Farewells~

I am terribly bad at farewells somehow.

Well, let’s jus say that in every farewell event I can never actually say good-bye properly.

For example, when Leena was going off to Australia sometime ago, me, my brother and Daniel were around 10-15 minutes late (unfortunately due to last minute work), which ended up that she left before we could even give her the CD containing pictures and stuff and saying a simple good-bye.

Then there was this other time when Khar Wee was going to migrate to UK and all I said was: “Oh, okay, all the best over there…” And some other basic lines where one says to another friend when he or she is going home from school. Brr, rather cold now I think of it.

And if teacher Pei Yiing and Daniel Mok did not say: “Harh, just like that only ah?” I would actually just say: “Oh, okay, bye then” on the last Sunday before Joyce went off to study, without continuing any other conversation.

Not forgetting the fact that since I was admitted to the hospital, I couldn’t give a proper farewell to Jane and all my other classmates that went overseas to further their studies, bah~

There was also this time when a primary school friend of mine transferred to another school and I did not say good-bye because I skipped school for the last week to go on a holiday with my family, and I never saw her since.

Perhaps one of the reason why I am terribly bad at farewells would be the fact that I always think I can see them again somehow, someday, somewhere. In my heart it is always like: “one year only mah… later holiday sure come back also wert…” I take things for granted too much I guess.

Ha-ha, and maybe that’s why this year I was planning to go to Australia to study quietly without telling anyone so that I wouldn’t need to bother with all the farewell stuff. But guess my plan was foiled though because of ‘unforeseen circumstances’. Well, unforeseen by human eyes that is.

But then again, if the person remembers you, then it really isn’t farewell I guess, for the person still stays in your memories and yours in his or hers. The worst part would be the fact that after the good-bye event the person actually forgets about you and knows nothing when you introduced yourself again. That’s what happened to the primary school friend, after 5 years when I finally manage to get in contact, the person completely has no memory of me, woah kay…

Thank God that He remembers us and never changes. Thinking back, I feel really guilty because when I am having so much fun and when things are just going so well, I tend to forget about God and put much of the emphasis on myself, me, me, and me. Yeah, maybe there’s the occasional thank God events but after a few minutes you focus on your own joy again. It’s really ironic that only when we are suffering that we will remember God and look up to Him the most, and that’s because we need His help then. Human’s natural behavior I guess, only looking out for ourselves. But God isn’t like us, for He still remembers us all the time because He loves us so, so very much.

Last of the Reds

Ah, just got back from another round of chemotherapy. I think this would be the last of the red ones today, although I guess I won't actually miss it ha-ha, who misses medicines man.

Okay, I must admit the reason why I am writing my blog now instead of being lazy is because I am having the problem of not being able to sleep again, side-effects of the chemotherapy, thank God it only last one day though. It's like my body is super tired, but my brain doesn't want to rest, kept dreaming of weird stuff, for instance, I was dreaming that I went to Holiday Villa for some event and wanted to park my car at the parking basement. Then there was this attendant at the bottom that told me that I can't park in level 1 or 2 but needed to park the car at the level 3 basement. Whoa Kay, easier said than done, after driving endlessly I can't seem to find a ramp going down to level 3, I can see the level 3 basement, but no way to go down. And there I was spinning round and round the parking lot till I give up and woke up, bah~ Should have done that earlier instead of wasting my time in a... dream? And there were many other irritating repeating dreams, you know, those that kind of loop non-stop and you hope you just wake up, for it's like watching endless re-runs of a terrible movies.

Oh, before I forget, got to thank my cousin Ah Ching Jie Jie so much, for the unlimited supply of Archie comics (which makes me start to wonder how in the world she manages to stack those lorry bundles of Archies in her house) and the whole season of Friends, which I know will keep me accompany and bring lots of joyous laughter for a long time. Will be saving it to watch during the 1 month period I would be staying in the hospital though, for I don't think I would be able to touch the computer then, knowing how strong that treatment would be on me.

Which makes me wonder how in the world am I actually going to survive the 1 month long treatment in the hospital. Just being in the hospital room now makes me feeling nausea and now I don't even have to stay in there for a day yet, just barely a few hours. Really needs God's strength to help me survive during that time, especially knowing how terrible it would be with the blue chemotherapy, ouchies, would make me go crazy just thinking about it. Well, the good thing of going to the hospital so often now is that I am about to have an immunity to needles soon, since I am having my blood check every other week and putting a chemo-pod every now and then which is becoming a daily routine. Although now I am actually trying to force myself to see the needle going in though, just not use to see something pricking in.

Ha-ha, was just complaining to my mom on why she cooks good food on the day I can't actually eat much food because of the chemotherapy. The fried chicken is just soooooo tempting. But I know that if I ate it I am going to suffer indigestion like for the whole night, so thank God I manage to resist this time around, ha-ha. It's like for all the previous time I had this chemo I told myself not to eat heavy food, I said I will not make the same mistake, but each time I see the good food on the table I just can't seem to resist and gobble everything to my heart's content, only to suffer later, ha-ha. Well, at least this time around I manage not to take the chicken, and also another time where I just ate bread because I felt too sick, so that's like 2 out of 8 I think. 25%... still failed the test, bah~ Hmmm, maybe that’s why we can’t really blame Eve for being tempted and taking the fruit, just one fried chicken I also cannot tahan already, what more some fruit that taste and look so good and will give you wisdom.

Oh yeah, got to thank God that now I only need to take 5 steroid pills a day instead of the usual 10, that would save me lots of time and trouble trying to take the pills after meals. Funny thing is, the doctor told me to take half from what I was taking, which is 5, but yet in his medicine prescription it says to eat 5 after breakfast and 5 after dinner, with simple calculations, that’s 10. Then there’s his nurses that says I should eat it for alternate days, which is 10 in 2 days, well, if you divide the pills by the days it would be 5 a day, but wouldn’t the pill effect actually vanish the next day if I take it alternately? I mean, I need the pills to prevent joint pains, unless the effect last for 2 days then I would listen to the nurse, but common sense tells me to take 5 a day as I don’t think the effect could last that long. So which of them is telling the right thing now?

Hmm, guess that’s all for now, all in all, thank God that I could come home and rest instead of staying there in the hospital. Need to enjoy every blessing that He gives me.

No short-cuts

Okay, decorating a blog site is no easy job, which made me think why in the world did I actually imagined to become a computer programmer or engineer during form one. Maybe I thought playing computer games and doing coding and programming were equally fun, but now I know it’s not… that kind of work gives me a terrible headache instead, ha-ha.

Many thanks to a guy or erm girl nicknamed PsyCho, which I have no idea who he or she is, but manage to fell upon this guy’s site that makes the entire html coding and gibberish language to decorate the site much easier as he made a really good interface to do what you just need to do to decorate the site. This totally eliminates the need to actually understand the Greek language of coding which is totally good, why didn’t anyone think of that? All I just need to do is click around and viola… completion!

Bah~ If it only was that easy.

But no… the site says you can make a normal looking site look a little more professional in less than 10 minutes through his interface. So I was like okay… I guess one hour will do for me… but it took me 5 hours to complete that entire thing. Okay, maybe I am just too ‘duh’ on coding and decorating backgrounds that’s why. Cause’ it took me ages just to figure out how to put a tag board, which I got it from Tracey’s site and a site counter which I took it from Joshua’s blog to put on my site. It took me many trials and errors to only have both those things situated where I want it to be.

And no… it wasn’t over yet.

The next day, my friend Kam Tong told me my tag board was at the bottom of the page even with the screen maximize =.= . WOah kay, I was sure if I had my screen maximized it would have perfectly fitted in one row… scratching my head, I figured out that’s the bad advantage of having a 19 inch screen, as mine could fit everything while his couldn’t. So I tried tweaking the code blindly and manage to end up with some positive results after many many tries, which I think Kam Tong must also be kind of frustrated especially since I needed him to check again and again how it was on his screen. So for all those 15 inch monitor people, thank Kam Tong that everything could fit perfectly in the screen now when it is maximized ha-ha. (Then again, for those less than 15 inch screen people, sorry lah, tag board at the bottom I guess, ha-ha)

Still, there are many room for improvements, like putting in wrong addresses on my links and how some fonts could only appear on my screen but while I check my blog on my brother’s computer the font becomes Ariel black instead of the original ‘croobie’ font that I put. But I think I will just leave that aside as it will be too much of a hassle just to figure it out, ha-ha.

But this ultimately reminds me that nothing good can actually come out from short-cuts. Just like Zhi-Yong said in his blog before, that many of us try to be like streams of water, always trying to find the easy way out of things. But truth is if you want something to turn out right, everything must be done the hard way. Well, maybe we can do things more efficiently to make things easier, but still to achieve desired results one must work hard to obtain it. Sometimes I hope it isn’t so, that way I don’t need to practice by doing things over and over again just to be good at it. But even Jesus Himself said that narrow is the way that leads to eternal life, ha-ha. So, that ultimately says it, no short-cuts even in our spiritual life.

On a side note, this few days I have been trying to recollect my memories. Was really glad that I manage to reconfirm one of my oldest memories with a friend… without having the need to face the embarrassment of knowing that it did not happened or I just made it up somehow, phew. Arghh, realized that as I get older I can’t differentiate between a dream and a memory inside my head, getting mixed up all inside there, ha-ha. Or perhaps the chemotherapy has put some permanent damage to my head?

Well, okay, God really has been incredibly good to me as I could relax most of the days at home, for this time treatment isn’t that heavy. Perhaps a little indigestion here and there, getting tired easily but still not too bad ha-ha. Thank God in every circumstances right? Oh yeah, another thing to thank God for would be the fact that I ‘couldn’t sleep’ during the time I was trying to decorate the new blog, ha-ha, otherwise I would never have it completed, being the super lazy me. And… speaking of being lazy, thank God that I was getting lazy to blog at the later stages otherwise I would have a tough time trying to shift my previous post one by one manually to the new site… why wouldn’t they just give some special function to shift everything automatically? And…

Okay, maybe I should just stop here, for if I want to thank God for everything, even a sea of ink would go dry as they say, ha-ha, for God really is good, all the time.

Completion!

Ah, finally!!!! FInally my task of decorating the site is complete, took me ages -_-...

Well, wanted to shift because my other blog doesnt provide as many services as good as this one i guess, keke! And i can't upload photos too, sob~

Alright, it's time i deserve my rest now... niteyz

Reunion

Yawn… was so sleepy in the morning that I wanted to ‘ponteng’ my chemotherapy today. Knowing that it is impossible, I had no choice but to wait for the dreaded call of my mom to wake me up. But… to my surprise, instead of the usual yelling, she somehow miraculously said that the appointment was tomorrow because last week I did the LP procedure on Tuesday, so the doctor said I needed one more day of rest. Okay, that was one of the best wake up calls since school days, where most of the time it goes: “Faster wake up, you’re already 15 minutes late!” Really thank God for all these little blessings, ha-ha. (Makes me sound like God’s blessing comes in different packages both big and small, ha-ha, in all things give thanks I guess)

But ‘ponteng-ing’ today, somehow makes me feel I am once again procrastinating my so called ‘work’ that I should have done, ha-ha.

Well, another thing I really need to thank God for is the ability and the opportunity to go for my high school class gathering last Saturday. It was really good to be able to see all those familiar faces and talk about those old times we had in school as well as the things we are currently doing now, which, in this case was mostly about where they’re studying, are they going overseas or how were they doing studying overseas, etc. and honestly it kind of got dull just asking that same question over and over again. So, guess I better restrict myself from asking that the next time I meet them.

Okay, and before I continue, just got to give a round of applause and a big shout of THANKS!!! to Rahayu, our PKT (penolong ketua tingkatan, in case you don’t what that means) that organized this whole thing. I know it really isn’t easy to call up and gather all 30++ hooligans to meet up on one day. Oh, and not to forget the hassle to make reservations at Shogun, which served really good Japanese food I must say and the variety is just too much to handle.

One thing about this gathering is that every one of us still looked the same as we were back then during high school. Maybe that’s because all of us stop growing, ha-ha, unlike those primary school reunions where a shorty you remembered could suddenly become some giant the next time you meet him. Well, there are some minor differences; some of us changed our hairstyle, like for me I turned mine to bald, ha-ha. But other than that, most of them were still very like them both inwardly and outwardly which brings back some nostalgic memories. There is this one thing that always amazes me though, the fact that most of my friends could now drive around freely. For those that are really alert I wouldn’t mind, but for those who I know as being super blur and careless being able to drive is like, woah! Is seems like every one has reached a new level. But guess I can’t say much about them though, as I am a much more super lousy driver, ha-ha.

Oooo and I finally manage to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2! Man, I just got to watch the sequel after watching it 6++ times in the hospital on both Disney channel and Star Movies. At least now I am finally relieved from the questions that I had from the first movie, as most of them got answered, but in return, I just can’t seem to wait for the third sequel to be out as the suspense is killing me! Bah~

Ha-ha, guess I really got to thank God for that beautiful day, where I could hang out in 1-Utama for half a day and catch up with my friends. I can say that was the first time I walk around with my wallet in hand this whole year, which means my first outing, woo-hoo!

Okay, guess I got to go now, need to rest before I start my ‘work’ tomorrow in the hospital!

All things well...

Ah, how I hope that there’s some kind of machine that could automatically jot down what your mind thinks into words.

That’s because most of the time when I am about to go to sleep on my bed will I think of many “inspirational stuff” to write on my blog. While on the other hand, most of the time when I on the computer and want to seriously start writing the things that were on my head, these “inspirational stuff” would so conveniently and mysteriously disappears out of my mind. Bah~


So, anyways, really thank God for the four weeks break that I had, although it kind of shocked me when my mom told me that the doctor gave me such a long break, as it feels like something is horribly wrong and out of place. That’s what happens when you go to the hospital too often I guess.

The break was really refreshing as I could finally go to other places besides my house, and mingle with all my cousins and relatives once again during my cousin’s wedding, having the opportunity to wear a suit and take many “friendster photo” moments with them (although I seriously look like a ghost… nah, princess seems more like it, with my skin so fair), not to forget that elder brother came back, too, which means more games and fun… yay!

But, I guess all good things come to an end eventually. And now I am undergoing the same treatment I had the first time I got admitted to the hospital… taking the red chemo-drug. Well, I really need to thank God during the first time I had this treatment as it was really easy going, I only had the nausea feeling a day or two (and sometimes completely nothing at all) after the chemo went in and later I would be okay. The only thing that scares me was the duration as the protocol indicated that I needed to stay at least month.

Phew, how relieve was I to hear the doctor say I could go home immediately after the red chemo-drug has been flowed into my body. Go home on the same day I have the treatment? Praise the Lord! Ha-ha. The doctor said that last time I needed to stay in the hospital for a month was because my blood count went hay wired, my white and red cells drop too low and I got to be contained to be monitored and to prevent me from being infected by the dirty outside world, boo hoo. But at the end I decided to stay for a night at least just in case I got terribly nausea and needed to be readmitted. Now all I need to do is visit the doctor every week for one month to get the treatment, but I can go home just that day itself.

Woo-hoo! Guess God has been really gracious to me. Well, there’s one bad thing about this treatment, which is the fact that I need to eat 10 prednisolone pills (steroid pills) a day. (It’s used to kill some of the white cells and to prevent joint pains from the chemotherapy) If I could swallow the pills down really fast it wouldn’t be much of a problem, but the problem is most of the time these pills get stuck on my tongue and it tastes really bitter, ewww. And after a while I will get a really disfigured moon face and a black hole stomach because of the side effect of the pill. The black hole thingy isn’t that bad, as it makes me look forward to meals everyday, yummy. The moon face thing makes me look really like the moon… I guess… but at least that allows me to learn that looks isn’t important as it could just fade away just like that.

Which reminds me that I finally have my hair growing back again, yay, don’t need to look botak. But then again it’s going to drop on the next treatment when I get the blue chemo-drug, as that one really is the killer. Weirdly though, I am looking forward to the dropping of hair as I would really want to take a picture of my head when that happens, first because I missed taking a photo of it during the first time it happened and at least it gives me something to remember. Honestly speaking it wasn’t easy to accept the fact when my hair started to drop. One part of me says that: “Come on is just hair, it will grow back sooner or later and who cares if you are botak or not, is not like looks are important” but the other part of me was like “Gosh, how long is this going to last, botak just isn’t me, and what will others think of me?”

Well, yeah, but then again, need to thank God for this earthly reminder, as it really tells me that looks really don’t last as it could just fade anytime like that. And besides as time passes by, the looks that we had when we were teenagers would not stay with us. So, better focus on things that are eternal I guess.

Thinking about it, sometimes I just wonder why God wants me to be in this situation, if given a choice I would really hope to go to university and join the rest of my friends. But as I always tell myself: “Even if God could make a time machine He wouldn’t need it, cause He doeth all things well.” God has a plan for me, and besides, this situation would make me special in a way, ha-ha, and allows me to be refined as gold.

Yeah, just as the hymn goes:

“For I know whatever befalls me,
Jesus doeth all things well.”


I take back my word on the “machine that could automatically jot down things that you are thinking”, well, for one thing some things are better left unsaid I guess, and we know how foolish our minds can be at times. Thank God that we don’t speak through minds, otherwise the world would be in utter chaos, ha-ha.

Just imagine if we can see what other people are thinking through this machine:

Student got scolded and punished by headmaster for coming late.
Student thinking in mind: I hope that your pants will be caught on fire and you will trip and fall on a pile of dung when you walk out.
Headmaster with wonder machine: “Oh, so that’s what you’re thinking, DETENTION FOR THE WHOLE YEAR!”
~Yeah, some things are just best left unsaid~ =p