Saturday, July 28, 2007

Sometimes i just hate doing on call duties over the weekend. It's like you lose your freedom for the two days and just stayed home to wait for my handphone to ring. As an aquarius, i really hate the feeling of losing my freedom. However, that's my job. I make the choice so nothing i should be complaining about.

Had another Ultrasound pelvis yesterday. Looks like i really need to make an appointment with the doctor. Hopefully it is nothing really serious. =P i could not tell from the scans what could it be as i dun have pain or discomfort all this while. This should be considered incident findings as for my past previous scans only reveal thickening of the endometrium, we could not see the echogenic "thing" in there till yesterday. Let's see how it looks like after 5 days. Anyway, by then i should be able to find time to make appointment for consultation as all my on calls duties would be done by the end of next week. So i have so many other medical appointments to be arranged. First will be to the gynae, then next will have to check out my spine problem and then dental appoinment to fix my wisdom tooth. Hmmm looks like i am going to burn a rather big portion of my bonus. well what to do .... health problems really surfaced as u aged.

My 64 slices ct machine was completed and i am supposed to work on my own over there next week. Another stressful week working with all the consultants. hopefully my three day on call during the week will not make the situation worse. At least, i have already get the hand of creating my 3d image of the heart, getting faster and faster from the first day to the third day of training. Good luck to me next week manz !!!

10:40 AM
Caris

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

i would like to congratulate myself for obtaining my driving license today. It was less scary than the first and second attempt but still felt very nervous during the test. Every item cleared, my heart would silently go "Phew". Finally, i could say byes byes to all the driving lessons and headache over driving schedules. Finally, i could look into other things in my life which i would like to pursue. Well, it's another round of brainstorming on what to do next after my driving license. Think i need to study the excel and VBA again. only then i could start to do something for the roster committee.

For now, i could not plan anything coz i need to wait for news from States as my grandma was admitted to ER yesterday with heart failure. Currently, she was still struggling waiting for test results. If her conditions worsen, i might need to plan a urgent trip there with my mum. By hook or by crook, i am going fly my mum there. No matter what. Dun wish to add on another regrets in her life since that's her mum and my grandma. Hope she would pull through. =)

10:31 PM
Caris

Sunday, July 22, 2007

It's sunday again. Why do weekends always pass by so fast?

Had a gathering over at Ed's place on saturday. We had steamboat. Although i was late, did not really catch up with them, at least the others had some sharing sessions before i came. Should be pretty good. It is not easy for us to have such gatherings as we get older especially when we started to have our own families. Ha ha hopefully such gatherings will continue on forever. We should start to cherish such long term friendship. Hard to come by in the modern selfish world we live in. Good Friends are whom we could depend upon besides family.

Now i am cracking my head over the excel. It has been a long time since i meddled with it. There's some functions i could not remember how to get it work. Attempted so many times, still failed. And the worst thing is that i did not have my past reports anymore. All my references gone!!!! Damn sad !!!! ha ha



10:27 PM
Caris

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Started going my ct on call duties this week instead of next weekend. It was indeed pretty tired to wake up in the middle of the night and make my way down for the scans. However, it was pretty exciting to get myself out of the sleeping mode and forced myself to concentrate for the scans. There was no such problems before 12 midnight. That's a bit difficult when you have to perform scans in the middle of the night. However, i was surprised that my brain could still function well the following day. Hopefully, my calls for the next weekend would be good.

The CT manual Guide which i ordered last month, has finally delivered. Looks pretty decent and easy to understand. Maybe i should invest on another reference book in order to understand CT techniques better.

must try to catch more sleep over the weekend to prepare to for the day next week.

10:46 PM
Caris

Friday, July 13, 2007

Dim Sum Dollies Show was remarkably good. This was my first show since they first started putting up shows for the previous years. The puns and jokes they made were damn good. They slams the government in a rather diplomatic manner. Cons then pros were illustrated. This time it's about singapore history, from the discovery of Singapore to the current, from prince to samsui women to japanese occupation to convent gals to singapore gals ...ha ha ,,, had a good laugh. There were even primary schools kids watching the show. Initially, we were pretty worried about them. really scared that they would be noisy and all. luckily, they were not on our level. But they were not that bad. At least throughout the show, they dun make that much noise.

Finally, last day of IVU.... back to CT again.....

11:36 PM
Caris

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Harry Potter - The Order of the Phoenix was not as interesting and exciting as illustrated in the book. Nothing really very very exciting as before. Some of the exciting parts were not in the movie. Could be a bit better. However, i would still recommend others to watch the movie as movie could never be the same as the book. For those who have not read the book, it would be definitely an exciting movie to watch over the week end.

Not feeling happy these days ... pretend to be happy i think. Really .....


10:33 PM
Caris

Monday, July 09, 2007

Think i could finally declared that i have recovered from the Flu bug last week. Finally, i could work without bothering about my nose and the silly cough all day. Ha ha ...sounds like i am very eager to get on my feet to start working hard again.

Feel so damn good !!!!!

10:19 PM
Caris

Sunday, July 08, 2007

23rd April 2007

Finally the exhibition was over. We loitered around the exhibition hall for the entire day as we checked out from the hotel as we need to catch the plane to Paris after the exhibition. We prayed so hard for the smooth transportation of the furniture to the airport on time. Thankfully, we had that smoothly executed from the packing of the furniture, to get out of the hall and on the taxis and arrived at the airport within 2 hours. As we were going to spend our night at the airport since our flight was 420am in the morning. It's really cold out there. Luckily, there were others whom were with us over the night. We were worried that there would be no one except us at the airport. This is ridiculous right. However, when we arrived at Paris, both my bro and i dun have the intention to stay over at the Paris airport on our return date. The airport was too "open" and spacious for my liking. So we decided to catch the first train in the morning and made our way to the CDG airport when we departed from Paris four days later.

Paris was a nicer place to me than Italy. The food was so much more edible than Italy. However, my mum was not very happy with the budget hotel i booked. Nevertheless, it was the cheapest and the food was inexpensive around the hotel. We had grilled chicken and bread for dinner almost everyday. The jewish grilled chicken was delicious and cheap. After one day, the folks sort of settled in at the dilapidated hotel. Ha ha .... it's a pretty nice place except for the mattresses. Should consider changing them. Saw Mona Lisa portrait. She really smiled at you if u stared at her long enough. =) Need more time at the museum though. will definitely go back there again to tour the unfinished art pieces again.Paris disneyland was a bit small but it's a gal's dream. It's good for me to fulfil my dream once more. I still want to visit the disneyworld at orlando.

3:06 PM
Caris

Continuation of the Italy Paris Trip

19 April 2007

My Mum and i decided to venture out on our own. So we started out with the Duomo Church. It's a pity that they were doing some renovation on the exterior of the church. Hence, it did not project the magnificent images over the postcards. Its interior was very captivating. The coloured stainglass were simply magnificent. Just could not get my eyes of them. Too bad, i dun have a camera to capture what i saw there. However, even if i had the camera, i might not even capture that with the camera. I realised in Europe, the sculpture works were really something which draw most tourists attention apart from shopping. Every sculpture was great works of great artists of the past. It was simply amazing how they ever had that kind of patient and meticulous skills to crave every single precious pieces of art out of the stone.

Oh, most of the time we had to spent a substantial amount of time looking for free of charge toilets which were very rare in Italy or rather in any other places in Europe. Think each visit to the paid toilet cost about 1 EURO dollar. This was considered expensive right. Finally, we found one open to public free of charge toilet in the bookshop.

My mum missed my bro so we hopped on the metro train and went to exhibition hall. It's hot dog bun for dinner again. Looking at his furniture, that reminded me of how we are going to transport the furniture back to the airport and depart for Paris about 3 days later. That would required another round of strategy planning.

While we were there, i quarrelled with mum over the freebies bag again. Although it was obvious that everyone else went over to get more than one bag, we dun have to do that right especially we already had one each. i just refused to get another one for someone else. Of course, she started giving me black face and calling me coward as usual. i just turned a deaf ear to her scoldings and continued on with my other stuff. Well, my mum just could not get enough of the scolding, i still got a earful on the way back and till the night. What had i got myself into?

As usual, we went back to the hotel and bought pizza, banana and red oranges for dinner.

20 April 2007

We met up with Bro and gf for dinner at Duomo region. It's amazing how my dream become reality. i had dreamt of the burger king setting in my dreams before i went to Italy. Imagine even the details such as this particular guy sitting at particular table and his companion. Not only that , the outdoor restaurant we celebrated my mum's birthday at Verona, the airport, the hotel room episode, the arrival to Florence, the couple we met at the bus stop, the searching for hotel at Florence.... All these dreams had sort of prepared me for the trip. They sort of warned me that my coming trip would not be a smooth journey and because of the dreams, i dun really panic when met with difficulties. You would not believe that even the changing room on the van at the morning market was part of my dream too. Oh my ..... i do had some special "power" right ?


21 April 2007

It's finally weekend. Went to another street market at Papinoma just outside S. Augustion Metro station. It's supposed to be a fashion wear market. However, the fashion displayed at the market was not very impressive. I think only the shops over at Duomo were considered up to fashion but expensive. Other than that, nothing seems to be impressive. No wonder i dun find anything interesting. After roaming about the area, we went back to the Centrale to make hotel reservation for the last day before we fly back to singapore. However, the hotel reservation booth was not opened and i was told that the service would commence at around 11am. So i waited and waited, it was past 12pm and the booth was still closed. So we went somewhere else and made our way back there later. It was finally opened for business but he dun entertained those who were looking for budget hotel like us. What's this , isn't that what information counters do for tourists. Utterly pissed off.

The flowers in Italy were really nice. It's a pity that we could not grow them in our hot climate. if not i would have buy the seeds back to cultivate.

The culture here is too laid back for my liking. Their PC knowledge was the worst. I really cannot stand the fact that only guys knows how to operate the PCs and knew how to connect to internet. THe gals over at my hotel knows nothing about internet and computers even the younger ones. I was like duh,........ If only i could read italian ,, i would have make the connection on my own. Italy is not going to be a place option which i would consider if i want to venture outside singapore. Everything gets on my nerve here.

2:29 PM
Caris

Went for circuit over at Eunos this morning. Darn... it was raining cats and dogs in the morning and i was almost drenched. Well, dunno who told me that the measurements of the circuit at Eunos is similar to the one over at BBDC. That's not very true. Anyway, just went there for practise. No harm since the traffic condition over there was heavier, i was forced to drive slower and more cautiously.

In the evening, attended Soka 40th Anniversary celebration held at Indoor Stadium. They spent almost one good hour having speeches and prize presentations. i nearly fell asleep. sorry about that. The performance this year was not as good as the past years. In terms of variety, too many wu shu displays. Whenever i attended the soka activities, the members always show a happy face. Although i wasn't sure how genuine was that... i chose to believe that the happiness i saw was all from the bottom of their heart. They are real not pretentious. i remembered i always ask myself why i am always not happy. The actual fact is that i am happy to some extent when i dun think too much over some issues and just let the nature takes its own course. As long as i did that, i am happy. If i starts to ponder deeply over these issues, i will not be happy at all coz i could not find the answers to my questions. Just believe in what i believe in. don't think too in depth which tends to create confusion as well as unhappiness as goals were not attained.

12:22 AM
Caris

Friday, July 06, 2007
Sigh, i am on MC again after i had resumed work for two days. My nose was like dripping really badly yesterday evening. And i realised i started to make mistakes at work. This was horrible if i continue to work in this condition. So decided to visit my family GP again to check out my condition again. This time, it's not sore throat just my cold and gastric problems. Then again i decided to ask him about my "solid" lump above my clavicle region. He told me that he was pretty sure that it was my rotated rib. And it is rotated such a way that it is compressing on my nerve which explained the numbess over my right arm over the three weeks since i started my shift work again. It seems like i have to visit the spine specialist soon to have an assessment of the condition of my scoliosis. In the book, it dictates that scoliosis will not worsen in adulthood unless we get older in our forties. I am now in thirties,,,,, maybe mine aged faster than the average .... Damn it...

See how lah,,, wait for JCI week to be over first then settle my problem. Had to settle this quick so that i could go for my training at the end of the month without any other worries. Oh yes and my driving.... keeping my fingers crossed especially when i always falling sick before the test. This is really bad.

4:03 PM
Caris

Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Kudos to the film makers of Transformers !!!! They made the robots came to live.

Just came back from the cinema. Yes... watched the transformers. I just loved the show, the plot and the animations in the show. Almost every details fit in nicely and every moments just caught your undivided attention. It's exciting and just like the way everything was put together.

However, i thought they could give Optimus Prime a better design than that. I prefer the cartoon version compared to the movie's. Optimus Prime in the movie did not give that "kind and friendly" look rather messy in design. Could have done slightly better. Dun feel that he is the leader though except for his size. Can't Bubble Bee supposed to be a beatle car? I thought the beatle car parked beside him initially was supposed to be bubble bee at first. That's my favourite character in the cartoon. But he looks cool in the movie although it looked different. =)

At least, i could differentiate the good and the bad robots. ha ha ha the baddies were more fierce looking. All the action scenes were a bit fast paced. You could see only robots flipping here and there but cannot register what had happened in between. kinda lost for a second before catching up with the pace. Well, there's probably due to my slow reaction towards movements lah.....

Oh wonder if there's any possibilities that they could make movie out of cartoons, Mask as well? That would be awesome!!!!

11:06 PM
Caris

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

18 April 2007

Today is the sixth day of my journey in Italy. Everyone is tired and my mum was already in bed. We spent almost one whole day in the exhibition hall looking through the exhibits as well as going round collecting freebies. However, there's something i dun understand was that people were allowed to carry their cameras and taking pictures of the exhibits. Isn't this violation of rules and regulations. Some of the stuff were patented items. If they produced them else where, they would be sued . So funny ..... Anyway, my brother was one of the 3 singaporeans holding the booth at the exhibition. i must say this trip was an eye opener for me. But i still thinks that the organiser should have did a better planing for this event. Still a couple of hiccups here and there. Many passersby came by and sang praises over my bro's furnitures though. But my bro lacks was the gift of the gab. He is those typical designer whom have problems explaining his works..... yes and promoting his work will be a problem. Haha ,,, coz i am like him too,,, i dun like to talk ,, just like to work,,, ha ha ,,,,,

Mum and i had pizza again for dinner ..... we bought strawberries too.. The strawberries were juicy, sweet and delicious. The most important thing is cheap...... we just love it manz .. although the stall owner dun fancy asians, we had our fair share of racism in Italy.... they turned out pretty friendly after a while especially when they knew you know how to speak english and dun speak mandarin with the china accent. Sigh ,,,,,

4:28 PM
Caris

We bought the tickets to the first train from Florence to Milan on the 16th April. We checked out of our hotel around 530am and took a slow stroll to the main train station. It was about 10 minutes walk. The temperature was pretty low but was comfortable to walk out in the open. We waited for about 30 minutes before we could board the train. In the meantime, mum went to buy bread for our breakfast. As expected, since it was a monday morning, the train was pretty crowded. We had to share our cubicle with two other natives. Anyway, they looked decent and proper so we just slept our way through the 3 hours journey back to milan. The night before, my brother and i had talked about how we were to transport the furniture to the exhibition hall from the airport. So i was rehearsing the plan at the back of my head so that we could execute it once we arrived at Milan instead of wasting time arguing with my mum again. After a never ending 3 hour train ride, we were back in Milan. Immediately, we hopped on the metro and made our way to the airport to collect the furniture which were deposited at the airport earlier on. Then came a 45 mins train ride to the malpensa airport. Collected the furniture (a total of 5 boxes), we made our way to check out the taxis fare. Guess we were lucky, a lady driver helped us with the boxes and get one of the other driver to help out and before we knew, we were on our way to the exhibition hall. Along the way, i realized that the billing system was somehow similar to singapore. They too had a meter counter and the amount reflected. So that we dun get cheated. We safely sent the goods to the destination while my mum and i had to make our back to town to get the luggages which deposited at the central train stations before we left for verona so that we could check in at the hotel too while my bro and his gf stayed behind to set up the stall.

As the metro station was newly set up for the new exhibition hall, the auto fare machines were not working. Damn it... luckily for us, there were some kind souls whom shown me how to use the ancient one,,,so at least i got to learn how to get my tickets without patronizing the drink stall. Both of us were struggling with the luggages while making our way to the hotel. Then there was again need to walk for a distance. Mum was again upset with all the walking and weather was too hot as well. Milan supposed to be cold but it felt like summer was already here. WE finally checked in at the hotel but ran into issues with one of the rooms. i was not comfortable with the room which my mum and i were supposed to stay in. The room was so damn cramp that we kept knocking into each other. And it was very very hot and stuffy in there. What pissed me off most was the door. It took me quite a while to open the door while my bro's room, i only took a few seconds to open his door. Being superstitious, i decided to go along with my mum's ideal of changing the room. However, the receptionist could not speak a word of english , my mum insist that we changed the room so she refused to move her butt and parked herself at the main lobby until the owner returned. While i went out to get our dinner cum lunch at a pizza place about one street away. Bought some nice pizza back and finally could sit down and enjoy my food. We settled for the room at the ground floor. But there's no air con. They are so damn rigid over the policy that summer is not round the corner yet... there's will be no air con provided. Arghhh,,, felt like scolding them at their faces. It was pretty obvious that there was a change in climate, Yet they stick to the policy. Something to frown about when i was there.

We waited for my bro to come back since my stuff was with them..and theirs with me.. ha ha ,, so that begun my eight days stay in Milan..... which was a pretty boring part of the journey .


3:56 PM
Caris

Thought i should backdate my journal a bit as to record down my travel journals when i was away in Italy and Paris.

On 16 April 2007, we finally came back to Milan after we left for Verona , Venice and Florence for the past 2 days. Since we set foot in Milan, the trip was not as smooth as i thought it would be. Firstly, there were so many Murphy's Laws situations which were situations where u dun expect to go wrong , had went wrong. Simple tasks such as burning CDs, reservations of hotels etc turned out to be very tedious jobs. We begun the journey without much planning. Well, I did draw out a rough plan as to where to go for the first 2 days. But my younger brother just went ahead and screwed everything up by planning his intended trip instead. Guess by following his agenda, we stressed our dear mummy out. She was so worn out that all she enjoys most was to see the dogs taking a stroll with their owner out in the streets. That was the only time i ever caught her smiling. Other than that, she was practically expressionless. Verona was covered in less than two hours time of which we had to rush through our lunch and rushed back to catch our train to venice. Venice was covered just by the water route via the water transport. We took a short break by having a ice cream before we returned to get the tickets to Florence. By the time we arrived at Florence, it was almost 9pm. we missed the train to the main station so we had to take the bus to get to the main station. Anyway, since i had dreamed of this scenario before, i was not very flustered. Instead i tried very hard to remember what happened in my dream. I decided to follow the other asian couple whom was also in my dream. We did not know how to pay for the bus ride, so in the end we took a free ride to the main station. Then the search for the hotel was on for about one hour plus before we finally got two rooms in a 4 stars hotel. We went to a 3 stars one but the bathroom is outside the bedrooms. So my mum rejected it. The owner was like so damn furious with us . THat's an experience. 80 bucks per night with heater. What's more could we ask for especially when we are so tired already. Then came my blunder for misplacing my mastercard. It fell on the floor and was under my backpack. i could not find it in my wallet so i combed the entire room and my previous trace. For the moment, i really thought that i lost my credit card while buying pizza just now. Sigh,,,, so decided to cancel the card first. Then yes,,, ,i found my card while unpacking my backpack. By then, mum was so tired that she could not take her dinner and went to bed immediately. So we decided to stay in Florence till sunday and took the morning train back to Milan and started planning our route back to airport followed by the exhibition hall then the hotel.

All of us enjoyed our trip in florence though. We were kinda in the right place at the right time, get to shop at the day markets as well as the night ones . Although i found that the night ones were a bit more dangerous since they were supposed to be illegal. Just dun like the feeling of walking in the street at night. It just did not feel safe at all. That brought us back to the day we arrived at Florence, we were tired. With my heavy backpack, i wondered how i actually survived the journey so far, it was worse than my climbing trip at Mount KK the other time. Of course, nothing beats the warm water for bath. Our first night in Milan, there was no warm heater so we could bath since it was already midnight when we arrived at the hotel. And the temperature was simply too cold to our flavours. So the first night when we were in Florence, my mum insisted to have a good hotel. Really tai tai lor .. but what to do ... ha ha ,,,, shall talk about the rest of our adventure of transporting the furnitures to the exhibition hall later.

3:49 PM
Caris

Monday, July 02, 2007
i was down with flu since sunday. It started out with just a mild cold in friday afternoon. I thought it was just sensitive nose but it seems to go further slow drip to flu on sunday morning coupled with a very bad sore throat. As usual, i tried to self medication, consume my usual tablet for my throat inflammation and cold tablet. I was knocked out for the entire day but the sore throat did not seem to subside until later in the evening, i developed fever. That's something i dragged about coz once i developed fever, i would have to call in MC on monday. True enough, the fever did not subside by monday morning so i have to report sick for the day. Although the throat was less painful compared to sunday, the fever does not seem to go away and my body was aching all over. These sound bad so decided to go and see my GP. Again, he reminded me that my BP is slightly towards the low side. He gave me 2 days MC saying that i need to rest well if not i will be going around infecting my patients. Ha ha ,,,,, okay.... then i better sleep at home.

i hate sleeping at home doing nothing..... i wasn't as sick as yesterday. Just feeling giddy, cannot really sit still or stand for long. Maybe that's why my BP is so low.........

2:35 PM
Caris