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Captain's Log - Chapter 37
Weather - Cool
Mood - GREAT

Still Reading
1. Dragonstrike
2. Lord of the Rings (The Return of the King)
3. Getting Rid of Gout

Taking control
Painkillers are wonderful discoveries. Following a visit to the doctor's yesterday night, my swollen ankle has healed somewhat since then. The pain is gone too. Enough of my gouty affliction. Today, I would like to talk about taking charge of one's life.

Frankly speaking, like most of the people I know, I have been drifting about since birth. Being wealthy, rich, happy etc are the general goals I had. But I never had any aims or set particular directions to achieve them. My girlfriend showed me the importance of setting directions and staying focused on my life's goals today. She is really an interesting gal. She came to my house today and started asking me to state my Personal/Adventure/Career/Financial goals that I would like to achieve. I shall not bored you with the details. Basically, I have to choose what I would like to achieve by 2004, list down what is stopping me from achieving them, and finally to list down those things that I can do to reach them.

Sounds easy? Well, I bet you have not really thought about such things. We do have goals etc. and usually a vague sense of how we should achieve them. But life usually get in the way. We more often than not lose sight of what we really want to do and indulge in activities that are not congruent with our life's goals. I am glad that I have done the exercise today. You will witness some changes in my blog as time goes on. These changes will be a testament of my success in achieving my goals. :)

 
Captain's Log - Chapter 36
Weather - Cold
Mood - In pain....

Still Reading
1. Dragonstrike
2. Lord of the Rings (now at Return of the King)
3. Getting Rid of Gout

The pain of a gout sufferer
Before I go into the blog per se, you should have noticed that I have a new section to my blog. Yes, now I am listing the books/magazines or anything that I am reading now in my blog. Well, to tell the truth, this is used as a measure to spur me on, to finish reading the book that is.

Ok, gout. Known as the rich man's disease in the 1800s. Yup, I am a sufferer of gout. If you are in the pink of health, my advice to you is to stay that way. You wouldn't want to get gout. Trust me. It is easily one of the most painful diseases known to the human species today.

Classic Symptoms of Gout
1. Acute swelling and pain around joints. Most commonly on the ball of your big toes, elbow and ankle.
2. The swollen area is often hot to touch and reddish in colour.
3. The swelling is often acute i.e. size (area) of swelling is often quite large/big.
4. Pain is often so unbearble that weight of the body, limb etc cannot be placed on the joint.
5. Swollen joint is often stiff. Flexibility is curtailed.
6. Onset of attack is sudden, usually one wakes up in the morning with the pain.

Medicine for treating Gout
1. Colchicine - effective for new sufferers. Effectiveness decreases with more frequents attacks (at least for me)
2. Allopurinol
3. Non-steroidal painkillers - Indomethacin (could be spelt wrongly), also known as 'ponstan'.
4. Other steroidal painkillers - extremely effective, but has some side effects if taken regularly.

I am writing this to bring about greater awareness to the public. Most of the time, people don't understand why I can't eat certain things. High Purine foods such as beans, nuts, meats, internal organs, anchovies, herring, sardines etc are foods that I have to avoid. Oh yeah, for alcohol lovers, beer, wines and other alcoholic drinks are a definite no-no. These will be an express ticket to "Painville".

As a meatlover, I have to curtail my diet. Well, I guess I still overindulge as I am have gout attacks now and then. But following this latest episode of attack, I have decided to really curtail myself. Gout is not only a painful disease, but also an expensive one. Certain painkillers, e.g. Synflex (blue oval pill) is quite costly. Thus, having frequent attacks not only lower the daily standards of living (e.g. being able to walk properly, carry loads etc), it also lowers your material standards of living as one has to visit the doctor quite often.

Hmmm, think a blog is too limited a place to share with you all about my goutic experiences. Perhaps I will set up a webpage to help the gouty sufferers around the world.

 
Captain's Log - Chapter 35
Weather - Cold
Mood - Ok

Saying 'sorry' is so hard to do
Not sure about the rest of the world, but I find saying sorry is a tough thing to do. Some people say; it's about pride, others - ego, and many simply the lack of conscience.

I am writing about this today as I have just apologised to a fellow colleague for a misunderstanding. Basically, I jumped to a conclusion that this colleague of mine took upon himself to do a job tasked to me by my boss. Well, he (my colleague) has this reputation for trying to take over everyone's work. Yeah, management would love an employee like him, but to co-workers, he is actually trying to take away our livelihood. Which to me is a no-no.

Confrontation is not a part of my character. I simply abhor confrontational conflicts. Call me a wimp, but I prefer a civilised discussion more than anything else. Somehow, a bloodlust came over me this morning when I came to work. The first (well not exactly) I did was to confront him. If there were kegs of gunpowder in the office, the whole place would have exploded given the fiery and tense environment. After confronting him, he said that it was my boss who told him to do the task. Well, well... so who's at fault here? Charging in like a hero championing the rights civil society... I ended up on a retreat. After knowing that I am wrong, my conscience kept gnawing on me... its tiny voice (well more like a psychological feeling) kept saying, "If you are a man, you should apologise", and things like "It doesn't matter if he is a lowdown co-worker without much principles, you should not stoop to that level". These kept playing in my head for some time.

As in the title, saying sorry is a really hard to do. I fretted in my cubicle for over 2 hours (well, I did not laze, was working on other projects, but the tiny voice kept playing in the background) after I decided to apologise to him. I had to pump myself up... only with great difficulty did I mange to walk to his cubicle and confess my mistake. Well, that's that. Despite this incident, I doubt that it will make it any easier for me to apologise in the future. Come to think about it, I think it is always easier to apologise to a friend. But to apologise to someone whom you detest is the real test of one's integrity. Oops, did I sound like blowing up my own ego. There I go again... what a vicious cycle. :)

Quote:
The strength of person lies not in his physical might, but in his ability to stay true to his principles.

 
Captain's Log - Chapter 34
Weather - Warm and Humid
Mood - Flustered

Ghost's Festival
This log relates the developments that took place on 17 Aug 2003 - a day that changed my life.

17 Aug 2003 is Indonesian Independence Day to the Indonesians... a day in the Ghost Festival for the Chinese around the globe... a day of change in my life. Well, let me talk about how the day, well, evening started. As you all know (assuming you are Chinese as well as Buddhists/Taoists), the 7th Lunar month is known as the Ghost month. This is the time when the gates of hell is opened and the ghosts are allowed to roam the earth for a month. Don't ask me what they do when they are 'here' with us. I rather not know. Then again, as a Catholic, I don't really believe in this.

As part of the 7th Lunar month celebrations, concerts are organised across Singapore. Scantily dressed singers would strut their stuff onstage while numerous old men would be leering below the stage. Personally, I have never attended one of these concerts as they are loud and frankly speaking a waste of one's time to watch them. Singing is often mediocre, and the songs are usually in Hokkien, which I understand, but not yet proficient enough to hold a true blue Hokkien conversation. Anyway, a concert was staged at the foot of my block this year. So, you can imagine the din and ruckus it created when the drums started booming. Oh by the way, these concerts in reality evolved from traditional chinese dance performance, much like what you get for Les Miserables, but in traditional chinese costume etc. These plays are being performed for errr those who are let out of hell, bet you understand what I mean. Going back to the concert at the foot of my block, it did attract a large crowd. There were even drinks and ice cream sellers servicing the crowd, which inadvertently was standing along the road (as the stage was pitched on a few parking lots). Was really tempted to call in the men in blue (read police) and have them revoked the license. But then again, being a person who is simply anti-system, I guess why not let those people down there have their fun too.

That's the beginning of the day. As the concert was ongoing, Singapore's National Day Rally by the Prime Minister was going on concurrently. I had to blast the TV volume to hear what Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong had to say about how Singapore is doing. This is the first time I was tuning into the rally. Well, it was pretty interesting to hear your political leader talk about the state of affairs in the country. Peppered with appropriate idioms, my PM would now and then add a dash of dialect jokes that brought out a giggle or two from me. Those were the only good parts. When it came to the part on Singapore's economy, that where the world fell away for me. Noting the high unemployment rate and the threat posed by lost cost countries, PM Goh has decided to cut our Central Provident Fund (CPF) - something like pension fund in other countries by 6%!!! This is on top of planned wage cuts. When I heard this, I was shocked into a stupor... The words ringing in my mind were "How the bloody hell as I going to pay for my future dream home?" This kept playing in my head for the next few hours. It's easy for our political leaders to say cut 6%, but to those who earn S$20,000 a month, 6% is peanuts!!! Well, I shouldn't go there.

After the rally ended. My thoughts were really in a turmoil. A lot of things were going through my head then. By the time I turned in... after watching Liverpool succumb to Chelsea 1-2, I was as restless as an ant on a hot plate would be. Tossing around the bed till 2-3am, my mind was still ensnared by the fears for my future, including my wife's (well we are not married yet, but soon). Guess tossing on the bed helps one to think... Eventually, I came to the conclusion that life is no longer all rosy and easy, I need to be a man to bring the bread home and to provide the strength, be it mental or physical, to tide through such challenges. Guess the rally had an unintended effect or waking me up to the harsh reality of adulthood. Well, it wasn't that bad. Following this life-changing experience, I have since become a more responsible son, boyfriend and life partner to my girlfriend. Although I would rather such a transformation is prompted by other stimulus, one couldn't jolly well choose the conditions. So, I have decided to grow up, finally, after 29 years of bliss on this earth. But, a grown up 'me' will be ready to create a blissful life for the next 29 years and beyond.

My Quote of the day:The path look dark and dreary. But have you noticed the beautiful tiny white flowers blooming by the side of the weeds. How you choose to see the path will determine how you walk it. Enjoy your walk!