Went to the doctor about my breathing problems at night. Might be sleep apnea. Shouldn't be affected by weight. My weight causes my snoring, that's been proven when I lost 20kgs in BMT and gained that all back and more after 5 years and stopped snoring temporarily during that period.
This has been getting worse despite my weight loss earlier this year. I've since stopped losing weight, unfortunately. Good thing is that I haven't any either.
As I told my doctor, when I lean on one side during my sleep, that nostril would be completely blocked. That's been a gradual thing that's been going on for almost a year but only got to this degree a few months ago.
Usually I don't see it as a problem since the other nostril would clear when one gets blocked like that. However, in recent months my left nostril kind of seals itself when it's clear, like the nostril wall (or whatever it's called) can't support itself or something, hence almost preventing me from breathing when I'm leaning on my right.
In the past, the lack of good sleep was never a problem, but now I'm working with people who have no "sacred personal time" aka "weekends" so there is no way I can make up for the lack of sleep during the day, any day.
Today, I finally got annoyed enough to go to the doctor and straight away he referred me to a ENT specialist at NUH.
It's about S$120 for the first visit, cheaper for subsequent visits. Ugh.
Of course I can go through the polyclinic to get a cheaper rate but I get what I pay for. In this case, it's more likely that I'd get a junior doctor. Makes sense because private clinics can refer to specific doctors unlike polyclinics and obviously they would refer patients to the more experienced ones, leaving the junior ones with more time for the other patients.
In the meantime he prescribed me this nasal spray containing steroids called Flixonase, described on the box as an "aqueous suspension of fluticasone propionate 0.05% w/w" and produced by GlaxoSmithKline. Also labelled as "POISON" on the side.
He repeated his warnings several times about stopping it if I ever have an infection, pain in the nasal area or bleeding, so I get how important that is.
Also gave me these pills called "Flumucil Effervescent" apparently to get rid of the mucus in my nose. Not sure why since I don't have anything in my nose. I know. I tried. I blew really hard sometimes in the past and all I got was blood at most.
Whatever. No harm trying.
But it's most likely a sinus problem, which I've already seen him a few times for. I'm pretty sure it is because when I catch a cold, I cough instead of having a runny nose. My sinus is problem swollen so badly everything is flowing down my throat instead.
In any case, it would be really nice to wake up refreshed for once. I don't remember feeling that for, well, about a year, I guess.
For some reason he also measured my blood pressure. Didn't tell me what it was but he told me with a smile that it was in the healthy range.
I was delighted.
I had a slightly high BP in the past and it seemed normal. I am, after all, obese and approaching my late 20s. Having a healthy BP while my much slimmer younger brother has slightly high BP seems like an injustice... that's in my favour.
Coincidentally part of the reason why I went down to the doctor after I got home from work was because I smelled durians from my neighbours. I was going to buy some after the visit, and this gave me an extra reason to do it.
Not knowing which durians to pick, I just looked at the prices on the cardboards and picked the $7 durians which were also going at 3-for-$20.
Took three and my bro declined.
Woohoo!
A little troublesome though. I've never eaten a durian straight from the shell on my own and this time it took a lot of care, an overly large knife and a spoon (because I didn't want to get my hands dirty).
Made a hole in my desk accidentally with the tip of the knife but I'm glad I didn't get any cuts. One of the spikes did puncture my skin when I accidentally dropped a shell and instinctively grabbed it (fuck you, natural instincts!) but it didn't bleed.
Next time, I'll try a steak knife or fruit knife, something that doesn't have a sharp tip.
A buyer told me I could make some kind of dessert by mixing durian flesh with flour and frying it in a pan. I'm going to try it next time now that I'm confident about handling durians.
This is also an experiment on my bro's girlfriend's reaction to having a durian smell in the house.
Because this smell isn't going away so soon after three durians.
Singapore's strategy is to create prosperity by making its citizens go up the social pyramid, by hook or by crook. Hence the foreign workers.
It can be done - you just need to imagine a larger base to support the entire nation.
I think that's why slavery was so common in the past. It solved the problem so perfectly it was hard to resist the temption of selling your conscience in exchange for this solution. You won't even need to talk about educating your citizens because even the village idiot has a higher social status than a slave. Every citizen is automatically upgraded when there are slaves to form the foundation of a society.
You bring in slaves, and even the most unqualified citizen can take a supervisor level job. How frickin awesome is that?
Other than slavery, there are also alternatives like the disgusting, violent form of sex discrimination still practiced in certain primitive parts of the world, the caste system used in India, and illegal immigrants.
Someone's got to be at the bottom, right?
But in the democratic and capitalistic societies of the developed world, these simply do not work. You can't force someone to be where he doesn't want to be when he can convince a lot of people that he shouldn't be there. That's called "oppression".
Hence developed countries pay foreign workers to do it instead. Everyone's happy.
The problem here is that with foreign workers, the very low bar is still set higher than that of slaves.
And every village has its idiot.
That is part of the reason why Singaporeans are complaining (and we're not the only people doing that). Some of them simply can't climb up fast enough due to whatever reasons and are stuck in the foundation. In a business, that wouldn't be a problem - sacking an employee is easy as fuck. In a country, however, it practically misses the point of its own existence if you let your own citizens be at a disadvantage to non-citizens.
Yet the strange thing about humans is that we can all accept contradictions as long as they don't negatively affect our lives.
In Singapore, it's actually pretty mild TBH, and it's clearly part of our government's old carrot-and-stick strategy that it's been using since independence. I say mild because there are plenty of countries all around us that are much more direct and forceful in their efforts at pissing off its own citizens, like China, India, Russia, Malaysia and the list can go on for a very long time.
On the other hand, it doesn't mean we should just sit around and accept it.
But I get it. We can't wait for everyone to climb up. There's no time; we can only live so long. If we were to wait for every village idiot to get a high school diploma before we move on, it would be our kids who will be moving on... unless they have to wait for the idiots of their generation(s) to graduate.
The key is in making sure as many of them are upgraded as possible. Easier said than done.
This ice pack is now an absolute necessity. Forget the air-conditioner, this is all I need.
Until I judge that my income can easily handle over S$300 per month in electricity bill, that is. Nothing is quite as awesome as the feel of under a thick blanket while the a/c is at full blast. Absolutely nothing.
I am, of course, speaking from the point of view of a person who has spent most of his life living in the tropical climate of Singapore. It's easy to imagine that an Inuit would have a very different opinion on this.
This hard ice pack is actually quite old. I think it's been here for years, but it's only been at the end of last year that I started to wean myself off the a/c.
Saving about $150-200 a month sounds like such a great idea that it's hard to convince myself to get the a/c system in my home repaired or replaced.
However, with the temperature now hovering around 32 degrees Celsius indoors and very little wind due to the directions my windows face, the fans are no longer enough.
Then my bro bought one of those soft ice packs for using on pillows and I thought about this ice pack we've had for so long but never used. It's so worn, I was able to rub off the remains of the paper label yesterday because it was coming off and getting stuck on the towels I wrap the pack in anyway.
The cap's gone too but the seal is still intact.
It's a little too hard to use it as a pillow at night so I just leave it on my bed. Better to have something cold under my hand than not having it at all.
It's also a little strange that it's not really getting anything wet with 3 layers of towels around it. I guess I'm just not used to seeing anything that stays cold and dry in this climate. Very counter-intuitive.
Backed the Ministry of Supply project on Kickstarter. I don't have a single dress shirt at all so I thought it would be a good idea to keep at least one as a backup in case I ever need one.
Dress shirt and chinos should work, I think.
I'd have picked the option for two shirts, including one for my bro, but they didn't offered that. Hence I took three shirts for US$275 with shipping. That's about US$92 per shirt, but the shirts appear to be worth the money.
The main feature is that the cloth expands under heat and form large holes or vents, therefore making it pretty cool in both senses of the word.
I'll keep two and give one to my bro. Initially planned to give him two since I don't see the need for it in my work so far but he has several shirts already.
Damn. The bank where I have a corporate current account is freezing it because I only recently informed them about my mother's death. I told them the business was transferred to my name before she passed away even though I didn't inform them about that but they seem to be ignoring the first point and focused only on the second.
Since there isn't a lot of cash inside, it's not a huge issue, but because I get paid through that account and the cheques are how I pay my staff, I will need to apply for a new account soon. By the end of this month, definitely. My lawyer has informed me that she will talk to the bank tomorrow so if the answer remains the same by then, I will have to make a new corporate current account... in another bank.
Just because, y'know, fuck you UOB and things like that.
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