Category: Diary

I couldn’t open my jaw.

OK.  I could.  But not without the strange bone cracking sound from within my skull, and the pain.  It started when I was in Malaysia and it didn’t bother much till I realized that I couldn’t really sing without being able to open my mouth wide.  And I couldn’t yawn properly during my rather tiring return trip on the Malaysian highway.  Took me forever to finish eating a sandwich.  When I told my friend JL my little problem, her response was: you were speeding on the highway with the window down and your mouth wide opened, izzit?

Ha ha ha.  Farny.

Since I woke up feeling sick, I was motivated to see my favorite neighborhood doctor whom his core competency is to give out medical certificates – and I hope to have my jaw fixed.

We were like long lost friend inside his consultation room because my last visit was on December 2006.  “So you’ve changed your job,” he asked.  I nodded and he told me that I looked more relaxed and less stressed.  Really?!  And I shall trust a doctor’s observation.

“What can I do for you today,” he asked.  I told him my jaw problem.  And I told him that I may be coming down with a flu.  He said he would give me some lotion to apply and some painkillers for my jaw and my flu.

At the counter, I stared at the lotion and it says: nanotechnology.  I was amazed!  Although nanotechnology is not new, its application to our commercial world is still at its infancy stage.  It will be years before those nanoscaled swarm of microscopic machines become a reality as depicted in Michael Crichton’s novel “Prey”.  When that time comes, I don’t know what the world would become.

My friend SF asked me out for lunch and she saw the tube of lotion.  She asked if I was OK.  I waved the tube in the air and said, “This, has enough nanorobots to keep me happy.”

“There is no nanorobot inside,” she laughed.

OK.  I know she is a bio-science graduate.  But still …

“Yes, there are,” I insisted.

“No, there isn’t,” she shook her head.

“Look,” I began.  “Look,” she interrupted.  I continued, “Look, there are things inside this tube that are manufactured, programmed to carry out a certain function, and they are super tiny.  Therefore, these are nanorobots.”

“They are not nanorobots!” she reinstated.

Whatever they have inside the tube, it doesn’t seem to work wonders.  It smells really bad (bad bad robots!) and I think the painkiller does the job just as good.  In the evening, the flu virus seemed to be ahead of my willpower by a nanometer so I have decided to take the non-drowsy flu medicine my favorite doctor prescribed.

At first I felt terrible.  Then I felt like puking.  My head was spinning.  I vaguely remember such an experience.  This morning I woke up, I did a search of “cough pills” in my own site and I found this post.  OK.  For future reference, my body doesn’t go well with Dextromethorphan (or Dexcophan).

Bad bad (+)-3-methoxy-17-methyl-9α,13α,14α-morphinan or whatever it is.

Related Entry: Cough Pills

It was all bright and shiny at the base of the hill when mom asked if she should bring along her little brolly.  Sure, why not.  It’s raining season in Singapore.  Back in where my mom lives, it is her favorite pastime to trek into some of the mountains with my dad in Hong Kong.  But there is no mountain in Singapore!  When I told her that we were climbing up a hill yesterday, her eyes lit up in disbelief.  There are mountains in Singapore, she asked.  Of course not, I answered.  Just that in Chinese language, there is no difference in the informal word usage of hill and mountain.

Bukit Timah is in fact rather low.  If you visit this little bump on a rather flat disc of Singaporean land with a high expectation, you will get disappointed as it is no Mount Kinabalu.  Having said that, if you take the little trails that go round the hill instead of the straight main road that leads to the summit, there are sufficient up and down slopes that can last for hours and make the trekking interesting.  We did just that and felt that we have climbed up the hill a couple of times.

It was the first time I actually led the expedition.  I normally go with my buddy KF the branding consultant and follow his lead blindly.  Starting from the base of the hill, I told the World War II story of how the British and the Japanese armies fought over this little hill of Bukit Timah and I showed my mom where the military cave was (I was trying to replicate what I’ve heard from KF, he is such a great storyteller).  Just when I told her that at times I could hear the gunfire from the military training camp nearby, the sky got dark, air pressure was dropping, and there was a helicopter hovered above where we were.  So dramatic!  And if that was not dramatic enough, I spotted a piece of metal on the ground (see picture on right) and just when I was about to give it a few kicks, my mom screamed, “Stop!  It could be a landmine!”  There is no landmines in Singapore, I laughed!  And she told me about her recent holiday trips to Vietnam and Cambodia.  I shrugged, gave the piece of metal a few kicks, and there was no ka-boom.  Now you know where I got my dramatic genes from.

Raindrop falling from the sky soon after we passed the cave.  There was still a long way to go and I was determined not to cut short our expedition.  The sky roared with thunders and my mom opened her brolly.  Somehow the thought of umbrella and lightning was not very comforting.  Maybe that was why I did not bring my golf umbrella with me.  The golf umbrella could be useful, my mom said.  And she told me that in Hong Kong, people bring along a long stick during trekking to wand off wandering snakes.  “Look ma, there are no landmines in Singapore, there are no snakes in Singapore too!” I retorted.  Right at the moment, inside the dark bushes nearby, I detected a movement.  I strained my eyes and it did not look like the usual squirrels that seem to be the only inhabitant of the hill.  It has a long slender body and I just could not make out if there were legs attached.  OK, let’s move on quick as the sky was falling!

I put my towel over my head and I was complete drenched.  Every cloud has a silver lining and for us, in this wet wet weather condition, we saw quite a number of fungus spawned from everywhere (see the pictures below).  Something that I haven’t got to see before.

 … or rather Ash Wednesday that happens on a Tuesday.  Ash what?!  I know … when I told people around me that I have to MIA for an hour due to Ash Wednesday, quite a few didn’t know what it is.  And when I am back with ashes on my forehead, the concerned ones would pull me aside and tell me that there is dirt on my forehead (ps: thank you!).  On the street, there are usually three types of people.  Most see it without really seeing it (ain’t we all too occupied on the street?).  Some do a double take on my forehead probably wonder what it is.  A minority few actually smile at me … which is nice.

Let me do my part in raising the awareness of what Ash Wednesday is all about, in a rather short and sweet manner.  Roman Catholics throughout the world observes Ash Wednesday in the form of fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance.  During Mass, ashes are put onto our foreheads to remind us to turn away from sin, be faithful to the Gospel, as well as we are all dust and unto dust we shall return.  40 days from Ash Wednesday is … ?  Easter of course!

I certainly welcome taking a break from the mundane office life and to attain a 1.15pm lunch time Mass at the Cathedral.  The downside is of course to have ashes on my forehead till sunset (that’s the tradition).  Cynthia and I often joke that the more sins one has, the bigger the ‘ash mark’ is going to be.  Deep inside, we – or at least I – secretly hope that the priest or the minister has mercy and try not to make the ‘ash mark’ all too obvious … ha ha ha.  Bad eh?  And here are the tips to make the mark as subtle as possible (disclaimer: results not guaranteed) but not make it disappears.  Otherwise, what’s the point in having ashes on our foreheads?

• Quietly seat yourself strategically somewhere that you are not the first in line to receive the ashes and yet able to see what everybody are getting.  You see, some priests or ministers have strong hands and large thumbs (sadly, mine today) and tend to leave a rather prominent and huge ‘ash mark’ onto your forehead.  Some are more gentle when applying the ashes.  Once you found what you want, wiggle your way into the right queue!
• Grow your fringe beforehand.  Pull it back before the ashes are applied, let it down afterwards.
• Have a “Sign here” or rather “Press here” sticker at the corner of your head.  That way, it is much easier to somewhat cover it up with your fringe.

OK.  Enough humor for the day.  Back to something serious.  After Cynthia and I received the ashes, as we always do for the past don’t-know-how-many-years, we looked at our foreheads and asked, “So, how was it?”  I stared at her forehead and said, “It has a nice cross shape … pretty faint.”  Cynthia let out a sign of relief.  I looked at her in anticipation and …

“It’s … big.  It’s dark.  Certainly looks like a thumb print,” Cynthia said.  Realizing that I looked more and more concerned, she waved her hand as a matter of look-silly-it-is-not-that-bad and said, “It is more like an extension of your fringe.”

Oh gosh.  That’s bad.  I will try to sin lesser this coming year …

PS. For those who wonder why Ash Wednesday falls onto a Tuesday instead, it is because tomorrow is Chinese New Year Eve so the Pope brings forward the event for one day.  That way, we can still celebrate our Chinese New Year Eve in the traditional way (imagine a Chinese reunion dinner without meat).

These days I seem to have shocked my friends with my impromptu decisions. Sometimes these decisions shock me too. It is an avalanche of factors that lead to one single event. Much like what the subprime has done to the indexes worldwide today, “Destination Bandung” is going to burn a hole in my pocket. Though I must say, this one stone has definitely killed quite a few birds.

Last month, when my good buddy Mark told me that he has decided to take up a short project in Jakarta, my eyes went watery, my emotion went high – much like the Korean TV drama – and I promise him that I will visit him before his project ends (erm … you know, we guys do have bonding too). Mark and I used to meet almost once a week. All of a sudden, my life seems a bit lonely these days.

Though a promise is a promise, we guys are good at putting things at the back of our heads. Similar to Cynthia’s constant lament on the “airport blue”. She hates Monday because that is when she needs to fly off to Jakarta for her business trips. She hates Friday too because she always gets stuck in the Jakarta airport hoping to catch an earlier flight. At times she may have to miss her flight due to meeting overrun. The ideal case is, of course, for me to visit her but that too has been put at the back of my head.

Less then two weeks ago, I was instant messaging with Mark’s significant half and was recommending all the wonderful places that they should visit in Indonesia. I got Felicia so excited and out of the blue, I typed: why don’t we go and visit them over the weekend … we will do shopping and tour Bandung as well?

Uh-oh … where did that come from? Before I knew it, Felicia has got us the air tickets and I got my passport renewed at the last minute. Although I have visited all the tourist spots in Bandung, I am actually looking forward to visiting Puncat – the tea plantation – and the Safari nearby. Cynthia, as a local, has not been to the Safari before and I would love to relive some of those memories of huge animals sticking their heads into the car munching on a bunch of carrots I was holding with saliva dripping everywhere, ostriches running alongside with the car, and a monkey that threw the banana back to me – twice.

Oh, before Cynthia flew off couple of days ago, she actually helped me packed up some of the stuffs with two checklists (see picture above).  Nice huh? Stay tuned for more updates!

My virgin foray into the stock market is best described in the following analogy.

Once upon a time in a remote village, a young boy grew up listening to the legendary war stories of his ancestors. How those legendary heroes won battles, pillaged other villages, and took home the women as their own. Barely able to shoot anything – set aside to avoid getting shot – this young boy could not hide his excitement when one day, he got to join rank with the rest of the comrades for the battles somewhere far away (does it sound like a number of movies that you have watched?).

The battlefield was nothing like what this young boy has imagined. Suddenly, all the stories of how people got blown up into pieces, the casualties of the war, and the fact that not everyone who joined the campaign came back in one piece made sense to him. Feeling lost, this young boy took cover, observed, and uncertain of the next cause of action.

When I opened the trading account last month, I had no idea what to do with it. One day, I noticed the promotional counter right underneath my office for the IPO of Hyflux Water Trust (HWT). I personally like the branding of Hyflux (as well as Olivia Lum) and I believe that human beings are over-populating the planet. We are not going to have enough clean water for our next generation. Hence, I am a believer of treating water is the way to go. Besides, HWT’s current projects are in China and China is a high growth region. Through the ATM, I subscribed to 11 lots of HWT share that was priced at S$0.78.

I got 3 lots of HWT share that worthed S$2,340 before the trade started. A few friends congratulated me and wished me the best. On day one, the share price dipped and I lost S$210 on paper (-10%). On day three, the share price rose and I made S$375 on paper (+16%). As the US market went down, many counters went down too. So was HWT. Last week, I gathered enough courage to put a buy order of 9 lots at S$0.76. It was not easy to stare at the potential S$7k investment and submit the order. The feeling is hard to describe. It was like my heart beat faster, my mind was preoccupied with tons of “what-if”. Looking back, it is fortunate that the market closed at S$0.765 and my order did not materialized. Today, HWT share closed at S$0.74 (a paper lost of S$120 with 3 lots).

I do not intend to speculate. All I want to do is to stock up a bit more on HWT because I truly believe in its potential. It is hard to decide when to buy and when to sell. At times I wonder, there is no announcement on the progress of HWT as of today but yet, the share price swings up and down. History tells us that if one was to invest S$10k in Cosco or Raffles Education five years ago, one would have been a millionaire today. History also tells us that many get burned in the stock market and some of them now invest in managed funds instead. One thing for sure is that these are the battles I wish to participate. But meanwhile I have to learn how to shoot … and to avoid being shot.

Ever since I changed the blog engine not too long ago, every night I painstakingly convert one blog entry after another. Then I stumbled on stuffs that I wrote 10 years ago and I got goose bumps all over my body. Tempting not to convert those old articles into blog entries but I think, perhaps what I write today will read silly 10 years from now anyway. So I park these old entries in the category of From The Attic. Back in those days, I kept an email group of friends and family and I broadcast my materials regularly, and I received feedback regularly. From The Attic is a tiny potion of what I was used to have (imagine the amount of goose bumps I would have … I could die from it). Looking back, I am amazed in how Internet has changed our lives. The self-managed email group is out, friendly and anonymous traffic are in.

And it was the malicious anonymous traffic that brought down my previous site. I am still in the mist of converting my entries. As you can see from the bar above, after staying till wee hours every night (last night I worked till 5am), it is now 31% complete. Still quite a way to go. I need to go through each entry and manually change all the links, upload all the images into the designated directories at the server, re-size some of the over-sized ones to fit the standard template, and etc. After which, I will think of what to do with some of the timeless entries (a technical term by WordPress to indicate that nature of the entry that is different from the time sensitive blogs, not that they are literally timeless). Perhaps I will put them as pages.  Stay tuned.