April 2024

How's life ya'll?

I haven't been active here for a long time, because for a long time there hasn't been anything interesting to update.

So I thought I just randomly insert a topic as a record, to keep the liveability of my blog.

I love Netflix. I'm sure many of you know. And I favour watching TV dramas over movies.

But I have a pet peeve. After watching a few American drama, I had a tendency and urge to find a British/Australian drama to indulge in instead, because a change in taste is always welcoming and refreshing. Believe it or not, there are many subtle differences between productions of different countries, and these minor ones make quite a huge difference.

That is when I stumbled upon Wentworth. I did not think the show would be to my liking, seeing it's about all female cast in a prison. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sexist - it's just that I usually like crime drama, not soap operas, and Wentworth strikes me as one.

But the show received critical acclaim, so I thought, why not give it a try?

And I did.

And holy mother f*cking God. The show was awesome.

Granted I've finished only season 1 and am in the middle of season 2. But honestly speaking, I thought season 1 itself was mind-blowing, but season 2 proved me wrong - it blew my already blown mind. I am afraid to say, I do not know whether I'll receive season 3 as well, or better, or worse.

The hard work put in to produce such a stellar show was amazing. I do not understand how I did not learn to appreciate this and let it slide for so long.

For those of you who like crime dramas, trust me, Wentworth is absolutely worth watching. 

Giveon - Heartbreak Anniversary

I've developed a rather nasty habit recently, one that I vowed never to pick up - I love scrolling reels in Instagram.

It's just a lot more meaningful than scrolling Facebook. Facebook has become a junk place - full of gossips, unwarranted accusations (politically, economically, socially, whatever), and negativities.

Instagram, on the other hand, contains people's diaries - they share what they see, what they think and, most importantly, what they appreciate. This contrasts with TikTok, where people literally just do stuff for entertainment. Not my type.

Anyway, I chanced upon this. I've never known Giveon, but damn, his emotion is real and raw, his voice is gold, and this song delivers hard.

What an amazing piece of art!

Jan

 And there goes a month in 2024.

January 2024 has been very eventful and meaningful.

Well, I've hit 30. That's a big milestone.

Thankfully people say I still look very young, so that's a plus.

But I'm getting a bit tired to be updating my blog.

I'll come back later with some updates, at the moment, I probably just need a lot more rest than I used to need.

2024

 Happy 2024 guys!!

I haven't been updating lately, because I'm just getting lazier. Well, I'll try to rid myself of this laziness.

Anyway, 2024 did not start well for me - I got Covid-19, since 29th Dec! 

The moment I woke up, I knew down to my bones that something was not right - I felt tired. Weird kind of tired, and I had chills. It felt like the first time I had Covid-19.

I did a quick test, and as suspected, a very faint line popped up in the kit.

The fatigue was real, powerful, crippling. I went to sleep.

I woke up hours later, brought myself to buy lunch. Brought lunch home, took about half, but felt too tired, I ended up went to sleep.

I woke up 2 hours later, with my lunch still unfinished.

It was a Friday, and since the GP wouldn't be open for the next 3 days, I pulled myself to the clinic - where I was checked to have a degree of 39. 

Anyway, the doctor gave me very generic medicines. Still, my main point was to get them for free - I'm covered by my company insurance, else I needed to fork out my own money to buy them from NTUC and I didn't want to.

I had Covid-19 for five days. On the third day, the T line was literally black. I mean, black, not dark purple. Imagine the toxins I was harbouring.

Anyway, 2024 was not off to a good start. But hopefully it gets better.

Happy 2024!

Sick, Part 2

 Following up with my previous post......I'm just going to slightly elaborate more.

Technically it likely is just a normal respiratory bacterial infection for me. Unfortunately, for me, doctors tend to consistently give me the wrong diagnosis - they often prescribe me Amoxicillin, and if I don't recover, many doctors automatically assume it is my sinus or asthma acting up, and proceed to give me medicines that do not cure my underlying illnesses - untreated bacterial infection.

I went back to the clinic six times over the course of two weeks, and saw four different doctors. The first was nonchalant and dismissive, and practically shrugged me off as normal infection and sent me home after giving me something I suspect to be a 'standard' medicinal pack.

The second was a little more reassuring but unfortunately did not identify the problem.

The third was better but again didn't tackle the root cause.

I was coughing my lungs out during the visits and over the three weeks. I was given few bottles of cough syrups that did not help much. And I consistently repeated and emphasised that the cough syrups I were given were not helpful, yet all of them sent me home with the same or more cough syrups. 

The fourth doctor.....he was the angel. I wished I caught his name.

He took a peek into my throat via his torch yet he reached the contrary conclusions from the other three doctors, even though all the other three did the same thing - he noticed my throat was still red after three weeks of coughing, and he saw that I was prescribed Amoxicillin. He immediately knew the antibiotics I had failed to neutralise the bacteria in me and gave me a stronger antibiotics and corticosteroids to relieve my throat inflammation which was giving me coughs that were building my abs.

I recovered rather rapidly over the next few days.

Old doctors are very, very much better than young doctors nowadays.

That being said, I'll avoid going back to the clinic from now on. The sad thing is it's the nearest to my place of residence.

Sick

 I know I haven't been updating for a while, but for good reasons.

I'm currently sick. Old recurring asthma-related disease. Doctor said it was a 'small issue', but it didn't feel like it for me.

I shall update more, when I feel better at doing it.

RIP, my friend

 Thursday night I was enjoying a slow brisk back to my home at around 8pm, when my friend texted to inform me that my primary school CCY had passed away.

You see, my friend had been suffering from some kind of rare and aggressive cancer that knocked him out within months. He discovered he had a solid lump in him and consulted a doctor and apparently underwent a surgery to remove them, to no avail. It came back and grew. Eventually he found a doctor who diagnosed him with some cancer that made him the 3rd case in Malaysia. 

Chemotherapy didn't help. 

He gave it up.

In December 2022 he found he was sick. In June 2023, he stopped treatment because I was told the ineffective treatment was making him sicker than the disease itself.

He was depressed, sad, and refused to meet anybody. I didn't even know from him. I was told by my friend behind his back. He did not want anybody to know and refused to see anybody. 

I was hoping I could see him one last time.

It never happened.

We drifted apart after our path diverged after Form 6, but he remained a close friend.

I shed my tears I hadn't been shedding for years. I couldn't attend his funeral while I was in another country.

Rest in peace, my dear friend. I hope, wherever you are now, you'll get to rest and have peace. I hope you're surrounded by love and bliss, something you're very much well deserved of.