The Fragile

Highlight of the day - I got this stuck into my nose.



Yep. That's a flexible endoscope. It's a fibre-optic device that lets a doctor view the inside of the nasal cavity, the posterior nasal space and the voicebox.

Was a slow day at the clinics and I was musing to the doc how I suspected that I might have some sinus trouble. And in the frontal sinuses - the bad kind.

And it ended with the scope down my nose. Thankfully, nothing was visibly wrong. But the scope doesn't view the insides of the sinuses, so it's not a 100% green flag.

Argh.

==



My body's fragile. Still having twinges of pain from the shoulder, but at least, it's way less painful today (without any painkillers, yay) than yesterday (when I was high on painkillers).



Even managed a slow jog in the park (it hurts a bit if I jostle around too much). Wearing my newly-bought tank top, in order to try to even out those damn tan-lines. Hey, at least I'm just sufficiently toned enough to not look amusing. (My self-conscious me thinks that I'm fat and flabby, my delusional me thinks I'm totally hot and hunky so I guess it averages out.)



On second thought. Maybe I DO look fugly. Gotta admit though. I edited the colours of this photo to death, trying to compensate for the wonky auto white-balance of my camera phone and the horrendous florescent lighting in the lift.

10000 Hits!

Congrats to the 10000th visitor who hails from Hong Kong! I hardly see a Hongkonger on my sitemeter statistics, so it's pretty cool that you get this special mention!

The 10000th visitor searched for the terms 'french +boyfriend +singapore' in Google Blog Search and found my blog. Hope you get a hot Singaporean boyfriend to french! Or a French boyfriend in Singapore! Or whatever you're searching for.

Your ISP is PCCW, which is pretty big in Hong Kong. They give out tech catalogues on the streets which are as thick and colourful as IKEA catalogues in Singapore.

Way to go! Hope you visit again!

Suburban Knights

Currently attesting to the miraculous wonders of leftover mefanamic acid, paracetemol and orphenadrine discovered from the back of the cabinet.

Pain's dulled, but it hurts after a while of walking or moving around. I hope it's nothing major.

Kids, don't try this at home. Don't take medications that weren't prescribed for you.

My shoulder still hurts. As if the psychic pain of existence is bad enough, I've got physical pain. We're all growing old; chronic pain and disability's just a corner away.

Fuck ageing. It still scares me, that I'm no longer able to enjoy the thrills of youth - sneaking into R21 movies, having old carefree days where friendships were seen at face value rather than a form of barter trade.

==



Yesterday, during lunchtime peak, the hospital staff freaking pushed a trolley with a cadaver inside, all along the main corridors on the ground floor, in full view of hundreds of people.

With an entourage of sobbing relatives. The attendant pushing the trolley against the current of outpatients rushing to the pharmacy, relatives anxious to visit, staff eager to get their lunch.

And the crowds, they just squeezed past, oblivious to the commotion. Fellow zombies prancing the corridors, too absorbed in their own lives to notice.

A visceral rage flashed through me. 'How could they fucking push a cadaver through the crowded corridors? Where's the fucking respect?'

I don't know why it affected me that badly. The logical part of me is at ease convincing myself that a corpse is just a corpse - a pile of dead flesh, abandoned by whatever forces used to make it tick. A corpse is essentially useless. But somehow, it's just wrong.

It's just not fucking right.

==

Fell out with someone, and I don't know if it's paranoia or hate or whatever but it feels like my mind is being raped. I'm reading into it too much, too little, fuck, I don't even know.

==



Life's pretty bleak now. I could scream and shout and no one hears my pain.

Maybe it's just my messed shoulder that's messing my mind. It doesn't take much to tip me over into nihilist exhaustion.

Ouch

Evening jog aborted.

Very painful shoulder.

High on paracetemol and mefenamic acid.

Wish me good luck.

Money

The worst thing about shopping in a sale is - how would I know if I'm really getting a good deal? Or that the product I've been eyeing is actually some unpopular unfashionable abomination left untouched on the shelf for years? I'd like to believe I have good enough taste to tell the difference, but it's not foolproof.

Sales are agonising because I just can't decide. Am i really want it? Is it cheaper elsewhere? Have i looked hard enough to find a good bargain? There's never enough information to make a wise decision.

So, eventually i just go by gut feel and buy it. Hey at least they say it's not about how much something's worth in the market, but the value of it to me.

But there's always the nagging at the back of the mind - The product's great value to me, but could I have got it for even cheaper?

Thankfully, I make decisions that I don't regret most of the time.

There's this sale at OG where a number of items are going for a really decent discount. And if I spend $75 or more I can get a 10% discount card for the next year. And well, mom wants to renew the card.



Off to Orchard I went.

Got the pair of Levi's jeans at a good price. That's $88.50 and I get a free voucher of 20% of the price, that's about $17. Spent that, and topped up a little more and got a pair of boardshorts that are 40% off list price. Yay.



==

Crash-landed into the new week, barely past the dreamy daze of the weekend.

School's tiring. Lotsa lectures. One after another. It's always like this at the start of a new posting.

My classmate and I must have been somehow influencing each other alot. We're both cyclists, photographers, Crumpler messenger bag owners, and so on.

Now he wants a limited Edition G-Shock too. Green or blue? Both look equally appealing.



But they're only tied second compared to my red Toyota Land Cruiser Mudman!

==

Did I mention? I'm very very exhausted. And headachey.

Music and Lyrics

Let's face it. Everything changes. People change. Tastes change. Events change. We find ourselves slowly yet quickly drifting from lifestyle to lifestyle, from carefree childhood to tumultuous teenhood to anxious adulthood.

But for me, there's something that had stuck with me through all these. And will continue to do so. Unless a fire guts my room or something.



It's my CD collection.



Goodness, I used to like Aqua and Spice Girls and Michael Learns To Rock? Oh well, that's me, a part of me I can't deny. A part of my childhood I'd never swap for anything.



Who can forget them Disney soundtracks?



I've had some pretty uncommon music on my CD rack.



I've had some pretty rare local music on my CD rack.



And of course. Eternal classics.



Expensive Japanese imports. And cheap Chinese imports (not shown).



A few of them, I got for free. Mostly from BigO magazine online contests. Some are blah, but some are really excellent stuff.



A Chinese language CD! That's the only one I have.



Japanese! Bought this in Hong Kong.

You won't begrudge me my music, will you?

Every time I feel down or lost or nostalgic, I'd be popping those CDs into the hifi, feeding the CD tray like a coalman fires up the old steam engine. It makes me happy.

Roseability

Sometimes it does no good for 2 people to pretend that they're still friends.

I shouldn't have to pre-empt nuclear missiles heading my way. Nor should they be the ones who disappear in times of greatest need.

When people change for the worse, they may just change back. And if that happens, I'm more than wiling to be friends again. But right now, it's just silly to not stay away. Feuding nations do not sign trade agreements.

The very crutch you're leaning on may just morph into a vicious cobra that bites your ass.

It's time to pare down some friendships. Symbiosis is good, commensalism is tolerable, but antagonism isn't going to do me any good.

Don't say a word, don't argue. Whether you mean to be antagonistic, it doesn't really matter you see? It's not good for me either way.

Perhaps it's time to take responsibility, rather than blame those around you?

==



A lazy morning in my room, reading Train Man.



There's an incredible amount of electronic gadgetry in my room, I realise.



From phone chargers to a notebook to a DIY USB charger to a hifi system to an old disused computer from more than a decade ago.



Can we live without technology?



Can we really live without the technology that lets us enjoy our music and our games and stuff?



I bet not.