without fullstop

Yesterday I spent a full-day in a course about SPSS and Epidemiology conducted by the hospital. Not only that I already know most of the chapters they spoke on, but it was explained in such dilatory manner that I yawned to the computer screen like 8 times in half an hour (my colleague who went with me was as bored as I was actually took the initiative to calculate each yawn without my knowledge). When I signed on to this course, I was told that it was an advanced module of analyzing data based on medical setting. How annoyed me and my colleague were when the session turned out like we were stucked in a kindergarten class. Seriously I felt bad for my colleague as I was the one who persuaded her to join me and knowing that she is an Epidemiologist herself, I believed I’ve made a huge blunder.

Hence, both of us merely carried on with our usual net surf while waiting for the others to find their way through creating a graph or analysing T-test. I read plentiful that day, probably more than any other day, as I didn’t have the distraction of workload or stress, I was happily surfing away. I came to reading TheStar online (yeah, I was bored to death and nothing else to surf). Something caught my attention in the Lifestyle section, a piece of write up by Michael Cheang. It’s about taking up a challenge of writing a novel of 50000 words in 30 days (starting from Nov 1st to 30th). I was eager to find out more, but the url listed simply wouldn’t work. Then smart as I am, I did a search for “National Novel Writing Month”, and turned out nothing. Then I did “NaNoWriMo”, and Bingo! I got the url. And turned out that the ending is not “dot com”, but “dot org”. How careless can one be by putting up an “Official Site”, but turned out to be wrong. What more it was in a newpaper! I believe TheStar seriously needs to look into editing work before publishing, both printed and online. Here’s the correct url: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ I’ll be typing away once it starts.

Last weekend I was bunking in with a friend. It was a long drive up the hill of Bukit Antarabangsa. There wasn’t much to see at night with little help from the moon. However, one can tell that the surrounding is peaceful and well-kept, a residential area with a touch of small suburban environment. I was drowsy and dizzy after the maze-like road into a deeper part of the hill forest. At last, we pulled into a corner lot of double-storey terrace. The house is very much a family setting, with great implication of few bachelors too. I was amazed at the amount of DVD on the shelf.

As well as figurines and books on another shelf.

On closer inspection, I found that my friend has a huge collection of comics I adore - Calvin and Hobbes. We watched TV - Discovery’s Living & Travel, showcasting ice-cream phenomenon. Both of our eyes were glued to the tempting dessert on screen. We chatted until morning before we decided to hit the bed.

Next morning, as usual, I couldn’t sleep late whenever I am in someone else place. Instead of waking my friend, I went down to the living room to watch TV. Then I decided the place is worth to be in pictures. The place even has a Starbuck’s setting for wireless surfing.

A comical Scobby Doo’s statue was placed nere the TV set.

And a family of The Incredibles on the TV set.

With spiritual needs of individual, a neutral facial framed on the wall.

And stone or what-ever that is.

The kitchen was greatly designed, small but efficient.

And full-range of alcohol collections. No, we were very much sober the night before, didn’t need the boost.

When my friend woke up, both of us were hungry. So we hurriedly to the kitchen to make us some quick breakfast before retiring to the TV again.

After shower, we were out of the house. And I finally able to grasp in the beautiful scenery of the place. Along the road down hill, both sides are greens, and shades from the tall trees only allowed limited rays of sunshine on the road.

We headed for lunch with two other friends at Pudu or was it Imbi, not quite sure as I remember passing by Time Square. The place was crowded, but we managed to get a table. First one up was soupy Yong Tao Fu.

Then the dried one.

Herbal Dumpling Soup (My recommendation).

And Cheong Fun.

It was a heavy meal, but really felt like every bites are to certain delight.

Legally matrimony of a same-sex couple has created argument in the States. And someone posted something about why Gay marriage is wrong, I’ll just pick a few, the rest can be found at FBS.

“Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears’ 55-hour ‘just-for-fun’ marriage would be destroyed.”

And my liking in terms of gay marriage and adoption:

“Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.”

“Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.”

With Heidi Klum and Seal giving birth to baby Samuel (nice name), that soon enough my close friend Julie will be going through that. Pregnant is so beautiful. It’s a delight to be reproductive, to give life to another. And knowing that baby is born to great parents is even a blessing in diguise.

Somehow my blog editing has gone stubborn as a mule, not wanting me to publish anything ever since my Monday fortune of a click by the second before the page crashed on my typing.

Not sure whether the email was meant for laughing myself off the chair or to represent a detailed and personal experience of pregnancy. Julie has promised a chronological email on her new found gift from God, however I was totally not prepared for a full page email with dates like a journal. Yeah, she has indeed wrote up a storm. To think that both of them had already bought music collection of classical legends, like Mozart (LOL, the baby may well just turn out to be genius later on), I believe her journal will be as exciting as JK Rowling’s latest release.

Anxiety flooded her mind, “Is the baby breathing?” And with technological aid in checking the condition of the baby, she was even more anxious to get it done according to her monthly schedule, yet she wished it could be done weekly, or even daily, if not hourly =P

Days passed and good sense came to her that she couldn’t do nothing and she shouldn’t be so worried, relaxation granted. The husband was too great of a gentleman to even get tired of seeing my friend frantically distraught state. He was very encouraging and understanding.

Alright, since having USG (Ultrasonography) carried out repeatedly in a short gap can very well have effects on the baby’s development, she had to go through manual checking. The procedure involves the gynecologist inserts one finger into the vagina and another one moves over the stomach area. The outcome of it was “uterus in perfect condition”. I guess being mother has the right to be anxious, thus she wanted to hear the heart beat of her baby to be convinced. If I am right, it takes the first trimester for baby’s organs to develop well. So I was right! No stetoscope can detect the baby’s heart beat, and my friend had to trust the her physician’s word on that.

On weekend, she and her husband went out shopping. It could be the “too much walking” or “not enough rest the night before”, she was weak to her knees and somehow a catastrophe of darkness swept acorss her. No, she was not in the middle of “War of the World” screening, and no, she was not going blind all of a sudden. What I can understand is probably she was lower on sugar level or something, or could easily be anaemic. She got the rest she needed once reached home.

The nest day she was up and ready to get some house chores on the run. Not that she really wanted to, I believe she rather sleep, eat, sleep eat AGAIN, or was that her routine for winter season. Anyway, she was in her efficient self because her mother-in-law was around and she couldn’t well be sleeping all day. Morever it’s really unhealthy to be sleeping whole day without some light exercises.

A little spot of blood turned to more bleeding on that evening, yet my friend was optimistic. She contacted her physician and told her what happened. She was advised to go to hospital immediately as that was a possible sign of miscarriage. The hospital didn’t much have specialists on-call, and the person who did the USG twice explained that there was no heartbeat. She was then told the baby may have already dead, but still she was not hysterical and advised to return the next day to see a specialist. That night was truly a ROLLERCOASTER night as she only able to unconsciously doze off to sleep at three in the morning.

The next day as instructed, she and her hubby went to see specialist and they were saddened to the same fact as last night. She was advised to undergo expulsion of the fetus immediately as there was no reason to continue carry a dead baby inside her. Somehow her reaction wasn’t hysterical or shock, as both of them had already talked and cried the night before about the possibility of bad news and prepared for the worst.

She had the option of anesthetic or non-anesthetic approach, with the latter being a ‘cleaner’ process. Being a tough person as I knew she would be, she agreed to the second approach. The hours before the operation, she was mentally challenging herself with other terrible crisis to distract her consciousness. “Should I think about the poor starving children in Africa?”, “Should I think of those who suffered and died of AIDS?”, “Should I think about drug addicts struggling with cold chicken solitation?” Somehow she has not think of a pregnant mother sadly need to go through the emotional baggage of removal of the fetus and the agony of such lost. Maybe by belittled her own feeling, she could overcome the painful operation.

I couldn’t bare myself to continue reading that email. Seriously initially I thought she probably did get to save the unborn, LOL who on earth would have the mood to type a saddening email to her closest friends. I know if that was me, I’ll probably hide under the covers for days, cry my eyes out, and went on pro-life strike. Alright maybe that wouldn’t be entirely what I would do for those who knew me well. I’ll probably be like my friend, get it over with and start anew.

I called her immediately after I read the email. She seemed fine on the phone. We even made a few jokes here and there, with me knowing no boundary, I even attempted some baby humor. She was glad I called, who wouldn’t. I felt bad that I couldn’t get on the next plane to be with her, but what could I possibly do if I did that - nothing! So I guess a call was just the right and best thing to do.

In September, I’ve dedicated to Julie “round the belly” when I first heard of her pregnancy. However I didn’t expect to write about her again so soon, what more with nothing but bad and sad news. well, not entirely bad, at least she came out a stronger person. That’s the kind of friends I admire, and keep close…

I was mad pissed this morning as I arrived early at work, munching sandwich while checking my emails and getting updates on my blog. The blog provider I currently using was under-renovation (or something like that). I wanted so badly to blog up my friend’s pregancy and my weekend what-so-ever. Disappointed. Anyway, I got my work started earlier than usual. And managed to finish the necessary paperwork which could have taken me the whole day to do. It’s lunch time and my stomach growling. Maybe I should start getting some lunch rather than happily (sickly smiling to myself) typing away.

I will go over it quick on the new page of my blog provider. They simply just added four pictures to the page. Not sure about new features, except they mentioned about “unicode”, haven’t got the eagerness to browse it. Here’s the four draw-up that took the whole morning away from my usual morning routine.

I was weak to the knee when I woke up this morning. I woke up at least six times to visit the toilet. It was tiring doing it over and over agian every now and then. It was the excruciating pain from my lower chest to my abdomen. I was tossing and turning, unable to sleep with the sharp pain. I felt like someone shot me in the stomach (not that I ever experienced that, but I believe the pain is close if not similar). I was thinking of getting an ambulance to take me into emergency. However, after further thought, I rather be in pain at home than in an emergency wad. It may sound silly that I have phobia of admitting into hospital, although I’m working in one, that doesn’t mean I like to stay in 24 hours. It just creeps me out.

As I regained my energy after a warm shower, I couldn’t possibly not go to work. What would I do at home? Sleep. Yeah, right, I’ll probably suffer as much as I did last night with the pain. Moreover, I’ll be able to get some drugs to relieve the pain if I go to work. So I got my boss to prescribe me with buscopan to relieve intestinal spasms, but she refused to give me pain killers. I’ll just get another doctor to prescribe me that later if the pain is still there.

Overall, I feel like shit today. Not that I smell like shit, but I am getting the sick feeling of not productive. I still couldn’t figure out what did I consume earlier that caused the diarrhea and pain. Tomorrow will definately be much better. I hope so.

I landed at Bangkok International Airport on 13 October. My flight was delayed for half hour and the queue at the passport control took another hour as I was blindly queueing at the wrong terminal. Thus it took me longer than what it supposed to be. I was arranged to hop into the waiting Volvo. Personally I felt awkward to be sitting in the luxury of it. The driver was nice enough to tune to an English radio channel, but as bored as I am, I wasn’t much into classical music that was playing. Soon I dozed off unconsciously with the stagnant traffic in front. Then probably in less than ten minutes, I woke up to the same highway view. Somehow the car didn’t even inch, and how fortunate of me to be experiencing the greatly spoken traffic of Bangkok, I was told of a similar case with Jakarta, which I might visit one of these days. I was taken to a ride around town after we evacuated from the highway. Royal Orchid Sheraton was located beside the Chao Praia River, with a strategic accessiblity to the city area, and that where I was going to be for the next few days.

I was greeted with the beautiful layout of the check-in area.

I was no pleased with myself for being careless with money. Somehow I had forgotten to bring along the currency I’d exchanged earlier in KL. Christ, I had no money with me. No Baht, no USD, and certainly little MYR. Credit card has previously spoilt me in the worst way, thus I’ve cancelled it three years back. But at that moment I did wish I still have it, it does come it handy at times. Again I was being lucky as hell to be given a room without depositing any money with them, for I was there on a meeting and the organiser seemed to have a great reputation with them.

As I got my room sorted out, I was eager to strip down, dip into a warm bath, and have me a little nap. The wood craving in my room was beautifully done with yellow lighting filling the shadows.

I also got a great view from my room of the river and the city. Plenty of acivities going on along the river, which reminded me of a great experience my Geography teacher used to tell me in Highschool.

After the cocktail reception with the usual “get-to-know-one-another” and a buffet dinner, I was ever-so-ready to head out to the night market of Bangkok, considering I didn’t have any money with me. I believed I would skip dinner to go explore local variety of food if I had some cash with me. The taxi took us to Sala Daeng station, which rows of stalls were set up for the bargaining tourists and residents. I was astonished to found a brightly-lit little rest-stop. It has a chick-flick contemporary decor, with the second floor opens up as a lounge area. We didn’t have our supper there, but we had it at the road side.

Yeah, this is a better place to taste unique food. We ordered “one” with my index finger showing one. Not entirely sure what did we ordered, we sat at the next table waiting anxiously. And this bowl of whatever-it-is came after few minutes. The pork was raw but delicious (probably not that hygiene to eat everyday), noodle was so soft that it slipped down my throat without swallowing.

It soon drizzled yet the crowd just got even more. Through the opened door of the bars and pubs, I could see the famous pussy show, not that I’m interested in those. Occasionally loud and husky-sexy voice would filled the street by ladies boys (or transsexuals) hovering over the mic in the over-crowded bars. Of cos not to miss out on the gay boys in the city were sex show and “stuff”. It seems to me that although with limited knowledge of Thai language, tourists have great time enjoying themselves in Bangkok. We went back to our hotel a little after midnight and I didn’t sleep until 2am, with my hyperactivity of grasping the moment, I was up chatting with a friend over another supper!

The next morning was purely stressing with meeting agenda covering a full 9 to 5 and another presentation over dinner. My brain and body has certainly been brought to challenge. I was quite surprised I made it to dinner and with the interesting presentation on current research and policy by the CDC, I was glad I didn’t miss that. Dinner was served and entertainment was prepared.

Traditional puppet performance was fascinating and entertaining way to enjoy Thai culture. The coordination and choreography of the three visible puppeteers was all it took to create the lifelike movements of the puppet. It was truly captivating.

It was a half-day meeting the next day, and the other half was optional. After the lunch at Giorgio, an Italian restaurant, some of us took the time off to Big C, a shopping complex. I wasn’t really excited of shopping, so me and another friend took off in-search of food.

We bought some fruits. It tasted spicy at first but the feeling of it was so addictive that even it’s spicy as hell, I could help myself eating it.

We also came across a different pattern of donuts. Why I ain’t seeing the same one with Dunkin Donuts.

Then I absolutely wanted a bite of MiniMelts. The girl was so friendly she agreed for me to take her photo, unlike the previous chocolate shop we went. And we got three flavors of mini ice-cream.

As we were cruising for more exciting food, we came across a restaurant with run-down setting, serves something different.

Spicy noodle with pork meatball and a pot of pork liver and what-ever in a soup. Both of us were in tears after few spoons of the soup. It was extremely spicy! And I also vomited when I saw that the pork was not cleaned properly. I was sick to my stomach after that.

To get back to our hotel, we were desperate to get a taxi, but it was hopeless with the mad traffic around. Fortunately we meet a bell-hop from a nearby hotel who spoke Mandarin. He got us taxi and off we went on our schedule back to the hotel. We had 20 mins to freshen up to go on the cruise for dinner. I was impressed with the arrangement given that they had only less that two weeks to relocate our meeting from Bali to Bangkok. We were surprised with magnificant fireworks.

The interior of the boat was comfortably done with casual dining area under the deck.

I got my fair share of food. It was my first cruise dining experience. We had our little dance festive on the boat with band playing music.

Later I was supposed to go clubbing at DJ Station, but didn’t quite make it. I was dead tired. I seriously needed sleep. I didn’t quite get any good rest the first and second night, and certainlly not the final night, not that I was up fucking someone or being fucked by someone, my sixth sense was up all night. I couldn’t sleep. I could feel something in my room, not quite sure what it was, I was restless the whole time. In end I watched three movies in a row until the next morning. I looked like a zombie in the morning, and anyone who met me during breakfast thought I was out partying, which I should have instead of spending my sleeping time on crappy movies on TV.

Exhaustion took over and I was out like a baby as soon as my ass got comfy in the airplane. And once at home, I had a quick shower and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I didn’t even wake up for dinner. I slept 14 hours. And even now typing away in my blog, I still lacking the sleep I need. I think it will take me another few days to adjust back my sleep routine.

How bad can it be? To start off, it is a soft porn in disguise. Little sequences to the reason behind the film. A straight guy was convinced by his gay housemate that girls are more attracted to gay guys inhope of turning them into straights. With him trying to score some with the girl, he went along to date her housemate, another gay guy, Marc. While fantasizing about getting a blowjob from the girl, he was merely hearing her voice through the phone. In fact the person who’s giving him head was Marc. How weird is that! I practically wasn’t one bit enthusiastic to continue watching it. A good part in end was about having his parents’ acceptance of him being gay, even though it’s not true. I seriously need to get my standard back on track about movies. Anyhow I would say the director is smart enough to use gorgeous and masculine guy in it, somewhat to attract the audiences as well to desensitize the gay stereotype and culture.

I am a Malaysian. Malaysia’s mother tongue is Bahasa. But not mine. English has dominates verbally.

I am a Chinese. Mandarin is the language that represents Chinese. I speak some and write few.

I am a Hakka. It is a dialect that signifies Chinese’ distinction. I understand little and barely used.

Therefore I wasn’t one bit surprised to find that I’ve no Hakka gene, no Hakka culture, and no Hakka what-so-ever that is. A bowl of greenish soup was placed in front of me. I was reluctant to dig into it. I was no fan of green tea, so having a soup that looks similarly like it, except more thicken in texture. It was bitter to taste, yet quite original and natural. It became instinctively addictive after my fourth spoon.

Then a plate of chopped vegetables came. It consists of various, from beans to leafly greens. The fragrant was extraordinary.

Last came the rice with nuts and minced sour plum.

That’s a set of healthy and fulfilling meal. What Hakka called “Lei Cha”.

And here’s me really digging into it.

According to my friends, not alot of places have this dish. In fact the owner only makes it twice a week on Tuesday and Saturday. The place is secluded in a residential area, near Plaza Ampang Jaya. I guess good food is really tough to hunt down.