I woke up after 11am and set off to the office at noon. The property agent in representing LHN group came over and we had a long chat from the office to the canteen. We tried the leftover dishes from the new Chinese chef.
After writing a new blog at Smart Tuition Singapore Blog about Sophie, I continued with some amendments for the admin side. Then, I proceeded to do SEO.
Mike and I took cab over to Vivocity in the rain to take a walk and have our dinner. We went back to Challenger and were quite disappointed that the Xbox showcase area was filled with products and I supposed the charismatic Xbox girl had finished her holiday job.
We went over to Harbourfront Centre and I was impressed with the shop next to the food court that sold very creative and cool household products. Then, we had western food at the first level for our dinner before heading back to the office by bus to Kampong Bahru Road.
I worked on the Singapore Schools page and began my crazy SEO journey for the night. We were both excited to see the results weeks later. We left the office at 11pm and I continued with work right after reaching home.
I spent the full day of my Saturday trying to upload the photos taken during the camp into Facebook but as usual, it was problematic. After waiting for very long, it displayed error alert and I had to redo again. I tried uploading smaller numbers of photos at one go but the errors appeared most of the time. One very irritating issue was that some of the photos were uploaded but a few were missing, such that I had to compare to find out the missing ones.
I went for a jog in the evening before completing the work. I took a small muffin and my medicine before leaving my house at around 5.30pm. On the way, I realised the medicine I took was for my flu, cough and sore throat, and not simply for my stomach problem. It was too late and I had to endure running in my blocked nose.
It was not my plan to challenge my limit again for I had heard numerous cases of people collapsing while exercising in their illness. This time, I did it again. Somehow, my timing was more than satisfactory even though I slowed down a lot at the big T-junction separating Marina Barrage and Marina South Pier.
Marina Barrage was crowded on this Saturday evening. The sky was clear even though it was gray before I took off. The gradient colour painted delights in me. The strong wind dried my sweat fast as usual. I found myself a space and lay down immediately to rest, and also, trying hard to prevent liquid dripping out of my nose. The cough hurt my throat a little and I had this feeling that I could not make it back.
There were two groups of people creating loud noises on the field. The first group forfeited a guy by coming over to lie besides me. When I was standing by the side, a cute girl from the second group was forced to come over to greet me but she only waved. I was disturbed by a SMS regarding work that I was most fearful of, but I decided to fully indulge myself in the beautiful and lively place.
I stayed at the Barrage longer than usual. When it was 8.30pm, I decided I should rush home to continue with my work. Half of the crowds were still around and new visitors continued to arrive. I left reluctantly in my semi blocked nose, feeling more feverish than the earlier journey. I was delighted upon reaching my destination at Shenton Way for my timing was much faster than expected in my illness.
It was the first ever known overnight camp for the students to my knowledge. I had not witnessed an event as exciting and enriching as this. Two days one night were too short for the fun, though ample for the bodies and minds to endure. Hirman, the great one, together with his team of lecturers and student leaders, made it all happen.
Most of the staffs of the Singapore Discovery Centre were over-accommodative, responding well to all needs and they even prepared coffee at night at their own good wills.
The schedule was packed and every moment was fruitfully spent. The orientation group leaders (OGL) were quick to react to fill the time in the middle of switching the game stations. They did their jobs well and responded to the lecturers.
The management made their ways down after work on both days to show their supports. I was much luckier than them since I could stay for the entire camp to interact with everyone, including their seeds – the students.
There was nothing much I could really do other than photo-taking, but I believed my fruits of labour would sharpen the fading memories in future; I hoped the sights of them would bring back true smiles on everyone’s face. Most importantly, I hoped I could help Hirman to sum up the entire event through the photos.
So much for my great photography experience and fun in disturbing the kids, everything came with a price. The greatest exchange I made was my two days of time to do my own work and probably longer time to sum up the event together with the aids of the photos. I went down in my sore throat, cough and flu. The sleepless night before that almost made me float and I managed to challenge my limit again by sleeping less than three hours throughout. I had gastric pain twice on the first day and once on the last evening. My feet were sore and my knees were stiff after two days’ walk.
Hirman had brought back confidence and enthusiasm to this five hundred-plus-strength future of our country. It was the first step, a magnificent thrust, to implant hopes into them by making them understand that there was a big pool of people who really cared for them. It was a great effort to bring out all the goodness within them.
There was no absolute measure for the success of any event. However, it was made obvious with the sight of sick and injured students refusing to leave the camp to rest at home. The reluctance of students to leave the place at the end of the camp proved it.
No event could be perfect; although with the strong support from managements, staffs and students, there were still a number of areas to be improved since it was the first attempt of such grand event. There were some ground rules, which were not lay, and thus, creating some political issues. Some students created big issues for the leaders at night.
If the camp goes on for future intakes of students, many great souls would be torn to bones; but a much awesome and impactful one would commence after all the reflections.
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.
Last week, I felt very hungry in the office and thus I almost emptied my drawer’s food. I was already not feeling very well; in fact, my health was never in perfect condition since the end of last year.
My lower rib started aching over nothing since last Saturday and it could never be due to the relaxing volleyball game.
The heat increased and eventually I could feel the sore in my throat by Sunday night. The cough was bad and flu started conquering me. I was restless.
I could not allow myself to take medical leave due to work commitments. I had to force myself to recover even at the expense of not taking my medicine for the stomach problem.
Wednesday morning, my mum and younger brother left the house before I woke up to go to Bali.
I had a little difficulty in breathing at first. I hesitated again but decided I should take more rest at home instead of destroying myself at work. I went to see the doctor at the Outram polyclinic finally.
The checkpoint outside the main door was cleared. There was only a poor guy standing inside near the queue ticket machine, asking everyone if there was any symptom of flu, fever or cough. Then, a couple of old people bothering him over the queue machine in quite a rude tone, which I thought was so silly and ridiculous.
After putting on the mask, I realized my breathing had improved somehow. My queue number was F009 and it was not very long before I went into the consultation room. When the doctor was checking my throat, she said it was very red inside and that made me very curious. I remembered when I was in the army, I went to see the doctor for diarrhoea, and I was told the same thing. I was not having a sore throat that time and thus I took it lightly until the next day, it started to hurt.
I was given two days medical leave by the doctor without asking for it. If I were to tell her about my occupation, she would probably make me stay at home until the next Monday.
After reaching home, I dropped a couple of emails. I was planning to go downstairs to buy lunch before my elder brother’s girlfriend offered to do it. She went alone to help me get my wantan mee.
It was a lazy afternoon for me and I spent lots of time lying on the bed.
In the evening, the food delivery man interrupted my sleep. I checked my phone and realized my brother had informed me to wait for the food because his girlfriend could be asleep. My brother got home soon and we shared the two packets of food.
I started off Monday early in my sore throat, cough and flu. Having to keep repeating stuffs was more tiring than ever. It lasted for nearly four hours. The spoiler of the day was a phone call.
I was supposed to have a good lunch with my shi fu, Josephine, but she forgot about it and went out with her students instead.
I had lunch with Xiao Mei instead, and was lucky enough to bang into Kevin in the canteen.
I had a short meeting in the afternoon to confirm some work, which left me in a better piece of mind.
Sleepiness, exhaustion, sweaty clothes, sore throat, freezing, hunger, gastric pain and disappointment hit me badly.
I have tried so hard each time at the expense of my health and happiness, just to make sure things work the correct way. Nevertheless, it has been so clear that all the extra effort worth nothing; someone else out there can easily make the difference. Sometimes, nothing seems even important in the first place.
What have I been doing all these while? Why do I bother to care? Why do I keep making myself miserable, especially for people who would not care?
Since last week, my stomach was not feeling well. Followed by the sore throat was my bad backache and flu.
The weather was warm but the cold air-conditioner at night that was causing shivers in me upon waking up was more terrible. What was worst was the big air-conditioner spitting freezing air right on top of me in the office.
For the past few weeks I had been hugging my little pillow inside the office. I was not trying to act cute nor making the office cosy like my house obviously.
As I had expected, after the intensive curry-eating period, sore throat regained control over me. It was since Saturday morning, the pain started and I had a terrible weekend certainly. I had already tried to take less of it but it coordinated too well with all the heaty food that I had taken throughout the entire week.
Since the beginning of the week, my throat started to irritate me. Somehow, my eyes were very tired and I could not stop myself from nodding in the afternoon no matter how much sleep I took.
The weather was intemperate and the office was full of sick workers. I could no longer withhold the virus and flu started to emphasise my body by Wednesday. The cough managed to keep me awake for quite some time on my bed.
A visit to the Outram Polyclinic was a new experience during this Swine Flu period, where screening of temperature was done outside the entrance. All the visitors with symptoms such as fever, cough and flu are allocated to a different queue.
I was among the outcast group to be attended within a room. The pharmacy took over the original reception counters and even took my identification card, which was probably used to call up to check whether had I gone overseas within the period.
It was a long wait and Doctor Tan Kai Hui Colin attended to me. I was surprised over his friendliness, which was rare among the polyclinic doctors. He assured me of my condition was normal and gave me MC (medication certificate) to excuse me from work for two days. It was the first time I was given two days of MC in the polyclinic without having to debate with the doctor.
I went home to swallow the disgusting cough syrup, flu pill and sucking the lozenge. Soon, the power of the syrup and pill put me to sleep.
I could feel myself floating at night. My body was warm and I knew fever had joined in the fun. The first thing that came to my mind was I did not have any medicine for fever since my temperature was originally 36.2 degree in the morning. My mum gave me panadols to resist the fever before I went to bed.
My temperature fell between 37.4 and 37.9 degree throughout. I could feel my entire body torching and aching. I predicted the weekend would be wasted.
I woke up with a very terrible sore throat on Monday morning, which almost tore my throat apart. After swallowing saliva for some time, I recovered with itchiness left on my throat.
New task awaited me and the thought of working with Photoshop on the super duper tortoise-like laptop was a complete turn off.
I had to take lor mee for lunch since the Chinese mixed vegetable rice would not be nice without the curry as gravy.
I left work earlier and rushed home to get changed before meeting Irwin at Queenstown. Since his bus was taking a long time, I went into the NTUC supermarket to have a quick shopping, buying a packet of red bean buns and two bottles of isotonic drinks, which I had not seen before; they tasted like 100-plus but the label was 7-up.
I waited at the golf driving range after that. Irwin came along with his personal golf clubs and I was quite excited. Nevertheless, my entire body was weak somehow and together with the irritating itchiness on my throat, I did not have good game. We only finished two baskets of golf balls, which was slightly more than two hundreds of them.
We could not decide on what to eat and if it was not for my throat, I would have decided on one of the fast food restaurants. Anyway, Irwin suggested to go home first to check out if his brother was home so that he could borrow the car and fetch me at my house for dinner.
In the end, the dinner was called off and I finished the remaining of the buns for dinner.
Some payment issues from my current webhost boiled me up so much that I almost wanted to dedicate a few days to write a long essay to curse them. Luckily that they had a live chat system on their website and the staff attended to me and all problems seemed to be solved. I was handling it so professionally in very fine tone that Mike appraised me that I was a good client.
This night, I started sneezing and I knew it was the continued symptom of the sore throat.
I woke up feeling more feverish than before. My body was weak and the joints were aching. The sore throat resided for a while like the day before but the flu did not stop.
I was so terrified of myself whenever I recalled being inside the class, having to move to the back to sneeze badly. When the fluid tried to drip down from nose, it was really gross. I wanted to maintain a clean sheet record but it would certainly hurt my conscience if I were to spread the virus to others.
For the first time since the first day of my work, I went to see a doctor for medical certification. I preferred Chinese physician but it was too bad their certification might not be recognised.
The polyclinic was crowded and I waited for around forty people before I got my queue number. Doctor Sally was busy as usual and when I asked about Doctor Kok Leong, the nurse at the registration counter was stunned and told me that he had been transferred to the headquarter. She checked my record and realised my last visit to the polyclinic was in year 2006, which was more than a year ago.
Surprisingly, I needed not wait as long as the usual two plus hours to get everything done. The doctor, Doctor Mark, assigned to me was from Ireland. I managed to get to see him quite soon with the absence of two to three patients who were not around after their numbers were flashed for minutes. He seemed to be having flu as well. It was a common infection inside my body.
The medicines prescribed were: Loratadine 10mg Tab Glycerin Thymol CO Gargle 100ml Dequalinium CL 0.25mg Loz Promethazine Codeine Co Linctus Amoxicillin Cap
As usual, for as far as I could remember, the doctor asked the same question, “Do you need an MC for today?” – How about the next day? The medicine prescribed would definitely cause drowsiness and how could the virus be wiped off within a day? Since I did not want to miss work longer, I did not try my luck.
I spent yesterday lying on the bed, having too much sleep to doze off again.
Mike’s fortunate-telling is good that the results show that I’m a person who keeps repeating the same mistakes.
I’m not supposed to indulge myself with too much “heaty” food. The huge consumption of them has developed sore throat and flu in my body once again. It can be due to interacting with infected people as well, or at least this does contribute to my sickness.
I want to maintain clean sheet for my attendance at work, but on the other hand, I’m quite afraid that it would be infectious.
