Still sick...

I woke up this morning (I decided not to go to university after all - didn't really feel in the mood for a relapse of any kind) feeling better, as in no detectable fever, able to walk faster and overall feeling much stronger. Even managed to send some joke sms-es to Trish. But my ear is still the same blocked way it is. Sigh. It really is driving me to the edge of my patience. But I'm still relatively alright. Yes, my humorous ways and laughing skills have kinda rolled downhill, but I'm still able to watch television, my appetite is still pretty much unaffected, and the biggest proof - I'm still blogging, aren't I? Here's to me having my complete ear recovery!

Sick

Am very sick. Didn't go to uni today. Sore throat. Head ache. Eyes watery. Joints hurting. Ear still not hearing anything. Nose blocked. Feverish. Sigh. Not sure if I should go to uni tomorrow.

And the doctor says...

... that there is no wax stuck in my ear.

I nearly fell off my chair when he gave his diagnosis. I almost wanted to shout "What d'you mean there's no wax stuck in my ear? My ear's blocked! I can't hear in my right ear!" but I didn't, because if I had, the nurses would probably have called their police hotline (all clinics have a direct phone link to the nearest police station) and the blue-uniformed men would have come to drag me away to a night's complimentary stay at the station. So yeah, I didn't shout. What I did instead, was ask really nicely and politely: "Then why can't I hear?"

The doctor said something about being able to see my ear drums, and he said it was kinda red and inflammed, which is why I can't hear clearly. Or something like that. He had his whatchamacallit face mask over his mouth and he sounded kinda muffled, what with my blocked ear and his face mask and all. Well, to cut a long story short, he prescribed me 2 different kinds of antibiotics and said I'd probably have my hearing back to normal in a few days or something like that. I told you he sounded kinda muffled.

So here's hoping to back-to-perfection hearing in a coupla days.

Cheers.

P.S. Just kidding about the direct phone link to the police station. But do tell me if it really is true, okay? End of P.S.

P.P.S. whatchamacallit = what you may call it End of P.P.S.

My ear!

This is how it happened:


Saturday, 20th January. '2007: It all started with the sudden urge to clean my room. Yes, it's true, I actually wanted to clean my room. So I started cleaning. I'd actually started the cleaning process a few days back (i.e. earlier on in the week), but the incident took place on this day. Take note of the time, dear people: I resumed the process of cleaning my room at approximately 9 pm. So I cleaned. I cleared all the extra-old newspapers from my room, and dumped them all into a basket. Then I rearranged all my books, making sure they all stacked up nicely in my brown little bookshelf. Then I moved on to cleaning the other shelf, the one where I put my LOTR popcorn paperbox memorabilia, the one where I put all my little toys and stuff.

That's when I found it.

There weren't that many left in the plastic wrapping they came in - just 4 or 5 little cotton buds. This was approximately 10 pm. 10 seconds later, my right ear was blocked. There was no pain, nothing. That's right. I had somehow managed to block my right ear, and I couldn't really hear anything - just a blur, muffled non-sound.

At 10.05 pm, I rushed downstairs and announced that it had happened. 10 minutes later, I had 10 drops of Soluwax in my right ear. The following is the instructions written on the label of the bottle: "With the head tilted, fill the affected ear with sufficient Soluwax Ear Drops (approx. 10 drops) for two consecutive nights using the dropper. Remain in this position for 4 to 5 minutes. The ear wax should then be easily removed by normal cleansing."

20 minutes later, my ear was still blocked. I went to sleep, feeling rather amused.


Sunday, 21st January. '2007: Last night, the temperature was so cold that the air-con unit started making some really strange, robot-about-to-malfunction sounds. I did not hear it. Morning came, and my alarm clock went off. I almost didn't hear it. I went to church and played bass with half of my hearing gone. I joked with some friends about my temporary one-sided hearing loss. They laughed, I laughed too. They laughed some more, I laughed some more too. That evening was another round of ear-dropping. The time was approximately 7.30 pm when I went to sleep, ear still blocked and feeling rather worried.


Monday, 22nd January. '2007: The first class of the day started at 8 am today. It was raining quite heavily. My hearing seems to have improved - if I poke my right ear and release it quickly enough, I can have almost back-to-normal clear hearing in my right ear... For about 3 seconds. Then it's back to the muffled sound. I told anyone who would listen about it. They smiled sympathetically. I tell them, so that they know the reason behind my tilting my left ear towards them everytime they speak. I tell them, so that they know why I go "Huh?" and "Can you say that again please?" in response to everytime they open their mouths. They laugh, I laugh too. My laugh isn't as loud as it was yesterday. Neither is my smile as big. I reached home at approximately 2 pm. Before going to sleep, I ear-drop some more Soluwax into my ear. I fall asleep, thinking that when I awake, my ear will be back to its more-than-perfect hearing.

Man, was I totally wrong. It's worse than ever now. When I woke up just now at approximately 6.20 pm, I didn't even know it was raining... Heavily. Why? Because with my right ear blocked and my left ear pressed into my pillow, I couldn't hear a single thing. At about 7.30 pm, I had another session of ear drops. I'll be going to the ENT specialist soon. I hope it'll be real soon, 'cause I don't think I can take it any longer, this total void of any sound in my right ear. The last time anything like this happened was way back at the start of my freshman year. The ENT specialist had to insert some mechanical device into my ear to unblock it.


It is almost 12 midnight now. I will be going to sleep real soon, and I will be feeling really worried, and panicky. And a tad bit frightened. I must remember not to use cotton buds after this. And you all must remember to talk to my left ear tomorrow, 'cause I will not be able to hear you in my right.

Sigh.

What have I been up to?

Yes... Time to answer the question. I haven't been blogging regularly lately simply because... Well... Firstly, I've been very busy and I rarely have time to do a regular update. My schedule's been a complete mess these days - now that uni has resumed, my days are filled with classes which last quite frequently to the late evening, and by the time I reach home I'm usually half-dead and just trying to keep myself walking upright and all. Of course, with the re-emergence of a university 'life', I am of course, now half-deep waddling in stupid assignments designed to make me 'smart'. Really ironic, my life. And secondly, I haven't been blogging as much as I have in the past month or so because I made the rather sudden discovery that the traffic in my blog has drastically come to a stop... Where are all my readers? What happened to all the sarcastic comments and replies, people? Where have you all gone? Come back!

Yes, anyway... Onwards to a change in topic. Of course, now you know I'm back in uni, so yeah, what else is new? Oh yes! I've got a new thumbdrive now! My old and trusty Pendrive suddenly died out on me somewhere last month, and I was really quite sad... Sniff. That was my very first thumbdrive, and yes, I guess you can say I was rather fond of it. You could even say I loved it. Don't get me wrong, I still do, but now that it's, well... Oh well. So my dad bought a new one for little old me, and it's a Kingston 2GB thumbdrive this time. It's pretty, with its funny plastic green highlights and all... And it was really ironic, 'cause that very same afternoon, when my brother tried to figure out what was wrong with my previous Pendrive, it turns out *gasp!* there was nothing wrong at all! The little problem I'd encountered earlier(it said something about me having to reformat it or something) seemed to have disappeared altogether! Sniff! Why, my Pendrive, why? So now, my dear old Pendrive has changed ownership (it now belongs to my father and my brother) and I have my new 2GB Kingston. Sigh. Yes people... I do live a pretty ironic life.

Oh yes. And today, I skipped the Dean's List ceremony. Muahahahaha! How fun is that?

Cheers!

Back to the same old routine...

The question: When is it going to end?

The answer: In approximately 2 and a half more years.

Yup. That's exactly how long it'll take me to complete my 4-year Bachelor's degree in TESL... And that's exactly how long more I'll have to stand the same old boring routine, day in day out, each boring semester that comes crawling by. Sigh. It's really starting to wear me out. In fact, it's not just starting... I mean, like, I'm already worn out! And how long have I been here? Only a measly 1 and a half years! Can I even make it through another 2 and a half? Scary thought indeed. Another 2 and a half years of horrible assignments to waddle through, another 2 and a half years of terrifying midterm tests and final exams to swot for, another 2 and a half years of all sorts of dreadful scenarios and situations to swim through... Again, I utter an impressive sigh to that freaky thought.

That's it from me this time. Real short, real sighs...


P.S. "Trish! Drink up those Starbucks frappucinos!" *grin* End of P.S.

Rather rocky start...

Well, okay, so it's here, it really finally is here - 2007! And once again, like I've done every year, I ask the same question: "So what's the big deal? It's just a number!"

Yes, people, it really is true... It's just a number, y'know. If there wasn't so much publicity about it and all, it'll just be like any other day to like what? Half of the entire population. True? I think so. Anyway, yeah, I haven't been blogging for a while, so here's some updates of like, the past one week, I guess. Let's see, I think it was somewhere last week, possibly Thursday, that I had to drive up to UNIMAS with a good friend of mine whom I've known since my primary school days. Our mission - to register for the new semester. So I drove right, and we reached our faculty (Faculty of Cognitive Science(s) and Human Development - FSKPM) at approximately 9.30am. Then the both of us went to the computer lab and sat down in front of the funny little computers. My friend registered in less than one minute. I stared in horror at the words that flashed up at me from the aforesaid funny little computer screen - Anda berhutang RM120... blah blah blah. The other words that followed RM120 simply didn't register at that time. I mean, like, what do you mean I owe 120 bucks and toot! because of that I couldn't register and I had to toot! go and settle my debt first before they'd allow me to register. So toot!-ing upset, I proceeded to ask the lab assistant what was up, and she said (she's really really very kind, one of the nicest people I've met working for UNIMAS) that there had nothing to do with it and I would have to go and see the BPPS (Bahagian Pengajian Pra-Siswazah) or something like that. So I did, but first I accompanied my friend to her college to register. Then we went to the Bahagian Kewangan and we asked, and yes, it's true, apparently I owe them money for staying in my college for the duration of the holidays. Boy, did I find it funny. For one, who in their right mind would wanna stay in a stupid hostel accommodation thingy place with no proper facilities and no friends and no food during the 1-month long holidays? Definitely not me! And secondly, I'm a Kuchingite! I have a home here, so why would I wanna stay there? Get my drift? And thirdly - and this one's the funniest and most 'out there' of them all - they put my staying duration until the 3rd of January, and even if I really was staying there, how would they know I would be staying until the 3rd of Jan, seeing how it wasn't even the end of December yet, huh? I actually plain laughed out loud at the counter of the Bahagian Kewangan. So then I had to go all the way to my college and kinda like, mogok to get a memo typed out saying that I didn't stay at all during the aforesaid duration of time when I was supposedly staying at the college. Okay, I didn't actually mogok, but I was close to it. Real close. They actually asked me to return there to collect my memo in the evening, and I was like "No, I need it now. I wouldn't be able to come back later because ... (insert reason here) ... and can I please have it now?" so grudgingly yeah, they typed, printed, and signed that stupid two pieces of paper that cleared me of my hutang. I was telling my friend, like wow... Here I am, holding two pieces of paper worth 120 bucks... Hilarious, I tell you. Then with that, we went all the way back to the faculty, and the lab assistant took a look at it and said, no that's not it, I'd have to go to the BPPS and get that to clear my debt. I nearly had a heart attack. So nevermind, I went to the BPPS, did a wild goose chase looking for the place, finally found it, and yeah that did it. And ooooohhh! Because I was supposedly 'in debt', they had actually taken my result slip and held on to it until I'd paid up, but because there was no debt in the first place, and I didn't need to pay anything, they gave me my result slip. I do believe I'm the first person I know to receive my result slip this early... So here's a lesson to you all. You want your result slip back first? Then go rack up a hutang, be it fictional or not. So then, I went back to the faculty, and I nearly wept with happiness (and relief - at this point in time my legs were nearly killing me) when the lab assistant said yup, that's it. Phew! All these for what? Less than one minute's worth of registration. Sigh. Red tape, indeed. But here's a big thank you going out to my dear friend who actually went through the entire process with me, keeping me company and laughing along to my rather lame and sarcastic jokes. If it wasn't for her, I think I would have really cried. And if she hadn't been there with me, I would probably have never known where the BPPS building is. So here's to my good friend! Thank you!

Some of you might have been wondering why I didn't just pay up in the first place, to avoid all this wild goose-chasing and all. I did think of that, to be completely frank, but then I also started thinking of how unfair it all was. I mean, why should I pay when I didn't even stay in college in the first place? It would have been a completely different matter altogether if I had stayed, but I hadn't so therefore, why pay? And it's 120 bucks! Not 12 bucks mind you, but 120 bucks! That's like what? The equivalent of 4 great novels! The equivalent of 10 meals at KFC and McD's! The equivalent of 80 cans of Coke (100 cans, if you know the right place to buy it)! Can you imagine that? No way was I gonna dish out that amount of moolah for that! Which explains the wild goose chase. Would you have done the same? The entire process took me a good 2 hours. And to think I could have been at home watching daytime cartoons.

And yes, for my results. All I can say is "Thank God!" Again, all praise and glory belongs to Him. I honestly thought this time was it for me. It, as in face the risk of doing the worst I've ever done at university level. But thank God, my results were better than I expected, and again, I just wanna say all the praise and glory belongs to Him!

And this week marked the end of two wonderful drama series I've been following these last month or so - the TVB drama War and Beauty on tv3 at 6pm to 7pm from Monday to Friday, and Malaysia's very own collaboration with MediaCorp S'pore, the beautiful series on ntv7 called Falling in Love... Sniff sniff! FIL ended 2 days ago (Tuesday, 2nd Jan), and W&B will be airing its last episode this evening. Boo hoo hoo hoo! I don't want it to go away! Especially FIL! I like the show so much. I do believe this is the first time I've actually been so hooked up on a Malaysian Chinese series production! It's really good! Surprisingly good, if I might add. And like I always do, I missed the first part of it, y'know when it just started and all. Sigh. Why do I always do that to all good Chinese dramas? Eg. Meteor Garden, and now FIL! All I can say at this point is: "Ntv7! BRING IT BACK!"

But then again, I'm really looking forward to this year. Reason? All the interesting-looking TV programmes scheduled to air this year. Like last night, this new series called Men in Trees aired its pilot episode last night. I found it really entertaining. Imagine, all this lonesome guys all stuck all the way in Alaska. Muahahahaha! Oh yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to this year alright...

And I've resumed my reading of the Lord of the Rings book again! This is now like what? My 7th attempt at completing it? It's such a lo-oo-ong journey, my dear friends... When will it end? But oh yes.... It's getting more interesting now. The Fellowship of the Ring has been formed, and they're starting their quest to destroy the One Ring, muahahahaha!

And that's it, people. The start of a new year. I'm still on the search for a brand new diary. I just can't seem to find the exact same one I bought last year. I'm still looking... Cheers you all! Have a blessed 2007!