Polar World

I cooked lunch and dinner for myself today. I had angel hair pasta with meat sauce. For the sauce, I used a bottle of pasta sauce and added minced pork, some more onions and garlic. Once again I overestimated and cooked enough for me to eat it again for dinner.

I also added a handful of baby arugula leaves. I washed them, added a dressing and ate it as a salad. I made the dressing using some salt, pepper, roughly one part olive and one part whichever vinegar is available at home, which happened to be plum vinegar. It was quite tasty. I was most surprised that there is a fruity sweetness. Must be the plum vinegar because there can be nothing else and I know the vegetables do not taste sweet.

Mental note: Must really try not to overestimate food portions again.

I spent the day trying to be as motionless as possible, hoping that if I did not move, I would sweat less. Alas! I still felt pretty hot and kept sweating. Drinking iced water or taking a bath, is only a temporary relief.

I ended up spending the afternoon in this position.

Now I know why those old men roll up their shirts. It does feel cooler. My mother laughed when she saw me. “Is it that hot?” she asked.

But even with the fan blowing at me all the time, I kept sweating. Every hour or so, I had to go and wash my hands which had became wet with sweat. I thought of those people who remained cool in their air-conditioned homes. I have no air-con at home as my dad believed in not pampering his kids with modern conveniences. He came from the school which taught that hardships build character.

At least I can take comfort in that if I am suffering, so is he.

I took leave and rest at home. It was nice not to have to go to work. I woke up at 9am (must be the internal clock) and managed to get do a few things. I felt quite productive at the end of the day. I think the trick is not to do one thing for a long period of time but to do many things for short periods.

What I did today:

1. Borrow ebooks from the library
2. Read a ebook
3. Tidy up my S.H.E music collection
4. Work on a drawing
5. Did some proofreading for a volunteer project
6. Played some games
7. Clean my bedroom floor with magic wipe
8. Wipe my keyboard and desk

I woke up too early this morning. How early? 3:20am kind of early.

I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up. There was a dull pain at my abdomen area which was always a bad sign. But I still lay on the bed and refused to move, hoping that somehow I would far back to sleep again. When it didn’t work and the pain remained, I knew that I had to get up and go to the toilet.

I went to the toilet and didn’t come out until 30 mins later. I’ll spare you the gross details. At the end of it, I was so weak that I couldn’t stand up. Each time I tried to stand up, bright sparks exploded in front of my eyes and I felt giddy. So I quickly squat down again. I figured that being closer to the floor would mean that it’s not so painful when I hit the ground. At one point, I almost blacked out. Everything just went black for a few seconds as if I was in total darkness. I felt the wall with my right hand and slowly lowered myself back down to the floor. When I could see again, I saw that my left hand was empty but I thought I was holding something before the black out. But in my weaken state, I brushed it off as my imagination. Later on, I found that I did drop it but I don’t know why it ended up in the corner of the toilet.

I knelt on the toilet floor until I don’t get the giddy sensation when I tried to stand up. I briefly thought about crawling out of the toilet but quickly dismissed that option when I remembered that the kitchen floor is quite dirty. When I could stand, I took a charcoal pill with a glass of water and went to lie down on the sofa. I was covered in cold sweat. My clothes were damp and when I touched my hair, it was damp too. I slept there until morning.

Despite everything, this wasn’t the worst I had experience. Then since I felt better after I woke up, I decided to go to work as usual. About halfway on the journey, I suddenly felt sick again and quickly went toilet once I reached office. I kept thinking, “Thank goodness I didn’t puke.”

I made it through the rest of the day without anything else happening. I also took leave tomorrow so I could rest at home.

I spent the weekend reading a book I borrowed from the National Library. What was different was that it was not a physical book but an ebook which I downloaded from the library catalogue and ported over to my ebook reader.

Yes, I have another new toy to play with.

Since last month, I’ve been searching ebay for in hopes of buying a ebook reader. I narrowed down my choice to a Sony Reader. I searched ebay almost everyday and bidded in over 10 auctions but it was always sold for around $300-$400, which was over my budget. But still I search and bid in hope that I might find a good deal someday. That day came last week when I across someone in Singapore who was willing to let go of the model I’ve been eyeing for $165. It was a used reader but still in good condition. I felt that it was a very good deal and I immediately grab it.

My secondhand Sony Reader PRS-505

It arrived on Thursday and I’ve been playing with it since. The model I bought was an old model and already discontinued. It was smaller than I had expected and was only the size of my hand.

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