Ah yes, I am kinda going flexitarianism these days, which means reducing meat consumption from my diet but not eliminating it completely. How did this crazy idea came about you might wonder? Well it all started with the canteen food in my company.
Each stall, other than the economical rice stall, has different dishes everyday. So for example, the western food stall can have chicken chop on Monday and fish & chips on Tuesday and so on. However, the western stall really really cannot make it. The chicken chop is cold, the fish taste weird, the chicken cutlet contains more flour than chicken and looks pretty badly fried and above all, the portions are so little that I mostly cannot last till knock off.
The noodles stall, well, their noodles sometimes are horrendous. Because of the production line nature of the stall, the noodles sometimes are not well cooked and the noodles are still stuck to each other because they simply grab a lump of noodles, put it into the bowl and add the soup and other ingredients. One of the dishes I can tolerate is the la mian or otherwise known as the hand-pulled Chinese noodles. They really do have cooks to do the hand-pulling in front of us and so the noodle is really much more edible compared to the usual ones. But of course, the trade-off will be the long queue, which most of the time we can live with that. Another edible dish will be the laksa, of course not as good as outside, but consider the lesser evil in here.
So that leaves the economical rice, if there’s no dish that I fancy from other stall, I will mostly ended up here. But here lies the next problem. The meat choices here are very limited and absurd. I see variant of chicken wing in so many of their selections every single day, fried chicken wings, curry chicken wings, braised chicken wings, sweet and sour chicken wings. If not chicken wings, I get hot dogs and pieces of stirred fried chicken cubes which are extremely salty and hard. And also, they are particularly stingy with the portions for meat too, just a small serving for 1 buck to 1.20. Whereas, if it were a vegetable selection, it was a whopping serving and it cost way more economical. So, that’s why I started avoiding meat and going for veg and egg and toufu, which not only have bigger portions, they taste much better and value for money too. It’s like somehow they are encouraging us to eat less meat or something.
There’s a few things I achieved by doing that. Now, I spent much less money on better quality and filling food. I am eating healthier and complaining less about getting that cold and dubiously uncooked chicken chop. Because of this, I started becoming more health conscious and started getting more fruits than just getting that coke.
I thought that’s just in the workplace. Yet, I became more mindful even when I eat outside, becoming fussier, if you like, in the selection of food I get. Also perhaps because I am living such unhealthy lifestyle after working that I now try to compensate with a healthier diet. But of course, I wouldn’t try to pull my friends into a vegetarian restaurant or refuse to chomp on that steak. I’d like to think of it as a flexible choice and oh god that steak is still completely irresistible.
Had my first try on cable skiing at SKI360 at east coast lagoon yesterday with Jevon and Zg. It was really really fun.
Before the skiing I was observing the ang mors doing it (sheesh there are really lots of them), they make it looks so simple lar. But, it’s not that easy for us.…
We took the 1 hour package, with student rates, so it's 27 bucks. I spent the first half hour swimming back to the shore more than I ski, always fell off at the first turn, trying to learn how to maneuver the board to go in the direction I want but ended up losing balance. Haha. The second half was where I finally got the technique and skied more than I swim! And yes, at least able to ski one round around the lagoon, unlike Jevon (oops). Poor little fellow, cannot keep balance on the board. Oh wait, it should be poor chubby one, too much fats at undesired position, causing imbalance in cg. You should have bend over more than anyone else. Ah, zg that ass, skiied before, so it was smooth-sailing for him.
You guys should try it if you haven't and I am probably going back for more! =)
As some of you would have known, I have been working in SGH pharmacy for like 1.5 months and now i am finally out of the job. Not that they dun wan me anymore, but more like I want a break already. As I have mentioned to some of my friends, this could well be the last holiday I get to enjoy. Coming December, there is the reservist for 2 weeks. That means half of the holidays will be wasted. Next 3 months break, I am most likely doing my vacation internship, so no time to enjoy liao. Next December break would probably be taken up by fyp. So yea, better slack now if not no more chance sia. lol.
Right, the pharmacy job was an interesting one. Get to meet lots of people and learnt some medicine & their usage. The job itself actually involves quite abit of memorizing skill. Both short term memory as well as long term memory comes into play here. The medicines are placed in their picking locations and we pick the medicine by following the location printed on the labels of each case. Most of the time, the pharmacist usually do not take the labels away from the prescriptions so as not to cause confusion to the rest picking or checking, so we will have to memorize 1) the location, 2) the drug’s name (for verification), 3) the quantity. After which, we go to the respective locations and pick the required amount and pack them into zip lock bags ready for dispensing. By my last week, I managed to memorize most of the common drugs picking location. And so when the latest batch of interns came along (they are being rotated once every 1.5 weeks), they were quite impressed by the way i actually could point out the location without looking at the location printed on the labels. Actually, if you work there long enough, it is not that hard to achieve that lar.
Pharmacy people also have to be good in their mental calculation and the 7, 14 and 28 multiplication table. Cos the medicine are usually either in strips of 10’s or 7’s or 14’s and some in boxes of 100’s, 30’s or 28’s. Of course those nice numbers are easy to play around with but those weird weird ones like 14, 28 are the ones that cause problems. Ah, why the medicine comes in those numbers arh, I hear you ask; why not make them all in 10’s? Well, there’s a good reason for it and it’s not that hard to figure why.
Some of the common drugs I learnt:
Daneuron – contains vitamin B1, B6 and B12 which are effective in the treatment of pains due to disturbances of the peripheral nerves. This one very very troublesome when it comes to topping up cause they are wrapped up nicely in plastic in boxes of 100’s. Means I have to open the box, tear open the plastic and then tie them up.
Omeprazole – prevents the secretion of gastric acid and thus used in the prevention and treatment of gastric related diseases. This one is a very common drug, comes in strip of 7’s and often goes in 60’s 90’s and 120’s. So we usually do pre-packs in those amounts to improve efficiency.
Norvasc (Amiodipine Besylate) – treatment of hypertension and used to control blood pressure. This one has 3 different strength (5, 10 and 20 mg) and comes in boxes of 30’s, usually goes in amount of 90’s.
Metformin - anti-diabetic drugs which reduce the cardiovascular complications of diabetes particularly in those with cases of obesity and insulin-resistance.
Glipizide - another anti-diabetic drug.
Glucosamine sulfate – treatment or act as a health supplement for osteoarthritis which is caused by wearing of the cartilage in the joints.
Procodin syrup – temporary relief of coughs, in bottles of 100 ml. This is also very common sia.
Lactus syrup - treatment of constipation by allowing the bowels to draw in more water from tissues. This one pretty common too and sometimes goes in around 10 bottles... 200ml each btw.
And there are more but dunno their usage like dipyridamole, tramadol, fluimucil, etc. Okok you people must be pretty bored by all these bo liao things already. Alright then, thats all for now.
It's confirm, we are going to have a massive Christmas celebration in Dec 10th to 21st! 12 days, omg 12 freaking days in Jurong chalet, how sweet!
Well well, where have i been these days.
For 2 weeks, i have been playing this game called Hero Online with BK, oh wait, i wasn't playing with him, i was busy catching up cos he is high level and i just started. lol. Check it out if u wana kill some time and have fun with MMORPG.
But then, soon I found a job at SGH working as a medicine picker. Basically, as what the name suggested, i pick medicine for patients in the pharmacy at SOC (Specialist Outpatient Clinic). It can be a pretty tiring job as there are lots of patients throughout the day and we barely had time to rest. The pattern suggested that mondays are the busiest of the week and it gets better as the week progresses. I figured cos people usually wana have MCs at the beginning of the week and dun want to report sick only on fridays, then the MC abit no point...lol
There are also interns from Nus Pharmacy over there and we pretty much work together with the other part-timers as well as perm staff. Just that arh, you are not going to believe how much the interns are paid. You are probably not going to guess it correctly, so here it is: $5 a DAY. That works out to ard 100 bucks a month. And its not enough to even cover the expenses for transport and meals lar. So, you VIP-ers out there, dun you complain about getting only 500+ per month...
I am probably going to work there till end of June and it might extend, judging from the way they are so short of manpower. I already had an extension of 1 month from the initial 1 week assignment..
Oh ya, also did accounts for my mum after work everyday last week. Its damn sian i tell u accounting, glad i didn't follow my mum's footstep and be an accountant. She rushing datelines, so have to help out abit. Basically last week no life at all sia, work and more work..lol.
I was showing a friend my EE2006 Digital Design lab report yesterday and his first reaction was like: “Woah writing thesis arh you?” Well, it wasn’t really surprising he said that, it does look as if I am submitting my FYP report or something. I did put in a lot of effort into preparing that report. And my friend sort of correctly pointed out the fact that I am too passionate in the things I like.
Indeed, I am too passionate in things I like and this is my strength as well as my weakness. I am sometimes just overly passionate and I soon realized it’s not at all a good thing at times because I tend to neglect other things, or other modules in the context of studies. Maybe that’s the reason why I am so depressed and stress this semester; EE2006 is the only module I like.
I was somewhat happier last semester, many would have noticed. That’s because I enjoyed reading the 2 electronics modules as well as the 2 stats modules. And that’s probably why I screwed up my EE2011 (Electromagnetic) cos I never liked that module and that’s the only module I din like and the module I spent the least time on. This time round it’s the opposite; I have only 1 module I enjoy. It is a chore, to go through the modules I so dislike.
However, I am glad. There shall be no more compulsory core modules pre-allocated to us from year 3 onwards. I have my freedom to pursue the modules of my interest. But some people say the specialization track that I have chosen can be quite tough, I agree. IC design, who the hell wana do that? Design modules always have their horror stories behind them. Maybe it’s not going to be scoreable, but I believe I am going to enjoy it. I enjoy designing circuits and see them materialize into a real product. This is why I should not be too concern with the grades and classifications, and just perform to the best of my ability. And this should be the way studying should be, enjoy the process and heck the grades. Of course I am not saying grades are not important...well, just dun go to the other extreme..everything is about balance. =)
(Via Jere's)
From life to death there are five stages
denial
anger
bargaining
depression
acceptance
Its not that death is hard, its the transition we fear.
Its the same for everything that goes wrong.
There's a time for everything. Maybe its time for acceptance.
Guess life is not a smooth road and failures inevitably will come our way sometimes. Learning from it and pulling yourself out of depression and thereby accepting it, will then help you overcome it.
Maybe its time for acceptance.
I was excited and motivated for a while; I thought there was hope. Yet, that was just self-delusion I soon realized. And when reality knocks back, I realized how far I am from my goal and a sense of disappointment, sadness and then regret coursed into me. Hope is such a double edged sword. Sometimes, I rather not have any hope at all, for it has always caused me more harm than good. Yet, I still grip on tightly onto my hopes, hoping what I hope for do really come true one day, for that’s the only driving force that kept me going.
Ai Lian:
"Zg is a noise making machine!"
You can employ him to make all kinds of noise for you, from pathetic shriek, yell, scream, cry and what have you, to moaning and complaining non-stop or simply gibberish, you got it!
Seriously, zg, it’s time for you to use more of your hands and less of your mouth when playing tennis! Sheesh…
Woah so many visitors during Chinese new year period! Something's not right or was it just you ppl missing me? Heh.
Happy Chinese New Year to All!!!
May all the wealth and fortune be with ya. Oh yea, not forgetting happiness and good grades too. =)
Have a prosperous new year.
Have been watching the tv series Heroes for the past few days and it was rather addictive. Its basically the story of several people who "thought they were like everyone else... until they woke with incredible abilities" such as telepathy, time travel and flight. These people soon realize they have a role in preventing a catastrophe and saving humankind.
Check out the list of heroes here.
Now, I was wondering, if you were to choose to possess a superpower, which one will you desire?
I would very much like to have telepathy where I can read people's mind. Heh. =) Now how about you?
It's Chinese New Year's eve and every Chinese family by now should have had their reunion dinner which often involves family and relatives gathering around the steamboat, signifying warmness and closeness in the family, having a wonderful feast with mouth watering food, which too have their own symbolic significance.
The above was my reunion dinner, bbq style on the left and the traditional steamboat on the right.
Yesterday also had a reunion dinner with my Nus friends after tennis over at a Sakura in clementiwoods. It’s just opposite engine fac (up the hill behind the japanese school) and its 2 stories filled with a wide selection of food!
So yup, Happy Chinese New Year to all chinese out there. Have a great one!
Also, check out what black skin, cow's liquid and vomit oil have to do with happy new year at Chillycrap's
Holy shit, this blog was mentioned in 2 online forums today and the number of hits shot up like siao. Heh.
