Yummy brekkie

Woke up to a bitingly crispy cold morning in Atlanta. Had such a good sleep last night, woke up refreshed and bouncy and famished - think tummy must be recovering!

Pretty view of the garden from the room window, which was all frosted and sweaty thanks to subtropical temperature settings for the room (still acclimatising mah). There were lots of holly bushes in the garden and they reminded me of good ol' London when we often had to walk in the frosty mornings to clinics along hedges of holly bushes.

Breakfast was down at the appropriately named Dining Room.

My first american breakfast in America! Had scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, jam filled pastries, cinnamon pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries (hello antioxidants!), and lotsa fruits and juices. Stomach welcomed the food, until the 2nd cup of coffee pushed it over the edge and I had to run back to the room to er, offload =p

Still no sign of the mystery roommate. Maybe I'll meet her at registration which is in about ten mins?

The longest day

Am finally in Atlanta for the much anticipated VRT course which starts tomorrow! Hasn't been easy getting here, from trying to sort out the flights with HR (vomit blood) to the frantic week running up to the course which ended with a bout of food poisoning the day before (more vomitting, but luckily no blood this time, just bits of er, fish and pasta and squid and other stff unidentifiable by the naked eye). Spent most of Saturday being helplessly horizontal while J helped to set up my new lappie to a userable state (I love u! Why you so nice?) before dashing off to the airport to catch the flight at midnight.

Flight was okie.. glad to be taking SQ where people understand what your ask for and they feed you often enough so you feel you get enough smiles and human interaction to stay human and not feel like pigs in a basket. Food was okie.. couldn't really stomach anything but appreciated the fruit and bread rolls and juice. Took some imodium before the flight took off, and it really settled the stomach (No more LS on board!) and made me feel a whole lot better. In fact I felt so good I became complacent and had ice-cream on the frankfurt -NY leg; bad idea, tummy cramps came back straight away!

Saw a little of Atlanta on the taxi ride on the way to Emory; lots of pretty townhouses that looked a lot like the house that Phoebe, piper and Prue stays in on Charmed. All the cars on the roads are huge : lorries, trucks, SUVs, Jeeps and station wagons. The occasional sedan car looks dwarfed here. Gave myself a scare on the ride here when the taxi turned into a very ulu lane and looked like he was headed into the mountain; was secretly planning my negotiation tactics and how/where to run should he turn out to be not so friendly. but fortunately he rejoined the road to civilisation in no time and my imaginative worries were unfounded.

The hotel is quaint and friendly. My roomie arrives tomorrow, so I get the room to myself tonight, which is greatly appreciated . Totally tired, all I really want to do now is to shower, order room service, skype J and fall asleep. Oh haven't finished reading the notes yet. Darn.

Sunny days aren't made for whining

But since MARCH was such an unusually rainy month, this is a whiney post about, well, pretty much everything!

Month kick-started in a stressful hazy sleep-deprived state with the bi-annual Geri-Workshop. Presenting my pet topic made it somewhat less painful, but nevertheless was a bundle of jumpy over-caffeinated nerves when the day came... SO NOT PREPARED!!! I was told it went ok in the end... too tired to care! So glad its only once in 2 years!

J sent Rachel rabbit and some pretty flowers to calm my nerves (why u so nice?). A from the office told me that N told her that I got flowers sitting in outpatients from Cynthia Goh, when in fact they were from San Diego. Chinese whispers! Rachel rabbit joins Mr Huggies, Mr Pancake, Mr Dawg and Willomena bear in a corner on the bed =)

Wrote my first police report ever in March. One of my patients got assaulted and police wanted a PT report. Should've been a simple straight-forward report, but after it was vetted by a few people upstairs I barely recognised it. As an act of childish defiance (and because I really disagreed with a few points), I sent in the report to boss as an email attachment entitled 'MY patient's report, JT & YM version'.

For goodness' sake, its a police report, not a letter writing competition lor; I would think accuracy takes priority over niceties. I guess I really should have stomped downstairs to defend my report, but its taken up too much of my time already.

On a happier note, Project CDE finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel in March! The table was finalised, the info we needed was collected. Now if I could just stop procrastinating and get the thing written up. Can't wait for it to be over!!!

Poster for VRT workshop was finalised... no backing out of it now! Scared scared... need to study study study revise revise revise again.

More studying coming ... reading material for the brain injury course and the Vesti course in April arrived this month. Brain injury course is own time own target i.e. will try to read everything then quickly do the online exam just before the registration expires =p. Realised can't sit down and study like before.. working memory no longer working. Brain feels like a fibrotic sponge, not holding much information, and not absorbing much information either. OLD!!!

Oh, and started playing vball more regularly. Its good exercise and a good stretch most times, and it feels pretty good to have your muscles aching for days after. Nothing like delayed onset muscle soreness to make you feel alive. Feel a bit old amongst all the young girls and I am honest to goodness pretty sucky at the game now. Not that I was great to begin with, but you know, I think its been better; or at least i'd like to think so? =p

Group dynamics is.... like that (dunno how to describe... weird comes to mind). I mean, everyone's nice enough to everyone else, but its all pretty superficial and blah. Ok so I guess life-long friendships aren't build in 2 months, but somehow... I dunno? Miss the ragtaggers of Palawan beach and the SPE days, and IMH was heaps of fun and laughter too. Nobody laughs much at training now. I'm not slagging anything off, but its all very serious. And people whisper to each other with furrowed brows knitted together. Or maybe I'm not taking it seriously enough? Appreciate the guys taking the time to come train us though, very very good of them. Still not too sure if this is my cup of tea, but will stick around for the exercise and its fun catching up with A, B & C & F. Oh and we have cool ah-lian-ish stocking-like team socks wor... Oh and I bought new vball shoes, verrrrry nice except a bit too big and half the time i'm wondering if they're gonna come flying off and bop someone on the head. Apologies in advance if they do! Trying to tie the laces tight, but they can only be so tight before ischaemia sets in.

March ... ROARRRRR.... Okie April will be better, I hope!

Sleeping weekend

My first weekend with a non-working saturday in a long time, plus J's in town (yay!). Planned to go cycling at east coast in the morning, but that idea got thrown out of the window when I looked at the clock and it said 11.30am when I woke up. The thought of dodging fearless kids on wobbly bikes and wobbly adults on their blades in the heat of the avo was too much to bear. Instead, we headed to Ikea to buy the study chair that J liked when we were there last week. Got a yummy lunch of meatballs and salad and 2 cups of coffee (and then I woke up properly) while we were there. Then it was back to J's to put the chair together "like a giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle". Between the 2 of us we managed to put it together in a hour or so - most amused with Ikea's instruction booklet; there are pictures only and no words at all! Very caveman like indeed. We didn't have any screws or parts left over so I guess the chair's safe to sit on =p
Anyway, the chair looks good (very comfy too!) and fits just nice behind the desk.

So other than an hour of chair assembly, I didn't really do anything productive this weekend. Wanted to write up project DP for work, but only managed to arrange some data. Just slept and slept and slept the whole of the weekend... felt good to get some major pillow time.

The autistic child speaks

I miss taking long flights where its ok to not talk to anyone because nobody really expects you to anyway and you can stay quiet for hours.

Its not that my friends are boring. On the contrary they're really fun/interesting/witty/hyper/funny/kooky/half-mad at times/good-looking/sweet/nice/inspiring/talented/multi-talented.

So if the plane flies in the opposite direction and at the same speed at the earth rotating on its axis, does time stand still?

On caffeine: Its possible to be under-dosed.

Emotional onions

Truly a goosepimple worthy song. Never knew onions could be so romantic. Love it!!

Excuse me Missy...

A lady came into the ward today wanting to visit her neighbour who had been admitted to hospital a few days ago.

The problem was, she didn't know which ward he was in.

And she didn't really know what his name was (wasn't too sure about his surname either).

Of course asking if she knew his NRIC number was just being optimistic (she didn't have his IC number, but who can memorise their neighbour's IC number?)

She couldn't call her neighbour's telephone number to check with the family because she didn't know their number.

All she knew was that the old man lived in Ang Mo Kio Ave X Blk XXX.

There are > 1000 beds in the hospital, excluding those waiting to get a bed.
Assuming the neighbour was admitted to hospital a few days ago, he would have gotten a bed by now.
Assuming the lady's on the right floor, that narrows it down to about 142 patients.

It was either we manually click through 142 beds in the system, or the poor lady makes a wasted trip in the spirit of good neighbourliness. So we clicked. And clicked. And clicked. And then clicked somemore.

And then.

Not one of the 142 was the neighbour she was looking for! Either they weren't staying at Ang Mo Kio Ave X Blk XXX, or they were of the wrong gender.

So we had no choice but to ask her to go home and check with the neighbour's family again. Felt sorry to turn her away after she came ALLLLLL the way here with kind intentions that, sadly, remained intentions.

So until there is a change in the computer system anytime soon, it is a really good idea to find out exactly WHO it is you want to visit and WHERE. Getting his/her IC number would be foolproof. You can even help him/her buy 4D after that =p

Lunch

The prawn in the prawn noodle looked at me with berry-like purple eyes. Never knew their eyes turned purple after a hot bath. Good thing the same thing doesn't happen to us humans.

Sorry, but I'm still gonna eat you up. And your friend too. Yummy!

Its a complicated world

Wanted to buy a new hairdryer because the old one was taking a really long time to dry my hair. Never knew buying a hairdryer could be so complicated. There must be at least 20 different types of hairdryers in the store; big ones, small ones, pink ones, green ones, foldable ones, quiet ones, noisy ones, simple ones, and ones that look they they were kopped off the set of starship troopers.

Gave the store person a blank look when he asked the what sort of hairdryer was I looking for. "Er, one that dries my hair maybe?" No of course I didn't say that out loud.

The nice storeman then very patiently launched into an enthusiastic 15min mini-lecture about the different types of hairdryers; Wattages, temperature, fan speeds, ionic or non-ionic... but I didn't quite get the ion thing. Apparently blowing ions on you hair makes it less frizzy. Wow! So cations or anions? Or does it not matter? But if they're all the same charge won't they repel each other? Then my hair will really be standing up. And I'll have volume! At last!

Anyway, information overload. So I went home and slept on it for a few days

Went back to ther store today, and am now the proud owner of a supercool looking POWERFUL (2000W!!) hairdryer that has a detachable, washable dust-trap, blows ions out of not one but TWO outlets, and can do that at 4 different temperatures, 3 different wind speeds and with a diffuser. Not that I would know what a diffuser is for of course. Anyway, it looks cool and dries my hair in super-quick time.

Happy!!!

What happened when 2 little pigs went to Hong Kong...

We ate and we ate and then we ate somemore! Oink oink!

Top top favourites:

In 3rd place: Nathan Congee and Noodle (Saigon Street, just off Nathan Road)

This little congee / noodle place has every porridge combination you can think of, from the "normal" century egg and pork porridge to "exotic" combinations like the Yuen-yang chicken porridge (frog & chicken porridge) which we didn't have time to try but wished we did! They also do an incredibly tender braised beef brisket and noodle. Ding dong ding dong!

In 2nd place: Tsui Wah Restaurant (Next to Nathan Hotel's front entrance, off Nathan road) This littel tea-house restaurant with a huge neon sign hanging over the street has your normal range of dishes like ur maggi-noodles with ham/luncheon meat, french toast, rice and western food (steak, spaghetti, macaroni). The braised pork noodle was really tender and juicy, and the prawn dumpling was really good too, but our favourite was this ...

Roast pork sandwich (Zhu pa bao); one crispy succulent pork cutlet sandwiched between 2 pieces of fluffy lightly-toasted buns, add some butter, mayonaise, pickled cucumber and lettuce... Yummmm... simply amazing. How could we resist? We even went back for seconds the next day :p

In 1st place: Dessert at some dessert stall in Cheung Zhou Island
Honestly have no idea what the name of the stall is, not because I was too busy stuffing my face (ok that too) with the yummilicious desserts, but because the name was nowhere to be seen! The entire shop-front is covered with pictures of desserts. We spent a good 15mins poring through the menu (they have about 200 kind of desserts), 25 pages of colourful yummy looking things; every page just looks better and better. Yes of course we came back for seconds, like, an hour later :p

The local version of the ice-kachang; pretty similar, except that its a drink. It comes with a surprise (actually 2!), which is this brown ball like thing which we had no idea what it was until we bit into it:

And it turns out to be vanilla ice-cream coated with a gelatinous layer (rice-dumpling-like) then coated with chocolate and covered with sesame seeds.

Ding dong ding dong ding dong!

J's favourite : Fresh mango with mango ice-cream and jelly with mango cubes on a bed of water chestnut jelly. Mango overload in the best way possible!

Xu kup with fresh mango and water chestnut jelly. Mmm~

Fresh watermelon, honeydew, dragon-fruit and mango bathed in a pool of sago pearls and coconut milk, AND THEY HAVE THEM CHOCOLATE COATED ICE-CREAM BALL THINGS! We didn't think this could be improved further, but add some carnation milk and it just takes it to a new level of Phwoar...

The first time I...

kenna road-blocked was last night. I was on the way home after drinks with the girls at the axis bar at mandarin oriental; and by drinks I really mean ONE drink (sheer vanilla - tasted like cough mixture, so I guess it must be good for you:p), and a sip of k's bailey's smoothie thing (yumm) and e's white sangria (looks as good as it tastes)so I don't think I've exceeded the alcohol limit. So anyway, I was just about to get on the ECP when a traffic policeman waved a jedi-esque neon torch-stick thing at me and gestured to wind down the window. First thought that flashed across my mind was "quick! take a swig of water!" but then I thought that would have been too obvious and too guilty looking. Anyway, no time, window was down already, so I put on my best innocent but confused wide-awake hello hello HELLOOOO smile; slightly challenging cos it was already 1.10am. "hello miss where you going?" "East coast" Shucks that doesn't make any sense. I really meant Siglap, but I was going via the ECP and so I actually started to say ECP but then thought ECP is a route, not a destination, I mean who goes TO the ECP? .... so I stopped at East Coast. And then nodded seriously like I meant it. And he waved me through! Phew. So scary!