Cadbury Dairy Milk - UK vs Australia shootout

Was pretty pleased to find Cadbury Dairy Milk from both countries in Mustafa the other day, so I bought both for a taste test.



UK Cadbury is the one in the purple foil wrap, Aussie is in that cardboard box.



First tasting:
UK Cadbury - Very strong cocoa taste, doesn't really melt in your mouth and has a very grainy mouthfeel. A bit disappointing.

Aussie Cadbury - The milkiness is the first thing I notice, and it's extremely creamy. There's a slight caramel aftertaste to it and less of the cocoa taste. Melts in your mouth perfectly. Sweetness was about the same for both.

Second tasting:
Aussie Cadbury - as above

UK Cadbury - Tasting the Aussie Cadbury before the UK makes it very evident that the UK cadbury is the inferior product. The cocoa tasted artificial, and the mouthfeel is simply inferior. I don't like it.


Verdict: Aussie Cadbury (easily available in Singapore) pwns UK Cadbury hands down

A stark realisation

I've done a rotation in oncology - it makes me realise that life is truly impermanent. I've seen for myself that some of the patients are young dudes. Dudes my age, or around my age. And that's just the dying people. Even more people my age transition directly from the healthy-and-alive phase to the dead phase, skipping the dying phase altogether.

Even the famous dudes conk out early all the time.

Joe Strummer did.

Michael Jackson did.

Stephen Gately did.

It could be me as much as it could have been them.

25? 50? 75? I dunno.

But I had better live every day as though it would be my last. And this time, I mean it. Because, when I get diagnosed with terminal cancer or whatever, I don't want to spend my last bedridden months regretting.

We have finite lifespans, and we had better analyse our own priorities and act on them before we conk out.

Do I really want to suck up to the boss who is going to forget me in 2 months? Do I want to sacrifice my health and mental health, and the opportunities to be around my parents (who have their own finite lifespans), just because of what others expect of me?

No.

I want to do the things that matter to myself. Experiencing new things, seeing things in new perspectives, being accountable to the people I treasure, and keeping myself healthy.

==

I am accountable to my employer. But I am also accountable to my family, my friends, and most importantly, myself.

What do I really want?

What do I really, really want?

==

At my deathbed, would I regret not putting in enough hours at work? It's more likely I'd regret the more pleasurable things that I had not had enough of.

Seeing the flocks of birds fly across the sunset.

Watching Hollywood's best works.

Listening to the most intricate of modern music.

Tasting the various flavours that world cuisine has to offer.

Having had fulfilling relationships.

And the simple pleasure of living as many healthy, pain-free days as we can possibly have.

Working excessively hard at work would not, in any way, improve my life.

==

As a medical professional I want to be an ambassador of good health. Live healthy, eat healthy, think healthy, and to spread the message.

I can't do that when I'm working 14 hour days, having so little time for rest I have to sleep like a homeless man on public transport just to get enough rest to get by.

I ache all over. I'm emotionally worn. I feel like a broken-down man. This can't be good for my lifespan.

==

Call me lazy, call me irresponsible, but I'm taking charge of my life. I'm going to underperform at work, because it is my responsibility to myself.

I have to make the choices that make my life meaningful to myself. I have to live every day as though it is my last.

Who knows when I will conk out?

An interlude.

I wish I could tell you I'm alright,
But as a boy I was told not to lie.
There's so much I'd like to write,
So many open ends I'd like to tie.

There's paragraphs that I'd like to pen,
But my soul is owned by the routine of the day.
My energy is sapped by work enough for ten men,
All for what? A measly pay.

5 things I hate about Malaysia - 2: Law And Order

Here's a short one.

Malaysia is lawless. Illegal parking is abound. Drivers there are too selfish to comprehend that illegal parking equates obstruction equates traffic jams for all. Well, duh?

Most taxi drivers - or drivers for that matter - do not use seatbelts. Malaysians go to the temples and mosques to pray for a safe journey, then subsequently get into their cars and speed along the highway without using any seatbelts.

Seatbelts are more reliable and better-proven that divine intervention. Would you rather pray for a safe journey, or do things that are statistically proven to increase your likelihood of having a safe journey? Well, duh?

Malaysians have very strange ways of ordering their priorities. Crime and fraud to them are inevitabilities, not social ills. Laws to them are a method to make sure that power remains in the hands of those who already has it, rather than as a means to a safe and fair society.

I don't get it. I simply don't get it.

Every road I cross in Kuala Lumpur, I fear for my safety.

5 things I hate about Malaysia

Earlier this week, I had visited Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. Now, I think I appreciate Singapore quite a bit more than before. I don't have many pictures, because Kuala Lumpur is generally an ugly place with nothing much to photograph. Furthermore, I simply wasn't in a photographic mood.

==

Just as Malaysia disappeared from the view of our small aicraft window, we started our descent into Kuala Lumpur. We were landing southwards, so we had to make a loop around Putrajaya before landing. Putrajaya's this really beautiful ghost city that was purported to be the future civic district or something, but in reality its roads were empty and deserted.

We made the final turn over some marshland and landed in Kuala Lumpur Inter nation Airport.

Thing I hate about Malaysia 1: Signboards, or the lack of them

It is nothing short of an insult when is greeted by an airport completely bereft of proper signboards.

Just 30 seconds of stepping out of our Singapore-registered plane, onto Malaysian property, I found myself lost. Now, where the fuck is the arrival hall?

I would think that its rather important to provide clear directions to it, since everyone would be looking for it, no?

I had to amble around aimlessly for about 200 metres, before I found a map.

I couldn't find the arrival hall in this map, so I had to glance sideways to the other map.

There it was, in another building.

Now, how do I get there?

Apparently there's some people mover at the end of the terminal that connects both buildings. We went to the station, only to find 2 platforms, so we waited in the middle, wondering which platform would be used. When it had finally arrived, we squeezed into the absurdly crowded people mover nose-to-armpit. Disgusting.

No signboards, no arrows, no guides. Just a map for you to figure out everything by yourself.

Insulting.

That is not the way any city should welcome its visitors.

Today is the day

I'm changing my life. Yay.

There's only so much the body can take

The adage goes: "what does not kill you, only makes you stronger."

But what if it does kill you?

Work in this month's department had been horrible - so much as as to break me down mentally and even physically.

I'm on sick leave because of a bout of nausea and diarrhoea, likely due to to the unhygienic practice of working and eating at the same time.

Here's how usual lunchtime goes: hurriedly type out some semblance of a discharge summary, and while the computer takes its obligatory 10-15 seconds to save it, grab 2 biscuits from the package using my left hand, which was previously flipping the pages of the case notes which was previously flipped by hands which had just touched the skin of patients which is probably faecal contaminated.

Yes I do know that it's not polite to wolf down food so rudely. I do know that it's gross and unhygienic. And I do know that biscuits are not proper lunch.

But what other choice do I have?

I can't grab a sandwich; it would take too much time and the nurses who had been pressuring me to get some tasks done on the other side of the building are already threatening me that they're going to inform my superior. I'd made some sarcastic comment about how she was being a bitch and how I have some bleeding patient or some sick patient who needed more attention than her sick obsession with paperwork. Stress makes all of us monsters. I've been catching not just me - but the nicest of my colleagues screaming at pharmacists and nurses for getting in the way of things - even if their intentions are good.

On the worst days we have just 2 doctors to handle more than 30 rather sick patients, a doctor-patient ratio that would be alarming even in third-world countries. It's a mad rush to get work done, and sometimes, it is impossible to get everything done. There's so much we could do for the patients, but simply have no time to do so. No matter how fast we walk, no matter how we make rude noises to get the tardy porters out of our way on the corridors, there's simply not enough time.

The number of corners we have to cut just to stay afloat disgusts me. We don't even have as much time to take proper medical histories and do physical examinations as the classically-overworked emergency department does. We make numerous medical errors in our work, but that's inevitable. It's a choice between giving all our patients substandard care; or giving some of our patients great care and for the other patients - no care at all.

It's exhausting.

It started out with random chest pains and palpitations - the unfortunate effect of chronic stress and anxiety.

There were days I had wanted to simply end it all. Yes, it was that bad.

And yesterday, I got the first sick leave I had taken in about 7 years. I really couldn't work, nauseated with such a bad tummyache.

I must not let my job kill me.

Great and I just received news that this posting will be extended 3 days because of manpower issues.

Life truly sucks. Will this nightmare ever end?