributed to this change. I try to reach out to my friends as I did before, but it was not so genuine, and not as frequent as I would have done in those days. I guess this is what it means to know a person's true colours just by putting them into a tight spot. I failed this litmus test.
People used to try and avoid going through Form 6, but I thought it was a good learning process. To stay for two more years at home before venturing outside. To stretch yourself beyond what you think you can. To have two more years to lead the school in whatever posts you're in (being the eldest in the school). And that part of me, seen through the eyes of my classmates, have been recorded in those autograph albums, as a reminder that there is no time when it is ok to stop serving God, to stop having a big heart, to stop dreaming dreams. There's no end to a life of stress in Singapore, but even when fighting to grow intellectually, there's no use draining all resources to do that, neglecting the need to go spiritually, emotionally, and socially. Easier said then done though.
After looking back, one must look forward. I do with the hope that I can be once again the someone I used to be once upon a time, and even strive to be someone better than that in the future. There is this need to grow in those areas, and I shall draw on God's strength to do it this year :)
Friday, January 1, 2010
2010
It's the first day of the new year and since yesterday, my blogger dashboard has been filled up with entries with themes that sum up the last day of the past year, and (optimistic) new entries regarding year 2010. :) Sadly, the only time that I feel that a 'new year' is here is during August, when it is a start of a new academic year for me. Sigh. It is horrible the way my life is still centered around studies (psychologically, I'm not mugging away now) even when it's holidays and it's a start of a brand new year!
I don't have much go blog about my new year resolutions and such - because I've been too lazy to make any, and prefer to take things one step at a time. The new year does have a small degree of impact on me though. It makes me feel a year older (though by the time you're past 21 you don't really feel your age on you anymore, it just goes on and on), and it does give a tint of hope that this year your life will be better - change of outlook and all. I've been rather a spiritual failure in 2009 and have gotten myself in a mess here and there. I do hope for a change in that area this year.
I'm verbally translating pastor's message from English to Chinese again, and I feel that the results would be much, much better if I had to do it the other way round. Singapore is, I'm ashamed to say, turning me into a banana. For the sake of those who don't know what 'bananas' are, it simply means yellow on the outside, but white inside - a Chinese that doesn't know Chinese. The environment around me is so minimally Chinese (at least in the spoken and written sense), that I've hardly been using it at all. And it's so much faster to type in English! Fortunately I have pastor's notes with me a little earlier, and it's not too hard to translate this time.
CORS bidding is here - the bidding system which we're supposed to use some points to secure our university modules. The modules I intend to take are surprisingly unpopular at this point of time, meaning the vacancies are more than the number of students bidding for them. However, I fear the usual 'last minute rush' where bids pour in at the last minute, bringing the bid points of certain modules sky high. And it's so hard to decide which final year project to pick and ballot for!
I guess my brain is really on holiday now. Usually I do not have to think much while blogging and the thoughts just flow. Today it's stuck in stages. Oh well, may it get the well-required rest it deserves before the coming semester :) Will blog more when I get the train of thoughts unplugged!
I don't have much go blog about my new year resolutions and such - because I've been too lazy to make any, and prefer to take things one step at a time. The new year does have a small degree of impact on me though. It makes me feel a year older (though by the time you're past 21 you don't really feel your age on you anymore, it just goes on and on), and it does give a tint of hope that this year your life will be better - change of outlook and all. I've been rather a spiritual failure in 2009 and have gotten myself in a mess here and there. I do hope for a change in that area this year.
I'm verbally translating pastor's message from English to Chinese again, and I feel that the results would be much, much better if I had to do it the other way round. Singapore is, I'm ashamed to say, turning me into a banana. For the sake of those who don't know what 'bananas' are, it simply means yellow on the outside, but white inside - a Chinese that doesn't know Chinese. The environment around me is so minimally Chinese (at least in the spoken and written sense), that I've hardly been using it at all. And it's so much faster to type in English! Fortunately I have pastor's notes with me a little earlier, and it's not too hard to translate this time.
CORS bidding is here - the bidding system which we're supposed to use some points to secure our university modules. The modules I intend to take are surprisingly unpopular at this point of time, meaning the vacancies are more than the number of students bidding for them. However, I fear the usual 'last minute rush' where bids pour in at the last minute, bringing the bid points of certain modules sky high. And it's so hard to decide which final year project to pick and ballot for!
I guess my brain is really on holiday now. Usually I do not have to think much while blogging and the thoughts just flow. Today it's stuck in stages. Oh well, may it get the well-required rest it deserves before the coming semester :) Will blog more when I get the train of thoughts unplugged!
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