Yet another call today .. feeling tired already, even before I start the day! Nothing very pressing to be done today, I think. Except ridiculous rubbish like the research project.
Finding myself very strapped for time, both for now, and the near future. If only the grad ceremony was pushed forward to 6pm instead ... now I'll have to rush around like mad, or even worse, may have to change plans completely. Parents have strictly forbidden me from driving there after a spate of crimes, Yx refused to take the shoddy-looking plane, which leaves me with only the coach - which starts leaving at 10.30pm. Maybe the ceremony will end at 9.30pm? That'll be the BEST case scenario. Most likely not.
Hmmm, once again, woke up with a stiff right shoulder.
Might end up pushing myself too hard this week - perhaps, I should just let others do the work. Yes, I think I shall. No point working myself to death, especially when those jobs are ABSOLUTELY not important.
Feeling really excited about this coming Friday, although I must survive Thursday night first. I dunno ... it might get boring. A load of people, booze, and pizza. No TV, minimal games. How interesting can it get? Hopefully, a glass or two of whiskey should get the party going. Hope the neighbours don't go crazy though!
Had a pretty unhappy day. Just trying to keep my mood up, and get things settled in the meantime. Wish I could just take a day off tomorrow - wake up to find myself puking torrential amounts of blood and with slime and pus dribbling down my nose, and declare myself ill perhaps!
Had violent imageries of myself going up to my boss from behind, beating the daylights out of him, then dumping his mangled and feebly-stirring body into one of those pushcarts they use for transporting warm food. Yes, it's the shocked reaction of that initial punch that made me smile. Oh dear. I'm so perverse. And yet, perverse thoughts are what keep me alive throughout the day. Maladaptive behavior, I know, I know.
The saddest part of a weekend call is that the entire weekend is burnt - you need to chalk up enough sleep on Friday night. Then Saturday is spent doing stuff at work, and you get home on Sunday around noon, then sleep the rest of Sunday away. Don't feel rested at all, before a new week starts. Only good thing is, payday's finally here, and there's still this Friday to look forward to.
Woke up with a fantastically sore back. For one moment I was lying in bed, puzzled - it just doesn't make sense, I was sleeping in a nice position. Then I remembered the CPR. Must have been quite a workout!
As usual, I'm starting off with a low on a weekend call. Actually, on any call, but it's just worse on weekends. Quite a number of songs are running through my head now actually, including One Less Bell To Answer (Barbara Streisand) and Time To Say Goodbye (Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli), but this one will definitely add nicely to the misery:
Nice thing was, I had a great chat on Skype last night. Been such a long long time, and Skype's quality is much better than any ICC you can buy.
Had a fucking shitty day today. First, 45 minutes of CPR is not fun AT ALL. Not least, when there's vomitus EVERYWHERE, and you can't possibly climb onto the bed to use take advantage of your torso's momentum. The anaesthetist was intubating, so the bed had to be raised. The end result - we were standing on tiptoe, trying to do CPR with the person at waist level.
Worst part was, the OTHER boss (the old man that never turns up more than twice a week) threw a fit at everyone today. All that, just because someone said that they were happy with all of us EXCEPT the boss. Honestly, can you expect anything else other than that, if we were the ones taking care of YOUR patient? In a specialty like this, you should have entered it knowing that your shelf life is going to be limited. Yes, especially when you're more adept at using your hands than your brains. It's time to let go. You've had your own fair share of the action, and I bet you don't need the money either. Although I wasn't directly implicated, I was angry and indignant. YOU mess up the patient with your old fogey brains and I dunno - shaky hands? And YOU don't turn up to see them personally, and now YOU are angry that someone has complained about no one else but you. Sure, you get updated over the phone and give "advice" (half of them useless) over the phone to my seniors, but how can you even dream about using that to justify that you actually take care of your own patients? By the same logic, perhaps I should just stay at home every damned day and call the nurses up each day to get updates and give advice. I don't think you deserve your dough. Bloody thick-skinned, thinking that people are DYING to be seen by you. Dying after being seen by you, more like.
And the level that people stoop down to, just to be rid of their own relatives. Utterly irresponsible family members. Doing stuff like Manchausen by proxy to try and extend their stay - i.e. they do not want to take the responsibility of caring for the very same people who have cared for them when they were hapless little kids. I feel ashamed for them, totally so. And there's such a thing as karma, trust me. Your own kids are going to do that to you one day, with you feeling still blissfully ignorant that you're unwanted, unloved, uncared for. Some of the people up there are really wimps. Treating the sick is, and should never have been, a service industry. It's a responsibility, and when you're well enough to be discharged from our care, you should just go. And if you're overstaying your welcome, the man of the house should have shown you out by any means, knowing full well that OTHERS need the board and care much more than you do. Stuff like, if you're not happy with the way things are done here, you're more than welcome to go somewhere else. Something firm, an ultimatum of sorts. But no. The wimp of the house tries to coo his way into getting into their good books instead. Honestly, if you were so into faking it out and sucking it up, you should have joined another profession instead.
OK, I've vented it out. That's just about half of the shit that came from today, but the rest is manageable. Tolerable.
Oh yah, Dopey - thanks for offering to help me collect my gown, but I've done it tonight already!! =D Muahahaha .. jumped ahead of the queue I suppose! It's really fun wearing that coarse, crude material and walking in front of the mirror in the Hall.
Time, for now. Have to collect the damn gown and do some stuff for people on Saturday, but I'll be on call! Seriously pissed off about it all. And we're given only 2 tickets for the thing. HELLO. The organisers obviously are so pathetic that they themselves have trouble finding 2 people to attend a ceremony, and expect others to be losers like them. Attended one last year, and unfortunately the entire thing was a rushed, poorly-organised fiasco. They seemingly have not given much thought to the event at all. As usual.
Feeling a little worried about driving into Malaysia for the holiday. It's not exactly 100% safe, and we will no doubt end up freaking tired at the end of the journey. Hmmm. We'll see.
Perhaps, people should just stop bitching about how "disabled" they are. I'm thinking about certain people am in contact with every single day. It's sad, when people can't wait to be rid of you.
Rapidly going broke, and next payday isn't even here yet!
Been a long while since I posted on the sad blog. Maybe I've given up on being too upset about things. Or more likely, since that blog is strictly not for work, I've been too consumed with work to worry about personal life. 2 more outstanding issues to settle at present, both limited by time and cash. Sick.
Moved by one of the nurses today, and I'm really grateful. There's a difference, when they normally "help" you to do stuff after they've bugged you for the umpteenth time and you don't do it, vs them asking you if you need help with the plug/bloods etc for new cases. I was seriously blown away. Good people do exist.
Now for the fish tank - the problem with cuttles is that they are pretty silly. They hide a lot, and it's easy to think that the tank is empty. Some of the feeder fish have disappeared, I'm hoping they became cuttlefish food instead of dying in the tank getting stuck somewhere.
The inevitable finally happened today, someone just broke down. I can feel for her. Girls that do survive become manly, and guys that make it through turn out to be jerks most of the time. It's a matter of survival.
Just got myself new entertainment, thanks to XW! It's this show called Britain's Got Talent, I just spent a huge load of time looking at all the clips and some are really quite amazing! Of course, there's also Simon Cowell, but he kinda mellowed down a bit. Manopause, perhaps.
Hmmm. I wonder if Big Brother's on youtube too? Muahahaha.
Woke up feeling slightly more cheerful today - just slightly, but it's a start. Today's got a pretty shit outlook, but we'll see. Its a shame, cos I've been getting very heart-warming messages from friends, and it's always so nice to receive ANY sms that's not work-related. Kind of gives you a moment of respite, that somewhere out there, someone else is still there for you.
Cuttlefish are doing well so far, I threw in a bunch of mollies for them to hunt down (mollies can survive in seawater as well). Hoping to have a final number of 6 cuttles, but they come by infrequently. Pretty short-lived as well, so I'm not sure what I'll do with the tank when they finally undergo senesence and die. That's the shitty thing about cephalopods - they grow, lay eggs, then die shortly after. Shame. Nautiluses would be amazing, but I doubt I could provide the right pressure and temperature for them.
Everything went wrong today - woke on the wrong side of the bed, I think. Somehow, people kept thinking that I'm sad. I'm not really. There isn't any reason to be sad, just a whole constellation of stuff that made it a bad day. And tonight, I actually told off a nurse - my first. You step on my toes, I'll wring your neck dry. Simple as that.
OK, had a talk with yx about my disastrous day and vented everything off.
Tank looking quite cloudy from calcium precipitates - I accidentally mixed the salt at too high a concentration, causing the calcium and whatever else to precipitate out.
The new look - no longer a classical reef shelf. It's looking awful now, I know - hopefully it'll take a month or two to mature and look better.
Went nuts over doing up the tank today, and I went with Option 3!! Yes, it's all very exciting. But when I say nuts, I really mean it - I now have 2 sharks in my house. Don't get excited yet.
Kicked off the day spectacularly by doing an 80% water change. This alone should be good evidence of the state of the tank before this. Nitrates were sky-high, and I didn't even dare to measure phosphate. So that was 3 hours of back-breaking work, transferring a total of almost 700 litres of water pail by pail. Freaking sick.
Finally with that done, it was time for the fun part. Rearranged the rockwork somewhat - it used to be 2 islands of rocks, but now I've filled in the middle portion so it's more or less a continuous wall instead. And went shopping for stuff to fill it up with. I came home with 4 different kinds of seaweed, 2 soft corals (1 of which was a bloody steal!!), 3 cuttlefish and 2 banded shark eggs. The developing sharks can be seen through the eggs, it's pretty cool actually. A really, really good excuse for me to get a bigger tank once they start growing a little! The cuttlefish are really something, the colour changing is worth an entire afternoon's watching. But one of them died for unknown reasons, I'm hoping the other 2 survive. Having some trouble thinking of what to feed them - I could do freshwater feeder guppies which they may or may not eat, or I could somehow go beachcombing and catch those crabs that hide under rocks.
Too tired to post up pics tonight, I'll update again in the morning.
Had too much rice wine last night during a Fathers' Day dinner with family, got home and collapsed on bed once again! Muahahaha. Apparently, David Tao was in the same Korean restaurant but he didn't come out of his private room before we left, so my sisters were somewhat disappointed. Was in a pretty crabby mood, and became highly critical of the staff. Oh dear. Bad bad bad. I didn't say or do anything of course, but was just feeling pissed.
Rice wine was great! Had 4 bowls of that stuff, wonder if I'll get food poisoning if I try to make it at home?
Dewi and XW. Man in grey behind is the irritating manager, who redeemed himself later.
I did collect the rainwater yesterday, but was way too lazy to start mixing the salt. Ended up blasting swing music in the room with Johnny Walker for company.
OH DEAR. I just saw something alarming - a surge! One of my wall sockets suddenly sparked, and I was just wondering if my eyes were going bonkers, when a rumble of thunder followed. Omg.
Anyway, back to the tank (you get the idea that I'm rambling and talking to no one in particular?) Had a good think about it, and still stuck as to what to do. Of course, I'm going the route of mending the old tank's water and restarting, but what do I want to do with this? Some choices:
1) The usual reef shelf habitat. Soft and hard corals, reef fish, tonnes of water circulation, maintaining water at 25C. High maintenance, as usual, but rewarding with all the polyps swaying around.
2) FOWLR (fish only with live rock) and maybe some hardy soft corals. I'm slightly irked by these tanks, however, since bare rocks are seriously ugly. But oooh - the fish I can keep! And most likely I wouldn't need such strict temperature control.
3) Something totally new - seagrass/offshore weed forest habitat. I'm rather keen to try this, I'm imagining seaweeds and algaes of different sorts and colours, the occasional hardy coral and some invertebrates. Maybe even a frogfish!! What's more, nutrient control will not be a problem with all the nitrogen fixation going on. Hmmm. Tempting. Would be perfect with seahorses, but their need to eat at least 2-3 times a day is seriously prohibitive.
Yeah, likely the weed forest! Yay. Now to do some online scouring for ideas.
Was in a sudden mood for the Shim Sham - good thing about it, it's a solo dance =D Goofing around in my own room instead. For those who are curious, here's a good wikipedia article about it - generally swing dancers do the shim sham nowadays, as do tap dancers .. but they kinda do it differently. Obviously the tap guys do their technical pitter-patter stuff, while swingers will do our swing moves as the emphasis instead. Found a nice video clip of the Dean Collins Shim Sham - I can't quite do this one, as the one I'm familiar with is the Frankie Manning version, but these 2 guys are obviously swingers. =p Quite like the joker on the left, he's funny!
Fast Swing Dancing
I miss dancing so much!! This is quite a nice clip, loads of lovely aerials and crazy dancing. I really don't see how these people can dance at this speed - it's possible, but I don't have the stamina to keep it up for more than a minute or so at this speed.
I like the punky-looking guy in the black t-shirt, he has some nice stuff up his sleeve.. never judge a book by it's cover? Although Yx will kill me if I led like that - his partner seriously has a lot of frame and counter-resistance to avoid having her arm yanked out.
Once again, an empty Saturday afternoon that's feeling a little wrong. Too much activity last night, which led to a sudden vacuum. Oh yes, there's the Fathers' Day dinner tonight. And oh shit, I forgot my sister's birthday present. ARGHHHHHHHHH.
It's raining hard, so gonna collect some rainwater. Time to change some water.
Had so much fun last night, I really didn't want to wake up to today. Yes, it actually was fun going out with colleagues that I see day in, day out, even 40+ hours at a stretch. And best of all, we were all so stretched out from work, little to no work was discussed at all last night ... excellent!
I guess every's tipped into the stress-relief mode - you know, like just before a major exam, when you become hyperactive, hyperexcitable, and every damn thing seems to be funny. And so we laughed, yelled, screeched and banged the table to the point where I think we might have been thrown out any moment. Plus, the good beer there helped! Topics of sex, libido, penile size, hunky men and hot women, and every other crude and profoundly taboo topic you can think of. Yes, beer is good.
Definitely will do this again. It really gives you something to look forward to at the end of a long day, and your mood gets infinitely better as the day creeps on towards 6pm. Next up: more parties, aiming at once every 2 weeks at least, and we plan to bring a bottle of liquor each and rotate through everyone's homes.
Just collapsed on bed and fell asleep - without washing up, without removing contacts - for a whole 10 hours.
Shame though, as Mariah (the previous help) came over today to celebrate XX's birthday. Brownie was having a field day - first with hugging and jumping at Mariah, then with eating all the meatballs for dinner. Feeling rather guilty, since I actually fell asleep before the cake-cutting and couldn't be roused at all. No, not even my lovely "Good Morning!" alarm clock could do the trick. Bought this cheap clock a month or so ago, which yells "Good Morning!" in a nice cheery tone when you deactivate the alarm.
In a shithole at work now, I have no seniors around AT ALL, and tonnes of people to take care of, plus a shitload of administrative work. Actually had to run clinics yesterday - yes, half-asleep - while nurses from the wards kept calling me regarding stuff. And I was soooooo sabotaged by a collague, haha ... someone that in my opinion was wrongly labelled as allergic to panadol, got a fever, and there I was STUCK. Can't give much for the fever, and had to risk diclofenac instead. I am pretty sure that's not an allergy.
So, I worked for a full 50 hours from Wed morning till last night. Was zombified by the time it was 4pm, and walking speed decreased to 50% at that time already.
Going for dinner tonight with colleagues!! =D Thank goodness for these things to look forward to - pretty lost in life right now, just getting through each day in a sort of monotonous way.
Going through the awful low moods associated with call days - this time, compounded by the fact that I'm going to have to work all the way to 6-7pm tomorrow because my colleague has gone on and leave, and I can't go home early to rest. Just hope that fate will be kind tonight, shall miss the naughty boy.
Went for practice tonight, and somehow, I really had loads of fun. For one, Debs revised the Bhangra steps using swing music, and it got me into the mood. Yx, if you're reading this - the next steps after the Flying Charlestons are very, very difficult!! But they look really good though, and very much less Bhangra-ish than the front part. After that, I had fun watching them practicing aerials, and as usual, Marky started clowning around. Had a nice talk with Kelvin as well - was very touched one day when he SMSed me to give me some encouragement, and today he offered to come down for lunch one day. Was very, very touched. Walked back to the dratted Fort Canning carpark feeling lighter than I had for days.
Wanted to write about something semi-serious in this entry, but thought the better of it. Next time, perhaps.
As usual, the sadder I get, the more rubbish I write.
Tonnes of rubbish admin stuff to do today, in addition to my already-packed life. Meeting supervisor in the morning, after a ridiculous phenomenon called "journal club" where people present a paper they've read (yes, I know - what's the point in that? What papers are relevant to you may not interest me at all. They need to try less hard to look sophisticated.) and in the evening, a meeting regarding the stupid research project.
Gleefully took a load of blood from someone, and didn't realise that the lid on one of the tubes was loose. So, as I was waving the tubes around, the whole load just splattered on the floor. There was this split second of stunned silence - me, my colleague, my senior, the patient. And the patient's little girl came trotting in, and omg. She started freaking out. Utterly embarassing.
Was a little tired, but still went for tonight's class. I participated a little (simply cos the girls were doing the transfer jump so horribly), and ended the night off with our usual big bouncy ball game. This time, it was Monkey. Shit. Now my inner thigh's aching. I know I'll regret it tomorrow - my real dance practice tomorrow night, followed by night call on Wed. Shit.
Hmm .. early morning wakenings. Psychomotor retardation. Bingeing. Sounds familiar, all over again. Will have just to get on with it - what else can I do? Pout? Scream and yell? Unfortunately, we've gone too far past the stage where we can get away with it by behaving like brats.
Eyes are a litle swollen now though - my body REFUSED point-blank to take a rest after I woke at 5am this morning. I tried to get back to sleep, fell into sleep for 10 minutes, and woke again. And again. And I gave up.
Took out some of the dead skeletons from the tank, after the wipeout episode. I have 2 options here:
1) Do a 100% water change, scrub out the rocks and rearrange them, run carbon,resins and polyfilters for a week. Then add tonnes of macroalgae and some easy soft corals and run a seaweed/seahorse/small fish ecosystem instead of a full-fledged reef slope.
2) Drain the water, "cook" the rocks, dump out most of the sand. Unscrew metal halides, wash out equipment, buy a new tank and start over again.
Actually, I have a third option, which is to just get rid of it and leave an empty space in the living room, in place of a hobby.
Some pictures, in no particular order, for no particular reason:
Antipasto set at Dome
Friday morning, together with Yx, Andrew and Clarice. Have a zombified photo, but it's really not flattering so I'm leaving that out for now.
Plunging V-necks and Glam Shades. We're all so psychotic, but I like it!
Not good. Sadness is definitely creeping in. It comes in bursts - then I'd find something distracting to do, sit down tired out at the end, and a second burst comes in. Soon, I keep telling myself.
Need to get out more, if I can! Anyone up for going out again? I shall scour the net for good places to chill out. Preferrably without giant football screens.
Just re-read my travel blog for Wisonsin, and felt like I was reliving the experience all over again. Really miss Giselle, wonder if she's still doing journalism in France. Would be great to have her over in Singapore some day - and we did make a promise to her regarding one special day when I'd actually pay for her ticket.
Just spend 10 hours out with friends!! We did Kbox, and Alvin and I went nuts over Peggy Hsu's "White Wedding" - belting it out at 1 octave higher than Peggy Hsu herself was no joke. Vocal cords almost snapped in half. Also took videos of WJ the Bitch singing some very, VERY amusing songs, like "San1 Nian" (3 years) by Fei Yu Qing, complete with accompanying gestures. And of course, Monty tried to kill us all by placing several crazy high-pitched songs back-to-back. Hah .. been a long, long, long, long time!
Chun and 2 other friends joined us a little later, and we ate at this chinese restaurant, Imperial something. Never going there again - too much MSG! Food wasn't bad though, just that I'm still thirsty hours after the meal.
Made a huge detour over to Bras Besah Complex for ... Mac's! =p Hahahahaha.
Learnt about some pretty alarming updates tonight though. Seriously alarming. Like one of our friends is probably getting engaged this year. It's just that somehow, I never saw this day coming, when friends our age actually get engaged. Apparently, a fellow colleague from my batch also popped the question. I'm quite amazed by these people, by their confidence. And most of all - where do they get the $$ from? You've got to buy the ring, the fleurs, and a tonne of other things. Simply amazing.
Meddled around with the blog template - third change, so far, but this is a temporary edition I guess. Was in the mood for it. It'll stay till the countdown reaches 0 at least, but if you like this better than the previous one, let me know!
To start off this first post on the new template, here's a really apt song by Celine. One of my favs actually, the melody and singing are really quite touching.
If ever a boy stood on the moon All the heavens would call their angels 'round Stop the tears from troubled skies from Falling...falling...falling.
If ever the river could whisper your name, Would the choices you made still be the same? Like a flower that dies from angry rain, Why do we hurt ourselves?
Where is the love that lets the sunlight in to start again? The love that sees no color lines? Life begins with love, So spread your wings & fly, Guide your spirit safe & sheltered, A thousand dreams that we can still believe.
If ever a boy stood on the moon, Carrying all of his treasures from the stars To a rainbow which leads to where we are, Together we'd chase the sun.
Where is the love that lifts my brother's voice to the skies? The love that answers a mother's cry? Life begins with love, So spread your wings & fly, Guide your spirit safe & sheltered. A thousand dreams that we can still believe.
A boy stood on the moon The ancient souls can still discover A thousand dreams that we can still believe That we can still believe We can still believe We can still believe
Free days feel oddly empty now. I'm starting to wonder why I'm taking this so hard.
Spent today giving the car a new coat - did a thorough shampooing in the morning (and took a break for prawn noodles with family after), then returned to put a layer of acrylic paint sealant, and left it to dry for an hour.
In the meantime, I trooped down to the fish store with XW to get supplies for her fish tank - the poor girl killed ALL her neon tetras within half an hour. Ended up with 2 plants and several guppies instead, and we picked up a few sea almond leaves on the way home as well.
Came home to find the sealant all cured, and applied a final layer of wax to the car. Looks all nice and shiny now, but it's freakishly hard work.
Vaguely thinking about doing a new template for this blog.
****
Had some respite just now, went for dance practice. But once again, came home feeling all empty. And I realised - probably far too late - that I have always lived in a silent world.
1 month of driving home alone, of talking to Brownie instead about every shitty thing that happens to me in the day, of wondering how long I can really last before the Code Blue team attends to me, of questioning why I'm not more resilient.
And I was reminded during a conversation, with a tiny little pang of sadness, that many of those of the Order of Nightingale are here in a foreign country alone and that sometimes they cry, yearning for their families. I wondered who they go home to after work, and how I would have done, had I been in their shoes. I had a taste of it last May - a mere 4 weeks of it - and it wasn't pleasant even without nastiness happening. Some of them had aspirations, dreams, and being here is sometimes just an interim means of getting by because they had opportunities lost to them.
We have to count our blessings, sometimes. It's true - they get MUCH less shit than we do (figuratively, of course), frequent and probably compulsory breaks, sometimes a little more pay than us and 2 days off after a night shift. I admit that I have my grudges sometimes - and I have even blacklisted some, and categorised them .. there IS a general trend, according to where they came from, but even then there are always black sheep in every herd. Sometimes, if the luxury of time comes by, or when you're waiting outside the CT rooms accompanying a DIL case, take a little time off yourself. Have some real conversation, and you'll learn about the Spanish conquest, of the flora and fauna, of the sunset over Sibu. We're all just innocent victims of institutionalisation, all struggling in our own little ways to make it through the day.
****
Enjoying my very short break so far - had a go at polishing the car, it actually didn't make much of a difference visually, but it felt so smooth and creamy I had difficulty taking my paws off the car. Got my haircut done as well, and did a tad of automobile accessory shopping at the very excellent DIY store in Vivocity basement 2. Fixed up part of the garden as well.
Sad day tomorrow morning, but maybe I'll get past that.
Another 14 hours or so to go, before I get a good break. Once again, gotta go early today as we were on take last night and the list probably exploded. My thanks go to a colleague who took over my call last night - well, she had her own agenda as well, so I guess it's a win-win. Got highly irritated by my boss last evening though. It was 6.15pm, and I had a couple more things to finish up before trotting off home. Then, he called, saying let's go for drinks. I'm not begrudging that he didn't pay for the drinks, more like - HELLO?? I wanna go home.
The sleep debt's getting real bad, and I'm worried I might not last the day. Been getting very frequent episodes of heart block these 2 weeks while at work, it's probably the stress.
Shall down tonnes of coffee today so I won't fall asleep tonight. The hours leading up to Friday are all too precious to waste on sleep.
Got asked a couple of amusing questions by Marky during the dance class last night, where Yx was teaching:
"OMG, why do you look so tired? Are your eyes always like that??"
Tired of explaining, lol. So I just smiled. Been having daydreams about being suspended in animation, in a glass tank full of some cool, soothing colloidal material and just be weightless, unconscious, and detached from the world.
It was fun at the end though - Mark, Yx, Roger and I sat on one of those big, bouncy exercise balls each, and bounced around playing catch. Yes, I know - it just gets worse every week, last Mon we did the Shim Sham while sitting on those balls.
****
Sulking after a bath. An old photo, but you get the idea.
Feeling a little ill this morning - the little boy was behaving most oddly last night, climbing onto me and staring right into my face, with his ears held flat. He was scared about something, I think, and refused to come back into my room after I opened the door for him. Left me feeling very uneasy about my own room, for some reason, but later I carried him back and he was alright then. Very. very strange.
I MUST find some pills or something to make sure the sleep goes all the way - there just isn't any point in having a proper Sunday if I keep waking up at odd hours of the night!
Watched Pirates on Saturday, it was unexpectedly good. My only gripes about it are 1) The lengthy scenes of his hallucinations/daydreams/whatever that was about stones turning into crabs, and 2) the evil Englishman, who was strolling along the ship all suave and composed while shards of wood from the ship flew all around - and not a splinter, not even one, cut him. Rolled my eyes at nobody in particular at that point in time.
Since I was down at JP, bought a couple of clothes from the JL sale - would have carted away more, except that my meagre salary just can't support that kind of lifestyle.
Friday looms ever nearer, and I wonder what the week after would be like. Then again, I need to survive this week first.
Oddly, the baby mantids haven't hatched yet! Lay out bananas to trap Drosophila and bought some crickets today to breed for baby crickets, just in case the mantids decide to pop out. Some pics of the ootheca!
That's the mommy mantid standing near the ootheca. She's getting fatter now, I really hope she lays a second egg case soon.
Closeup of the ootheca. The babies will hatch out, dangle upside down, and finally start crawling around, eating their own siblings first.
Eventful day at work. Eventful, not pleasant. Had to get used to new people, and I realised that I miss the old guys who were a tonne more fun. And then there was the telling-off about 2 of us appearing in the OT at the same time - like you won't tell us off anyway, if just one of us appeared. The whole team staring at me while I took an ABG. And not knowing how to order histology online. And the final bit - clading myself in steel while asking stony-faced for leave next week.
Feels awful.
And a lot of soul-searching after Mac's last night. Mac's, I realised, is too full of normal, free-from-troubles weekenders on Fri night.
It's starting all over again today. Changing to a new set of people to get to know, a new set of bosses, and new quirks to get used to. I suppose it's true that I resist change - who doesn't? The few people I talked to yesterday, all wished they could stay where they are. Just when you are starting to get comfortable at the things you do, they whisk you off to start all over again, to be an infant at the job all over again. Can't help but feel apprehensive about what's to come, especially when the boss apparently has male PMS.
Previous people in the team passed on their cases to me, but I'm feeling awfully inadequate right now, and I doubt I can remember the cases.
Well, as Yx and Monty say, 1 month down, 11 more to go.
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Fish tank is in a state of disaster right now, I won't even attempt to post pics. The gist of it is, the nitrogen cycle is starting all over again in the tank, ammonia (I didn't test it) should be climbing up right now. It'll take another 2-3 months before the tank is fit for anything to be put into. Thinking vaguely about tearing it down, and either buying a new tank (monetary issues here), or restart this old tank, or just tearing it down and forgetting about it until we move into the new place (can't quite bear to do it, but this admittedly is so far the best solution, given my VERY limited leisure time now)
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Spent yesterday evening scouring Sim Lim for Yx's notebook RAM - we upped it by 512MB, should run great now! Didn't really buy anything, it's more of eye-candy stuff. Especially those digital picture frames that cost hundreds ... tempting, but when you give it a think (and remember your frightful bank balance), it just doesn't make sense at all.
We tried to get down to Basil Alcove again since it's nearby, but alas! It's down for renovation now. Ended up at Dome again, but we tried the Italian menu this time. Surprisingly, the antipasto set turned out pretty good, as did the orange sauce chicken thigh. 2 stray cats kept harrassing us though - so much for dining alfresco in hot, humid Singapore!
Finally going to watch Pirates on Sat, really looking forward to it.
