Sleeping pills for me?

It has been continuous nights that i didnt sleep well. Every night, I have no problem falling into sleep within 5-10min but would definitely wake up in the middle of the night - sometimes in semi-conciousness, sometimes fully awake.

2 nites ago was ridiculous. I dreamt that i was attending a 'talk', and during this talk, i was not supposed to sleep. Hence, I struggled myself to be awake and ended up in the semi-conscious state throughout the 'talk'. Its only when this 'talk' has ended, i allowed myself to fall back into deep sleep again. When i woke up later in the morning, i was rather upset tt i actually got tricked by my own dreams. Something almost similar happened to my subq nites.

This morning, I went back to the doctor for the 3rd time this week. The first visit read my blood pressure at 70/170, 2nd visit was 68/135, and today it went up again to 70/159. Reason why the blood pressure dropped on the 2nd day was becos i took the anti-stress pills which helps to lower my pressure. But i din take it this morning and hence resulted in the up shot in my blood pressure again, sign.

Today, the doctor decided to prescribe me sleeping pills. I am supposed to take them for one week to monitor my situation. However, i worry about getting too addicted to it. I may not want to take them.

Should I take or not take tonight?

Antidepressant for me?

A pretty back dated picture taken last weekend. Rang Lena up and requested a spin in her Mazda MX5. But i ended up driving it instead...cool..... i love convertibles..

2 weeks ago after my return trip from Shanghai, i had a very severe headache. The pain was so unbearable tt i left my course halfway in search for panadols. Unfortunately, its against the hotel policy to give medicine to its guests, so i have to cross a few streets before i could get my aspirins. My headache refused to give in, but it went off eventually 2 days later.

2 days ago, my headache came back again. I was abt to see my company doc when it miraculously went off. Today, it came disturbing me again. I was so affected tt i couldn concentrate on my work. Hence, i spare no chance to visit the doctor......

After testing my blood pressure and interviewing me a few qns, the doctor decided to prescribe me "Anti-depressant pills". I was shocked -yeah, i have problems sleeping soundly but i am v sure i dun feel depressed! Furthermore, i dun really feel stressed (or i am too busy to feel the stress already). In the end, the doctor prescribed me some medicines to lower my high blood pressure (70, 170 - is that v high?). I have to go for a cholesterol level check up tmr, followed by another one next week (duno for wat).

Life has so far been good to me, except for this stupid mysterical headache. To all juniors having exams, good luck and give in ur best shot!

VICOM Inspection done!

Early in the morning 8am, i brought my Partner down to the kaki bukit VICOM centre for the annual inspection.

Prior to the visit, i did an exhaust clean up by performing high rev on the engine. Wow, the thick black smoke emitted could be quite scary. Also pulled out both my 'fog lights', tear down all my window tintings, and most imptly, carried my portable sofa up home!

And yeah, i passed my inspection! Hurray! Praise the Lord!

Sorry for the lack in updates.

Have been occupied by 'something' in life recently which takes away most of my attention and focus off this webbie.

Have tried to pen down a few entires but gave up eventually. Somehow, feel great resistances in writing recently. Probably due to my lack in readings lately that caused my writings to end up with much viscosity. Moreover, there s nothing much to share either. Just rantings, u guys interested?

My hair has gone disastrous, after a failure to perform a decent bleach. Nv had previous problem dying or colouring my hair, but this time i screw it up. But nvm, am not going to touch up or do anything, jus leave it LOL.

Life is amazing, but sometimes towards the freaky side. Once again, I witness the power of love - not so much in the positive sense. Friends giving up their religions for love. Friends forsaking their old loves for new ones. Whats so magical abt love? I guess i am in no position to comment as i am vulnerable to such forces too.

Our cars go swimming again....

Not again, our cars went swimming today.

This afternoon, the Town Council rep and Medicacorp were called in. Sighz, some of the affected cars need to spend abt $500-800 to salvage their cars - by removing all the parts one by one to dry and service. Majority of their sound systems were gone. One car couldnt even get started.

My silly lion is not spared either. I need a longer crank to get my engine started. Must be water affecting my starter clutch while driving in the flood.... hopefully the problem doesn sustain for long.

This is my room. .. and did i scare anyone off?

Dun worry, this was just a temporary state when i was in the midst of clearing my room. My bro's wedding is drawing near, i have to do my part in maintaining the cleaniless of my own room.

There's simply too much stuffs to be cleared - despite my efforts to clean my room once every few months. Maj are small gifts and presents collected from X'mas exchange, birthday, parties etc. The rest are buddhist stuffs - buddhist book marks, newsletters, brochures etc. I have a dilemma whether to dump them into the garbage bin, or keep them (once again).

Finally 'opened up' a 2nd new shelf to house my Dharma books. I think i shld start clearing off those Dharma books which i havent finished reading, before i take in more new ones. I managed to come across several past buddhist articles and masterpieces done by the BS seniors when i was a freshman. I am sincerely grateful and touched by their contributions to the society, and i hope the culture will go on. Also came across several birthday cards and notes - its kinda mushy to read what some of these friends have written to me, haha.

Spent the afternoon trying to crack the administrator password of my HP laptop, and finally i succeeded! And i ended up stripping my Fujitsu lappie as well as my HP notebook. Compared the 2 notebooks and realised significant differences in the materials used and work finishings. I am now slowly transitioning from my PC to my notebook. Managed to pull over the impt datas, but am still assessing if its a better choice to give up my PC for my laptop. PC and the monitor (even though its LCD one) is taking too much space. I want my room to be simple, and as empty as possible.

My Carpark is Flooded

Look at the poor residents, trying to save their 'baby' from further damage. But its too late, water has already seeped into the interior. Affected cars probably gonna wait for 1-2 weeks for their interior to be totally dry and free from odours.

I was lucky to escape from the flood. But I had a hard time driving back to my home carpark as both the entrances were flooded too, to wheel level high. Fortunately my Partner is TALL.... i hope my engine didnt kena the water though...

Poor design, poor drainage system..... isnt the election coming soon?

Alrite this is my new work place. Its just a cubicle, rather enclosed and personal. The design is sleek and neat. And we are given IP phones, meaning we can pull out the phone and walk to another location, plug into the network, and still using the same phone number.

But the location pretty much sux. Its not convenient. Have to make U-turns to get out onto the expressways.

My past few days were terrible. I was very sick after returning from my Shanghai trip. Attended an external course at Grand Copthorne Hotel but have to fall out cos i was too sick to continue.

I guess its so true tt when u r sick, the only things that appear in ur mind wud be ur love ones. Nobody and nothing else. So its really a good test to see who are the most impt ppl in ur life.

Lately i do not feel like blogging. I do not know why, but i hope my blogging days do not end here. Hopefully my motivation to write will come back again soon. But in the meantime, i believe i wun be writing much.

This photo was taken while I was having dinner in a Shanghai restaurant. This lady is Candy, who works in the biggest notebook manufacturing company in Taiwan/China.

Candy's company manufactures products for most of the big names u can find in the market ie. HP, Lenovo (IBM), Toshiba, Dell etc. Through her personal working experiences with the various companies, she told me tat frankly speaking HP is really a good company.

Recently at least 5 of my friends have applied for HP, and msned me for interview tips. Wellz.... I am actually not exactly excited or supportive of the choices they have made. I can only say if u wanna earn big bucks, dun join this company. The company only pays u a gross pay of less than 40k/yr for fresh grads. Even my juniors working at DSO/DSTA are earning much more than me. And do i need to mention those working in wafer fabs, who sometimes earn twice as much as me per month.

However, the exposure for working in this company is good, cos Singapore is the regional hub. Hence, the roles u play are regional roles, and u will have exposure working with people from other regions and also within ur own region. The company does provide you many external management courses at BIG HOTELS serving BIG BUFFET lunches. And of cos, overseas trips are marvellous. They give u SQ flights, send Merz Cab to pick u up from ur home, let u stay 5-star hotels and allow u unlimited overseas meal and transport claims.

So i am neither encouraging or discouraging my friends from joining me in this company. It really depends on what you want. Given a choice, i wud rather explore other choices first, esp if i am a fresh grad.

Shanghai - Traffic

Shanghai's traffic is terrible. The drivers are impatient and reckless. Within a journey, I could see few cases of car accidents and ppl quarrelling at the top of their voices. However, some of the taxi drivers were really nice. There was this driver who help introduce to me the various buildings in Shanghai City, and even gave me discount by rounding down the taxi fares (of cos i din accept it).

The most impressive part of Shanghai's transportation system must be the MagLev - the train that does not touch the ground/rail but made use of magnetic forces for propelling. The top speed of the MagLev is 430km/h (the first time i ever travelled at such high speed), and it took only 7min to travel from Shanghai city to the airport, compared to the 40min of taxi ride. The Metro (MRT) is excellent too, almost equivalent to Singapore's MRT in terms of cleaniness, speed but definitely higher frequencies!

Shanghai City's standard of living is pretty much like Singapore - I could not feel much differences. Probably my prev trips made were to those less modernized province (ie. Jilin, Harbin, Luoyang, Zhenzhou, Guangzhou, Hainan), Shanghai is indeed very impressive, much more advanced than the Beijing i visited 6yrs ago. And did i mention that the bill for my hotel room cost about 1600++RMB per nite?

Joi Tsai pretty much sux

Pls pardon me for being crude and rude, but i thought Joi Tsai's singing is really sucky. All along, I know Joi (Cai Chun Jia) may not be a pretty face, but at least she is well compensated by a set of excellent vocals. I always regard her as good singer until one day a friend told me her live singing cannot-make-it manz. I didnt really believe him as she really sound great in her albums.

Alas, the truth was revealed when i happened to listen to 933's "Live ying yue" hour which play only songs that were sung 'live' by the singers. Joi's singing was really terrible! She went flat a few times (something which a seasoned or good singer will not foul) and went breathless just as many times (it shows how weak her breath control technique is). And mind you she was actually delivering a pretty easy song - pei wo kan ri chu. The subsequent tracks were songs sung live by Ah Mei and Kelly Chen, who both could easily put Joi to shame anytime.

Aww... though blessed with good vocals, but i guess her singing prowess pretty much sux.

Shanghai Photos

1) 城隍庙 (Taoist Temple)
2) 静安寺(Buddhist Temple admist the city)
3) 龙华寺 (Buddhist Temple)
4) 步行街
5) 上海滩
6) 东方明珠

Om @ Shanghai

I am really at Shanghai now, but it seems that some of my friends do not believe so. I am also puzzled why i can access blogger in China, which is supposedly to be banned.

Last evening, Zeathereal said that he wished to send me off at the airport. But i told him my flight was at 8am on that morning, and i was already at Shanghai then. I duno if he was real blur, or fake blur or thought i was bluffing him, but he continued to say he wanna send me off at the airport. Hahaha, anyway thanks for the kindness.

Shanghai is beautiful, especially the night scene by the river. The skyscrapers are tall and huge, magnificent designs that we can never find in Singapore (probably land is more abundant here). The hotel is realy superb, or probably i am a mountain tortise, but this is the first time i ever stayed in such a grand and excellent 5-star hotel. The beautiful furnitures, the king-size bed, posh bathrooms and excellent furnishings made me feel so fortunate at the same time embarassed of wasting so much money (company's money though).

However, the traffic is damm bad here.......... no more driving for me of cos.

Flying off

The looks of my Partner under broad day light. I know the looks may not be appealing to some, but at least a change in the dull and plain looks after 2 long yrs. Moreover, it cost me only $12 worth of material. In addition to my own effort, it makes the overall feeling a pleasant one.

Today was the last day i work in my office, after a short 11-mth stay. Sometimes I really feel like a nomad, constantly on the move. I have already have much experiences in unpacking/packing my stuffs after several sems of moving in/out of the hostels. My stay in the previous company was also only 1 yr, and that was a personal office, which means i had even more to pack then. At least i have only 1 table and 2 cabinets this time, and this made my packing much easier. I stepped out of my office today, feeling slightly sad that i will not be coming back here again, at least not in the near future. Overall it has been a nice working env - bright, clean + excellent toilet conditions. Most imptly, the carpark rocks.

Early tmr morning i will be flying off to Shanghai. Hopefully i will be able to meet up to the expectations of the ppl awaiting for me at Shanghai.

Am now using a new laptop writing my entry. This notebook must be the most powerful one i have ever used. Small, slim, light yet it comes with superb specs - 2.0GHz processor + 1G RAM. Have to get very used to it as it will be accompanying me at Shanghai for the time being :D

Hopefully i wun be attacked by the giddy monster tmr! Wish me luck.

Fierce?

Sorry for the lousy pic quality, as the photo was taken under the v dim lightings at ECP fort rd carpark.

After yday's failure, I decided not to give up but went ahead to buy some more stickers, wanting to prove to myself that i am capable of doing a neat job. I constantly told myself to not to be impatient like last evening. Lena was around to provide me her assistance. And yeah, the job was done!

Nice or not nice, i am not sure as the carpark was too dark to judge it. I can only wait till tommorow morning to see if the job has been well done or not. Shag manz...

I visited Jessy today.

Every week, i heard people mentioning how much she has progressed. Since a month ago, I already heard ppl telling me she could recognise ppl, and acknowledged their presence. I also heard she could smile and chant, and even called out to her mother. However when i visited her personally week after week, I was only faced with disappointments. She was still pretty much in a daze, oblivious to our presence and of cos unable to respond to us. Its totally different from what others have told me.

However I received a pleasant surprise this evening. The moment she saw me, she stretched out her hand for me. When i asked her abt my name, she responded to me immediately. Wow, that was indeed a remarkable progress! She also repeatedly tell me to help her thank Sayalay for visiting her. I really think Sayalay can do wonders. After conversing not more than 5 min, Jessy told us that she needed rest. Alas, finally we see the light at the other end of the tunnel!

Later in the evening, i went to SR's house to help him in plastering his bonnet. He has wanted the sides of his bonnets to be black, and hence we bought some black plasters to paste over it. With combined efforts, we managed to get his ride done beautifully. He gave me the remainings of the black plaster, and we planned to do my ride on another day as there were insufficient materials.

However, I guess i was really too impatient, and decided to make do with whatever remains at my home carpark, alone. Although i did manage to get both sides of my bonnet done, there were still some flaws here and there. While in an eager to correct those flaws, i accidentally tore a portion of the plaster. In the end, i have no choice but to remove everything. Arghh..... a waste of my precious time and MONEY (SR's). I have been killed by my own impatience.

Getting Foggy

When i was driving the Hyundai Sonata last time, I liked the pair of fog lights (installed on the front bumper) best. Be it on rainy days or when driving along very dark roads (when going to NTU), I always have them turned on. I think the car looks damm cool with the pair of fog lights turn on.

Unfortunately, the partner does not come with any fog light. And its illegal to self install them under the LTA rules.

This morning, one of our managers passed a pair of circular mirrors to my colleague (supposed to stick on your pc monitor to help u spy if there were anyone approaching you from your back). She passed them to me and i decided to install them on my ride. Hahaa... with just double sided 3M tape, i wonder how long the 'fog lights' will stay intact on my bumper. Anyone has any better suggestion?

Shangri-la, Grand Hyatt, Four-Season, Westin, Sheraton.. .. i think we are really spoilt for choices.