My Friday was spent like any other bored day. I had webcam with my younger brother over at Germany while doing my portfolio and my mum joined in as she woke up at 6am to prepare for some praying ritual for the ancestors. Then, my elder brother passed by the room to make the family gathering complete.
Before I went to bed, Edwin messaged me to tell me that the appointment I had with him had to be cancelled due to a sudden meeting session. I was quite glad since I might not be in good condition with the lack of sleep. I set my alarm clock off.
I woke up at around 2.30pm and quickly went to visit the TCM physician. I got eight days of medicine to continue the process of improving my stomach’s condition.
I spent the rest of the day continuing with my portfolio. It was not fully about designing, but also programming and gathering of my work.
On this day that everyone was working, I woke up late. In the afternoon, I went to see the Chinese physician before going to Burger King to meet Peh. It was an awkward afternoon and I was supposed to be helpful.
The afternoon killed me with the continuing of my farewell letter. The typing got more boring and it started to drive me crazy, and almost caused me brain damage.
I finally went to the Chinese physician again in the afternoon. My stomach’s condition had improved a lot.
In the late afternoon, I dragged on before taking off to the usual spot at Shenton Way to start off my jog after missing it for weeks. The pain in my shoulders was irritating, which was one excuse that I hesitated. The sky and cloud were far too beautiful to give a miss though.
I actually set off earlier than usual. The paths were blocked by blockheads and I witnessed Chinese construction workers spitting on the road. The bad pollution was a major turn-off.
I started off with the sides of my knees hurting, especially at the right one. My timing had dropped but I was quite satisfied with it.
Marina Barrage was more crowded than ever and I hardly could find any empty space to rest. It was warmer than usual while the sun was setting. I strolled to the lift where there was shade and stared at the bridge where the usable water was separated from the sea. The wind was strong and I felt happier when each gasp of them seemed to penetrate through my entire body.
While I was taking my leave at the side facing the Singapore Flyer, someone tapped me and it took me a few seconds to realise Shuhui and Kenneth were there. Besides them was another couple and the girl was extremely cute. I stayed there for quite some time to look at the kite.
The return trip was faster as usual. I lost to the bus by a large margin but managed to overtake the alighted passengers before they passed by the tunnel towards Marina Bay MRT station.
It was an extremely boring night. It seemed like nobody was able to spend time to entertain me.
Saturday morning, I woke up late. It was not long before I started dozing off again and a dream terrorized me. My elder brother brought many drunk friends home to house them in the middle of the night and I was furious. I woke up with my chest feeling uncomfortable.
I went to see the Chinese physician at around 2.30pm. I was amazed when she told me the details of my tongue was more visible and thus she could see that my stomach’s issue was recovering. She warned me not to take too much of the plum product even though it could help my stomach a lot, because it was too salty.
I went to Zaki’s place at Parc Emily, reaching there at 3.40pm. Nobody else had reached. Zaki vacuumed his place before we went down to set up the barbecue stuffs. I went for a swim with Elvin later but he was not ready for a long swim. I finished seventeen laps inside the very well maintained pool, and had to stop in the next lap due to the heavy meal I took before that.
Joy’s son, Jerome, was my delight of the night. Magdalene managed to heat up his enthusiasm. Weitat could have kidnapped him if only he was confident enough to carry little kids.
I went for a last dip into the pool, completing another two laps with Zaki before ending the party. Carrying the leftover stuffs up to the studio apartment strained myself more. The remaining of them had a few rounds of Wii game. The night ended earlier than I had expected. I was exhausted. I stay behind a little longer than the rest with Zaki and Siti. After that, Zaki sent me home on his way to his friend’s house.
My brothers and my elder brother’s girlfriend wanted to go for supper and I accompanied them without my mum since she had already taken some food. I had my usual two plain roti prata and 100plus to hydrate myself.
It was a rare morning sleeping throughout the silence till after sunrise. Thursday morning, I woke up feeling tired still after the long rest since I did not catch enough sleep the days before. I went to visit the Chinese physician and got myself eight days of medicine before going to work.
Jingkun and I wanted to give Mei Hoe a belated birthday treat and thus we proceeded to IMM’s Swenson. Daniel joined in. We had great chats as usual.
I stayed inside the office until 7.30pm before proceeding down to the MPH for volleyball. Everyone seemed to play well. Somehow, my team had the upper hand. My legs were wrecked at my third game playing the centre position with other people. I was very amazed by my wrist power. Later part of the night was dull, but I made sure I did my duty defending given no other role.
We left at around 10pm. Kachua gave me a ride home. I realised I had sprained my index finger on the right hand and also over-exerted the wrist.
Tuesday evening, I stayed in the office until quite late to attend volleyball, not very confirm whether it was on or not since Jingkun and Weitat were not going down and I was too lazy to ask Mingfa. It turned out that only Mingfa, Kok Chiang and Wilson from my side went down. I was more than happy to play with uncle Jiaming and we basically imported a player for each game. I was too sick to do much. We left quite early.
Wednesday morning, I went to visit the Chinese physician again for my cough, flu and sore throat. I had lunch together with Jingkun and Daniel and I was quite stunned when they mentioned going to Mr Prata shop but I did not want to foil their plan. It was quite a tiring afternoon staying inside the administration office. I was very impressed by Mr Baey’s enthusiasm and performance, volunteering himself extra hours to contribute his talent. I stayed a little bit later to check out what Hirman might need but there was too little I could help.
A message in the early morning foiled my plan. I was not really expecting it again. The second relief lesson of the first week almost killed me for it was very last-minute at the hour of 8am. It was probably back to the same old shit; just one of the many reasons I wanted to leave. Of course, things were not as bad since my studies were over and that my workload had also decreased.
As one of my new year resolutions was to get my stomach well, I asked my mum to go to see the Chinese physician to help me collect another set of medicine. Somehow, some people might be laughing over why others were taking medical leave so that I would have to cover the duties, whereas I did not even want to voice out that I needed medication as well. It was all for I had less duty and it was inevitable that I spoke no word.
I had walked deeper into the maze. For all the enthusiasm to work harder on my dreams, my plan was foiled by my decision to repay the kind debt. I felt so pressured when my boss was trying even harder to help me.
I hated seeing young ignorant brads burning their parents’ money away and for all I could guess, some of them were even receiving bursary or other relief. These people made life stink and killed the enthusiasm of many kind souls. Grant me a pistol and freedom to do anything, and I would enjoy my work greatly.
How about some stupid projects that was totally meaningless? How about some work that I was even told not to mention to anyone just because nobody was supposed to help and yet I was tasked to do? The hatred wrote sleepiness on my face and they exhausted me badly.
“I thought you wanted to quit and why are you still here? Your words are bullshit.”
One of the worst things I had anticipated appeared. I was speechless because I saw myself having big talks too often over this. Four times per year, I tortured myself.
In the afternoon, I realised I could no longer catch up with my breath. It was my nature to help the kind souls but I could no longer afford the time anymore.
Yesterday morning, I woke up having my left calf cramp suddenly after a normal little wake-up stretch, or rather, straightening of my legs. Luckily, the pain subsidized soon. I struggled for some time to decide whether which type of doctor should I visit – western or Chinese physician. Alas, I took the latter.
I was the third in queue, but before that, I was lectured by the cashier who told me that that was a charity organization and thus I should not have passed her a fifty dollars note for the four dollars registration fee but my wallet was already empty and there was nothing I could do.
The doctor said I was extremely “heaty” and that indeed I had flu. I went out quite soon to get my medicine, handing over the used empty bottle over to the pharmacist, who further nagged at me for not removing the previous label. Since more than ten years ago it was okay for them to paste new labels over the old ones and I was not sure of their new restriction, so much for disallowing recycling of the bottle months ago since the H1N1 outburst.
I went to report to work still after getting changed at home. Once I reached the office, I almost started to shiver under the air-conditioner and thus I had to move to an empty classroom again. It was in fact, too late, that my illness was already worsened before the shifting.
Lunch was together with Daniel, Dorothy, Jingkun and surprisingly, Chi Chiang. We went to West Coast hawker centre and I took chicken chop despite the “heatiness” inside my body. The meat was quite disappointing.
In the afternoon, I went to the lecture theatre for the briefing organized by the Fitness Department in regarding of the health improvement challenge. Actually, I was only interested in the results of the previous health screening. I was given a student trainer who could not escape my nose that he was a smoker. However, since he looked quite soft and nice, I did not want to make things difficult for him and thus, I did not say anything nor request for a change. The Polar watch loaned was quite interesting and I could not wait for my illness to be cured so that I could go for a jog using it.
I went for dinner with Mei Hoe. We went to the Clementi new shopping centre and decided to dine at Sakae Sushi. I did not feel good that Mei Hoe insisted to foot the bill again, saying that she was treating me as her god son. I did not want to owe anyone any favour no matter how close we were.
Anyway, she showed me her medical report, displaying the extreme low blood cells in her body to worsen my mood. She could have collapsed anytime. Worrying for anyone was the worst thing I would want to do after being drained off totally more than a month ago.
When I was reaching The Cathay’s Starbucks, I checked my phone and realized Andy had dropped me a message that he was not feeling well and thus would not be going down. Soon Siong and Stephen were already there and there was no sign of Mr John or Jeremy would come down, let alone to reply our emails. Seeing that I was weakened by the illness, both of them decided to call it a day soon.
I was waken up by my phone at around nine o'clock in the morning. The nurse from "Tanjong Pagar Medical Hall" called me to inform me that the Chinese physician was there already.
My brain was numbed in the morning's laziness, dwelling on the bed. The next thing in mind was that I had to get better soon to embark on the last two months of terror.
I was second in the queue. Just as I was telling the physician that I had been chewing on VapoDrops, he was shocked. In fact, I had missed out the instruction on the label like most people would do, that I was supposed to take only one to two of them as needed. The physician told me that overdosing would cause giddiness and also breathing difficulties, which I had and was encountering.
The physician told me that I had overworked and the memory of the long working hours for the past few weeks flashed through my mind. I sighed for the regrets. I was issued three types of medicine and that I had to take a total nine pills each time for twice a day.
The most shocking thing was when I was collecting the prescription, I realised the price was thirty bucks; it was more than four times the price I paid years ago. And it was more expensive than visiting a normal clinic. Nevertheless, I still prefer Chinese physicians.
