aDrenais' Book of Shadows

Since the last post, I've made a dramatic recovery from the bout of fever I had (when I visited the GP in Bedok my temperature read 39.6deg. I mentioned this casually to Luke, and he replied "Alamak, brain damage! It'll bring your IQ 10 pts down to 50"), been to KL on duty for the first time since I started flying, attended 5 more driving lessons, made painfully slow progress in packing up my things, and by my own admission grew more rotund. The weighing scale says I've put on only 1 kg, but my face is visibly rounder, and there seems to be more handles all around. Serves me right for putting off the Oscillator and plain old skipping, making a full recovery from my frightful illness seemed to be such a good excuse for so long.

After I submitted the previous entry on May 4, I went to bed and woke up at 2am on May 5 to take my antibiotics. By this time my spectacular diarrhoea was taking a turn for the worse, and in desperation I visited the 24-hour clinic near my place. I was placed on drip to bring my fever down and to replace the fluids that I was losing due to the diarroea, and had my blood, urine and stool sample taken (Just to note, the stool sample bottle was quite an ingenous thing, this container with a little scoop so I could scoop the poop from the bowl, instead of trying to aim into a little container with a littler opening the time I was passing blood in my poop in Chiangmai). I waited 2 hours for the tests to be run, only to have the doctor tell me I had a viral infection, "that's all". He also told me my temperature will be see-sawing for another 3-5 days before abating. For God's sake, of course I had an infection, I didn't need my blood drawn and the humiliation of having to pee and poop into little containers for the doctor to tell me something I already knew. In exasperation, I flew back to Singapore for treatment when the freaking fever refused to subside. The fever went away quite miraculous after taking the prescribed medication for just one day. To be on the safe side, I took the fever medication for 1 more day before banishing it to storage. Bloody useless Bahraini doctors.

I returned to Bahrain on 12 May and promptly went back to Asia on a Kuala Lumpur flight, resting in KL for 82 hours. Elgin, who received notice about the trip but not the exact date in April, was unable to join me because the dates clashed with his graduation trip. To Bintan. With 5 University friends. All who live in Singapore. I've been going on about it for 1 month already, but honestly, how hard can it be to reschedule a trip with 5 other people who all reside in Singapore? His excuse was that some of them were going to US for Work and Travel, and he will not be seeing them for awhile. There're going overseas, while I already am overseas. For 1 freaking year. How can he justify the Bintan trip because he won't get to see them for 3 measly months, when I live in Bahrain and am in Singapore for only 2 days a month? Moreover, his most recent trip overseas was with his Uni mates as well, to Bangkok. The same Bangkok that he couldn't be bothered to book an air ticket for when I was there for New Year's Eve last year. All I asked was 3 days of his summer vacation, but he couldn't risk letting his friends down. Imagine my surprise when he went to watch a movie with the exact same people the day after returning from Bintan. Whatever happened to 'not seeing them for awhile'? I'm aware I'm being extremely petty, but as far as my logic is concerned he let me down big time. Evil piece of shit. Thankfully Father and Sister came up to KL for a visit, and we had great fun going around eating everything in sight.

On a happier note, I've made tremendous progress in my driving lessons. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, my instructor proceeded to reversing. I've spent the last 2 lessons laboriously reversing and driving forward without much success, and that's without the poles for parking. It's a race against time for me to finish the required 22 hours and pass my practical before I leave Bahrain, but I'll try my best anyway.

The packing has been a nightmare, and in my eagerness not to utilise the 100kg cargo allowance that I'm allocated for repatriation (nasty stories about how all sorts of things get stolen) I've been asking favours of everybody I know who has a Singapore-Sydney flight. I'd deposit bags in their suitcases, and Elgin will pick them up from the hotel. Elgin's been a good sport about all the hassle he has to go through, returning to Hotel Rendezvous every week to pick up my bits and pieces. But he's still evil shits.

I miss my family alot! After spending 2 days in KL with Father and Sister, I realised how much I missed going on vacation with my family (last trip was to Italy in 2005). I'm looking forward to our visit to Paris in June, more for the company than anything else. I have 5 days off before the Paris trip, and my flatmate quipped that I might as well go on ahead to Paris before my family joins me. Thing is, I'm too much of a scaredy-cat to try to navigate myself in a country where I cannot speak the language.

With regards to my weight gain, I'll try to do something about it. Case in point, I'm heading for the Oscillator the moment I submit the post. So there! :)

In conclusion, I end off my GP-style entry which starts with an introduction of everything I proceed to mention in the body. The end.