Biopsy

Sometime in January when I went for my annual blood test, I asked my doc about the patches on my forearms which have been there since I was a teen, thinking that she'd be able to prescribe me some skin medication. I had never bothered about it because it looked like 'panau' / 'hon pan' to me which is very common.

To my horror, she diagnosed the patches as something more serious. I was quite disturbed by her diagnosis so in order to get to the bottom of it, I asked for a referral letter to see a skin specialist in QE.

An appointment was scheduled for Feb 18 (5th day of CNY). To my relief, the specialist said that it was due to scarring and sensitive skin and advised me to use mild bar soap and prescribed me a huge tub of aqua cream which I've been very undisciplined in its application. Since I was already there, I asked for a biopsy as well just to ease my mind.

It was scheduled on March 2 and the doc drew a circle on my arm where a tiny patch of skin would be excised. Unfortunately, it was a long wait that morning as the staff had a very long morning briefing. I waited for more than 1 1/2 hours although I was the only one scheduled that early (I saw the doc even before 8 a.m.).

 Site for biopsy

March 2: QE Specialist Centre

The med officer was very quick. The most painful was when he jabbed me with a local anesthetic. After that I did not know what he did, not because I passed out, but because I was too afraid to see how he cut up the skin. Sophie will faint go weak at the sight of raw wound and dripping blood.

The covered wound.

The wound was very small as I discovered while changing the plaster two days later.

The stitches

March 4: Home

Exactly one week later, I went back to get the stitches out. Instead of going to the specialist centre, I went to the emergency area where there's a ward for minor operation and got my stitches out. Registered at 7.45 a.m. and done at 8.20 a.m. So fast, for a government hospital that is!

While waiting to get the stitches out.

March 9: Ward 5D

Now I'm waiting for my biopsy result scheduled on March 29. Keeping my fingers crossed!!

Me Want Food!

I don't know what has taken over me. I have been feeling extremely hungry the whole day and it's not like I've been exerting myself doing labourious tasks.

Had chicken rice for lunch and two slices of cheddar cheese with some tuna flakes for tea.

Suddenly, am craving for a large mug cup of Milo with milk low fat milk.

Notice my cravings for high calorie food?

Sigh... healthy eating habits are quite tough to maintain and to follow through... :(

Lethargy

I have been feeling so lethargic since last month. The weather has been unbearably hot! The sweltering heat is just so suffocating and depressing! It seems to be a very dry season throughout the whole of Malaysia based on what I have gathered from FB statuses.

To add to the burning heat, I was down with hacking coughs and slight fever since a few days before CNY up till the 8th or 9th day of CNY. Even now I could still go into a coughing frenzy when something triggers it. There goes my one-week CNY holiday when so many friends returned to KK for family reunions.

I didn't get to go visit some friends as I would have liked to as I was house-bound; unwilling self-imposed curfew since I was truly sick as a dog... :(

I tried going out when I felt better but immediately fell sicker when I returned home. After recuperating at home for one day and when I thought I was well enough to go visiting again, I'd return home even more sicker!

Sigh... of all days / weeks that I'm free, it just had to happen during the whole CNY festive week! Bummer!

I'd always prefer a romantic rainy day over a sunny day - any time, any day. I seem to thrive better with Mr Rain.

Sophie misses the cloudy sky and nature's showers of refreshing coolness... :(

Mr Sun, can you please hide yourself for a few days so that little Sophie can play in the rain? Thank you very much!

Joy Joy & Jo Jo

It's been nearly four years since I last saw Charlynn, my uni mate. It was good to see her again today. She and Sal, her hubby, two young daughters and brother-in-law flew in from KL and arrived in KK just before noon today. Their Air Asia flight was delayed for more than one hour due to technical problem.

They make their trip here to visit hubby's side of the family in Tenom. To ease their journey, they rented a car from a car rental company at the airport.

After meeting them up at Terminal 1, they tagged my car to City Mall for lunch at Hana. *No food pics coz I was too hungry to remember to take any!*

We caught up over lunch. Her two girls, Joy Joy and Jo Jo, are so adorable!! They both have huge, round eyes - thanks to their parents!

Jo Jo is so affectionate and unafraid of strangers. When I first saw her at the airport arrival hall, I extended my arms towards her and she willingly let me carry her. Joy was shy at first but later on kept kissing my hand during lunch. I only found later that she was captivated by my long fingernails!

The hyperactive elder sister, Joy Joy

 The affectionate younger girl, Jo Jo

We went to Giant because they had to get some essential items before making their 2-hour journey back home. Charlynn also bought a dozen of Big Apple doughnuts for the parents-in-law.

 The two sisters

March 1: Giant shopping trolley

What You Do

Chanced upon this music video by Chrisette Michele in Astro's Soul Food. Again, it's one of those unexplainable moments when I just like a particular piece of music arrangement. I don't even know what type of music genre is this.



(Youtube upload by ChrisetteMicheleVEVO, Nov 25, 2009)

Happy Chinese New Year & Valentine's Day

Here's to wishing my kindred spirits a very happy Chinese New Year & a lovely Valentine's Day!

May the year of the Tiger brings you prosperity and an overflowing of abundance in life.

Photo credit

May your lives be filled with love everyday.

Photo credit

Pass!!! Phew...

I pass my first sem!!! Yay!

I have just returned from my 2nd semester registration and am mighty pleased with myself.

However, the uni has yet to reveal our grades / CGPA; it's still in the process... Sigh...

I had really wanted to know how I fare in my exam but will only get to know from the 20th onwards.

Am keeping my fingers crossed that I will get some sort of grade that will help create some sort of buffer zone for me... as in to help me balance out some lousy grades that I might get in the future... *no, please God, no* I wouldn't want that to happen.

For this semester, I have registered for three fixed subjects:

1. Data Analysis in Research Methodology,
2. Theoretical Bases of Language Learning, and
3. Multimedia & WEB in Education.

Registration Form
Jan 12: Post-grad Centre

My first lesson will start next Saturday, on the 23rd of January and it will be a busier semester.

I hope I will do better and finalize my proposal as well. Hopefully, I'll be able to slot in at least two weeks to gather more literature reviews in some unis in KL.

Wish me all the best!

Thank you, DD, for seeing me through the first semester and please enable me to go through the second one!

Common Sense, Where Art Thou?

Annette, posted this sarcastically well-written obituary in her FB which I thought has well-encapsulated what is also going on in Malaysia right now.

An Obituary printed in the London Times - not a joke and makes you think!

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
Why the early bird gets the worm;
Life isn't always fair;
And, maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place:
Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate;
teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch;
and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sunscreen or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.
She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death
by his parents, Truth and Trust;
by his wife, Discretion;
by his daughter, Responsibility and
By his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I am a Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

If you still remember him, pass this on.
If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Baked Chicken

I was very inspired by Doria's Christmas turkey so much so that I decided to create my own version using chicken instead. It is just so surprisingly easy to cook it.

The ingredients needed are:

• A chicken (medium)
• Strips of bacon
• Olive oil
• Salt to taste
• Celery sticks
• Carrots
• Bombay onions

To prepare the chicken, clean it the day before and pat it dry before putting it overnight in the fridge (not freezer). This will ensure that the skin will be dry enough.

On the side, just cube the veggies. They are for stuffing. You can pre-cook your veggies before stuffing, which I did, or you can just stuff them raw.

Before baking, just rub some olive oil and salt all over the chicken. Then, stuff the chicken cavity with the cubed veggies until full. I also stuffed in strips of bacon for taste.

Put the chicken in a baking tray and fill up the tray with leftover veggies. After that, cover the whole chicken with strips of bacon.

Your chicken will look something like this:
 

 Pre-baked chicken

Jan 10: Kitchen

Then, just pop the chicken into the oven. I do not have a proper convection oven so I just used mom's old oven which do not have timer or temperature setting. I baked it for about 1 1/2 hours until the bacon turned crispy which looked like this:




The chicken skin did not turn cripsy. It looked pale! :(

I suspect it was because the temperature was not high enough to brown it.

After the chicken had cooled down a bit, I just took out the veggies, poured the gravy into a bowl, and shredded  the chicken meat (should have carved nicely, but was too hungry and lazy).

I served this dish with mashed potato.

Yummy!

I will try this dish again and this time I'd make sure that the chicken skin will turn out crispy.

Black Day

A burnt church
Jan 9: KL

The picture says it all.

Jan 8 will go down in history as the day when some 'unknown' assailants went on a spree in the wee hours of the morning and torched down churches in Selangor. To date, at least four churches have been attacked.

I am not angry at the attackers but what truly saddens me as a citizen of this country is the flippant attitudes of those in power, those elected to power, those supposedly guardians of this nation, who have failed to take any sensible action in preventing these incidents from happening.

The writings were already clearly on the wall, yet because of the political games indulged by these elite few, their claims of inability to do something have merely spurred on the sentiments of those ignorant blind followers to complete the damage.

I am just so furious that those in power have chosen to be so blatantly selective, hypocritical, and double-faced in their governance of an entire nation. I am talking about human lives here! Can any leader stoop any lower than those seen here in Malaysia?

I am aghast at the leaders' deliberate choice to remain silent for their silence has merely given the ignoramus the green light to do as they like.

To add salt to injury, an influential 'retired' leader had further instigated these incidents through his selective writings in his blog. Reading his posts makes my blood boil.

Subtly veiled, cunningly crafted, with certain salient facts conveniently omitted and erroneous points introduced, he has used the power of the pen to stir the hornet's nest, knowing full well so many of his admirers / readers who do not really know the truths, will take in his words without question and thereupon act on it.

To me, by remaining silent, by claiming not able to do something, by merely condemning the attacks without any solid measures taken to rectify the problem, by presenting half-truths - these so-called leaders are condoning what is not right. They might just as well come clean and be upfront about their despicable, manipulative strategies in order to stay in power and render the masses in fear and submission.

Oh, I can't be loving my country's leaders. I can't find myself forgiving them and praying that Abba Father will bless them.

I am not that magnanimous.

Instead, I will call upon the Almighty to promote sincere leaders and to remove those irresponsible ones. For vengeance, I can only leave it all to the supreme One. May they meet their match in God, not in men.

I pray that those brethren who are blinded will miraculously see the true Allah; experiencing supernatural encounters that neither man-made actions nor carefully crafted strategies could prevent.