Nitrox Certified

I took my Nitrox test yesterday evening. It was only 25 MCQ and it was easy. I took less than 20mins to finish the questions and scored 100%. If only I knew earlier, I would not have tried so hard trying to study that stupid book - it was super duper boring!

Now that I got my Enriched Air Diver Specialty certification, I am all geared up for my Philippines diving trip from Dec 7 to 14… :-D :-) ;-P

Anilao, here I come! Sea creatures, wait for me!

Sick week

I was sick most of the time last week somehow. It started on a Tue, and it came and went for the following few days. The worst hit was Friday, where I had diarrhoea for 6x in the morning before I took pills to stop it. I had a very bad hit of stomach cramp spasms thereafter in the evening where I almost went berserk in office. And the irony was that I had seen a doctor just an hour before that, and the doctor was still saying that I looked well and should be on my way to recovery for my stomach flu! :O Cancelled everything that I planned to do on a Fri evening, I headed home with some assistance.

I was running a fever too as I laid on bed that night, but it was indeed a relief to be back home resting. I slept and slept that night, waking up every now and then. I was supposed to attend a friend’s church wedding on Sat afternoon, but yes, I skipped that as well… My body was too weak after fighting the whole night, and the weather outside was too hot for someone like me to be out there…

Good news is I should have recovered… cos I had resumed my run (but a short one) last evening…

What's next?

When results do not match up to expectations
What’s next?

When actions do not tally with words
What’s next?

When words do not reflect innermost feelings and emotions
What’s next?

When the heart is loggerhead with the brain
What’s next?

Is there a best way?

It has been a year

I was officially 1 year old in my company on 4 Nov. What an achievement for someone like me! Hah. It had been a fruitful one year – many things to learn, adapt and handle.

It wasn’t exactly an easy journey in this company but I supposed I should not be complaining too much. It is so much better than my previous experience, for at least there isn’t that much politicking here that drives me up the wall, and there are enough challenges to keep me constantly on my toes and set me thinking more.

Of course the future is unknown – how long and far in this company, I do not know. But for the time being, I figure I just need to keep going, and the future will unravel by itself… hopefully in a positive way.

A Night of Loss

Saturday, 8 Nov:

It was the longest struggle to get myself to sleep. As the minutes and hours ticked by, I laid on my big and comfy bed wondering why I was still wide awake...

12.30am:

I was on bed, ready to sleep. It was a stuffy night but I refused to on the air con, thinking that I would not wake up if I make it too conducive for sleeping… I was supposed to wake up at 645am that early morning to go for my run at East Coast Park…

2.30am:

For some reasons, I was still awake. I looked at my clock and started to panic - I had only 4 hours before I needed to wake up. Was it the iced lemon tea I had earlier with my Mac meal, I thought to myself. I tossed and turned… visited the toilet for the umpteen times and decided to on the radio, the soothing music might rock me into lullaby.

3.30am:

WTF, how came I am still alive?! All methods seemed to fail… n the harder I tried to sleep, the more it eludes me! My mind raced through all alternatives and was bombarded with all random thoughts.

4.06am:

Smsed my friend to cancel the run in the morning, for I was sure I would be more than half dead at 6.45am. I was totally pissed with myself!

4.30am:

Oh yes, oh yes… I think you got the idea…

And I did drift into sleep eventually, thought dunno what time... I woke up at 9am in the morning, feeling totally drained… So I did no morning run, ended up having lunch and doing shopping with my friend who had bunked at my house on Sat… But there was obviously a price to pay – I took a nap in the afternoon to get my energy back, and ended rescheduling other things to fit in a shorter run of 10km in the evening...

NO MORE seah.

Horrible Experience

Someone just reminded me that I could not longer wise up as I did a wisdom tooth extraction recently. What he does not know is that I JUST did another extraction yesterday! It was surgery to remove the impacted bottom right wisdom tooth. After procrastinating for about 7 years, I finally picked up my courage to have the other impacted wisdom tooth removed.

It was a horrifying experience when I had my first wisdom tooth removed. I was always having toothache during exam period due to stress in my University days. I eventually bit the bullet to remove that particular one when I started work… I still can remember vividly how the 2 nurses pressed on each of my shoulders to keep me down while the male dentist struggled to have my stubborn tooth removed, the trauma, pain… and the tears that rolled down after the anesthetic wore off… thus I never dared to go and remove the other impacted tooth…

However, my right jaw gave me problems while I was diving at Manado. I thought it must be the decayed wisdom tooth causing the intolerable pain at the jaws that even painkillers could not keep it away… After checking, the ENT specialist said it was due to the inability of clearing my ears, thus causing the bleeding of the nose.

Then again, I thought it should be high time that I get rid of this troublesome tooth which is always trapping food and causing headache. So I fixed up an appointment more than a month again… and I had it removed yesterday. I must be a real coward for I regretted my action as I sat on the dental chair… I tensed up when I felt pain while the dentist was drilling apart my tooth even though she had given jabs of anesthetic, and I squirmed in silence when I could feel how hard she tried to dislodge my remaining root…

All was done now though after the long 1 n 1/2 hours of trauma at the dentist. I am now on antibiotics and 2 types of painkillers… and I realized that it is awfully painful without the more potent painkillers... Just tested it and I am feeling the pain as I am writing now... Oh yes, my pocket is badly burnt too - a total cost of $905!

BUT I am on a straight 5 days of medical leave… so that is something to celebrate – at least no work for this week! And I do NOT have a single wisdom tooth left, so do not blame me if I appear to be really stupid!

Another HK trip...

I was at Hong Kong last Fri to Sun… The purpose? For the Bledisloe Cup – All Blacks against Wallabies battle of Rugby happening on Sat, 1 Nov… It was a working trip – we had great dealing with this game, and our Hong Kong office had planned corporate hospitality programs around this game since last Wed till game day on Sat…

With Helen’s wedding on Thu, I could only fly down on Fri to attend the evening cocktail function… It was Halloween that day of course, and I realized that Hongkies celebrate this day big time! You could only see mountains of people trying to get their way into Lan Kwai Fong from 9pm! Gosh! I ended up with colleagues in a pub at Shaunton road after the cocktail event, and later pub hopped to Wan Chai. I nearly got myself into trouble with different Ang Mos – they must be thinking I am an easy target or something? Darn!!

Yes, yes it was THE match on Sat @ Hong Kong Stadium, 4.30pm… The stadium was nearly packed full with 39 000+ people… How was the rugby? Well… the game was not live as it is NZ All Blacks to retain the trophy. Yet, you could see all enthusiastic fans (mostly ang mos) cheering for their team. The mood was simply contagious. Both teams put up a good fight as well, especially 2nd half of the game.

I had a great time thereafter too as I got the chance to meet up with my colleague who was just relocated there. He treated me to the famous curry pork chop rice and a cup of iced coffee at Pacific Coffee. I toured his new place of residence thereafter, and his place made me drool with envy- so darn nice especially with facilites such as rooftop open space, cosy lounge area and spectacular views! However, I made no way down to the pub that night though I had agreed to as I was getting way too lazy after getting back to hotel.

It was totally R&R day on Sunday – I had breakfast in the room, took a walk down the harbour and shopped around Mong Kok before taking the 6.30pm flight back to Singapore…

Not a trip that I wanted to go initially, but it was my boss who wanted me to be there… So there I was, and it was more like an R&R trip for me. Did not know how to exactly describe this trip – too much mixed feelings on what I saw and experienced… But I do know that it certainly added to my pool of experience… I should be more wised up next time round... hopefully…

Wedding on 30th Oct

It was a tiring affair to drag myself up at early hour of 5am to get myself prepared before heading off to Helen’s house to prepare for gate crashing… It didn’t help when I slept barely 4 hours, as I was busy packing my barangs to go over to hotel immediately after the morning session and as well as for my Friday’s Hong Kong trip. But soon all was forgotten – I only remembered to sabotage the guys and kept asking for ang pows. Haa..

It was customary wedding in the morning and a simple catholic wedding thereafter. The sisters had to walk the aisle too after the page boy and flower girl in church! Where she got that idea from?! :-O *innocent look*

The night was at Regent Hotel. I was overwhelmed with emotions when I saw the montage, not to mention when the couple did the walk in… Helen is such a dear friend to me all these years, and I am both touched and delighted to be there witnessing such an important moment of hers. And yes, the evening just passed at a wink of an eye… So many months of hard work for a day… Haaa…

Oh yes, I forget to add that I was the star of the morning video montage – you can practically see a lot of close up shots of me, the notorious bitch in action! What a disgrace!