Monday 26 February 2007

First driving test

mf failed =(

No big mistakes but I accumulated a pile of tiny faults..

Kel, your "lucky pebble" didn't work for me!

I'll try TO's short skirt next time..

Thursday 15 February 2007

Saturday 10 February 2007

Spring cleaning

I knew that I would be too busy to do a proper one so I had been diligently "clearing house" since Nov last year.

The soft toys were the first to go. As a kid, I loved these things but never had many; about half of my collection were presents from 7-19, the rest in my 20s. A bit strange considering the length of each period!

Last Christmas, I packed a full bag of toys to the
Boys' Brigade Sharity Box. Unlike CY, there’s no space for display where I stay and I only play with Meh, Eeyore and Bow anyway. Rather than letting them sit idle and neglected in my box in the cupboard, they might be happier with children who could appreciate them and in turn make these children happier..

This was from Yan in 1992, lovely elephant, still so clean cos I never played with it, but, oh so sweet!



Spidey was from an older cousin when I was even younger, maybe 9? It’s a glove but of course my hands are now too big for it..



PS: Those received in the past couple of years are still with me, no worries, just that I don’t guarantee their longevity with me, heh heh :p Oops, the
sheep next to me (last picture in link) is now looking at me through big fearful eyes :p

Also had to empty out a few cupboards in preparation for the upgrading. Haven’t touched my old Pentax since I got my Ixus in 2004. Found that it has since died from old age. Lots of sentimental value cos it was my first camera and the one that accompanied me through Oxford and so many cities. I couldn’t bear to throw it but there’s no point keeping it too, sighs..



Then I also dug out my pretty musical box. Found some old earrings and some pretty hair pins. Dumped the earrings but kept the pins. I thought they were Mother’s cos I asked her for them many years back when I saw them in her jewel box. But she now said they didn’t belong to her. Oh well, I like these old pins, will keep :)



Don’t think I’ll have time to clean out my books but I'll attempt to arrange them neatly under my mattress.. Gosh, I need to factor in a book shelve in my room… Maybe the soft toys can sit on the same shelves? :)

Happy Planet Index

Got this test from CY. My results:

Happy Planet Index
Your personal Happy Planet Index (HPI) is 50.3, which is similar to that of Nepal. Not bad. This is above the world average of 46, but still below the target value of 83, so there is more you can do to improve your health and well-being, or reduce your environmental impact. Your score is above that of your country, 40.8.

Below is a breakdown of the various components that make up your HPI score.

You: 50.3
Average: 43.3
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Life Expectancy
Congratulations. Your life expectancy is above average for your gender and country. Whether it's eating well, not smoking, getting regular exercise, or just being lucky enough to have the right genes, you're doing something right. However, nobody's perfect and we could all improve our health a little! Aside from getting all the above bits of your lifestyle right, there are some more surprising factors that can influence your life expect - for example, giving up your car, avoiding living alone, moving out of the city or shrugging off stress.

You: 84
Average: 80.8
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Ecological Footprint
Your ecological footprint is 4.92 global hectares, or 2.73 planets. This is equivalent to the average in countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg or Iceland.

Your ecological footprint is below average for the country you live in.

You are using between and one and a half and three times your share of the planet's resources (assuming no resources are put aside for other species). This is an amount typical of people in many industrialised countries, though just below the average for the UK. As such, if you are living in an industrialised country, you are probably doing some things well and some things not so well in terms of reducing your ecological impact. Seven ways that everyone can reduce their footprint include:

1) It's obvious, but we have to say it. Conserve energy. Turn off the lights when you leave a room, buy energy-efficient bulbs and appliances, turn off your TV completely, rather than leave it on standby.

2) Reduce your waste. If there are ways to recycle where you live, try and do so. If you have a garden, start a compost heap. Re-use plastic bags. Give away clothes you don't use, rather than throwing them away. There are hundreds of little things you can do.

3) Live with someone! Whether it be your partner, family, children or friends, sharing your living space means sharing your ecological impact. It will probably also increase your well-being!

4) Leave your car in the garage. Car use has a huge impact on ecological footprint. Obviously it's easier for some people than others, but where possible, try to use public transport more. Or, even better, get on a bike, or simply walk!

5) Go local. Why buy tomatoes from another country, if you can get home grown ones? For those living in Europe - think about all those miles travelled by wine from South Africa and Australia, when Europe produces some of the best wines in the world.

6) You don't have to become vegetarian, but cutting down on meat, particularly beef, and particularly from animals fed by imported soya feed, is an effective step to reducing your footprint.

7) It has to be said that air travel is one of the biggest contributors to many people's footprints. For example, flying direct from London to Sydney and back would add 5.44 g ha to your footprint - that's the average Briton's footprint for an entire year. Flights with a connection add even more polluting air miles.

You: 4.92
Average: 5.38
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Life Satisfaction
You reported a life satisfaction of 8. This is the most common response across UK and indeed all of Europe. However, it is above average, so we are happy that you are so happy. Only in two countries is the mean life satisfaction higher - Switzerland and Denmark.

You: 8
Average: 6.75
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Well-being
The new economics foundation (nef) recognises that there's more to life than feeling good, which is why our model for well-being is based on four domains – personal feelings, personal functionings, social feelings and social functionings. 'Feelings' refers to your attitude to the way you, your future and society are. 'Functionings' looks at whether you have the opportunities to do the things that bring you well-being. Like with life satisfaction, a score of 5 is theoretically the middle score, but, given the way most people respond to surveys, is below average.

Personal Feelings
In this online questionnaire, personal feelings are assessed with two questions – one testing your optimism and one testing your self-esteem.

You are optimistic about the future and probably also about yourself.

You: 7.03
Average: 6.03
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Personal Functionings
In this online questionnaire personal functionings are assessed with five questions – two evaluating your subjective opinion on your health and how activity you are, the other three testing you for feelings of autonomy, purpose and worth.

You are healthy and overall feel autonomous, purposeful and able to demonstrate your abilities to others.

You: 6.04
Average: 6.15
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Social Feelings
In this online questionnaire social feelings are assessed with four questions – three assessing your opinion of your community, whilst the last looks at personal relationships.

You have a strong sense of trust and belonging in your community and a happy personal life.

You: 6.3
Average: 5.68
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Social Functionings
In this online questionnaire social functionings are assessed with four questions – two assessing your job / studies, one your free time, and one your community participation. If you did not respond to the work / study questions, your score is judged purely on the other two aspects.

Your job / course is not really allowing you to function socially in the way that you wish. Either it is very dull and unrewarding, or it is very stressful, leaving you little time to do the things you enjoy - or a bit of both! Are they any ways you could make it a little better for you? Alternatively, one way to relieve the boredom of work, can be to find other focuses of interest. Many take up voluntary work to offer them an alternative purpose.

You: 4.83
Average: 5.6
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]

Calculations for the Footprint are based on, and are copyright of, Best Foot Forward Limited. Please note that calculations for the Footprint and life expectancy are based on UK statistics. Conversion factors are used for other countries, but these are conservative and may underestimate differences.

Thursday 8 February 2007

It's no longer clumsiness..

IT'S PLAIN BAD LUCK!!

Yesterday, also a Wed, I was again in a hurry and just as the green man came on and I stepped off the kerb, I slipped and fell on my right knee..!

Bloody ugly cut and a huge bruise under the cut, but no photos this time cos my leg is way fatter than my thumb :)

Friday 2 February 2007

Random pictures

Suddenly, I found myself with some time :)


Was waiting for the bus on a sunny day when it suddenly started raining..


A vanishing sight? Took this during the last 7th lunar month near Pek Kio but too busy to post!


It was one of those hazy days.. I was walking down Thomson Road and saw the sun - should be the sun - glowing in the late pm..


Caught sight of this while walking to Taka from Wisma with CY. I love them sheep! :)


And one tried to run :p


My lunchbox in a pretty wrap.. Sito said I made 爱心便当 for myself :p

Clumsiness cannot be cured

I could attest to that; just had a freak accident on Wed.

Was going for a meeting. When I got out of RQ's car, I - me, myself - closed the door on my right thumb! My left hand was full but luckily LH was in front and helped me open the door.

Didn't scream cos there was little pain on impact but once it was free, my thumb was seriously throbbing! I held it for a while and took a look - oooh, bloody bruise! Nvm, could wash when we got up there.

But I started feeling faint as we walked to the lobby. I handed over my ID for visitor's pass and thought I needed to bow my head on the counter to let the blood get to my brain but the next thing I knew, I had a nightmare..

Can't remember it anymore but it was a nightmare alright; I was about to cry when I woke *.* Thought I was sleeping in a weird position cos I could see one shoe on my foot; the other shoe was loose..

I thought I would go back to bed and closed my eyes. But I heard LH saying my hands were cold. Then I opened my eyes and saw a security guard then LH.. That was when I realised I fainted..

When I became more conscious of my surroundings, I got up. Realised that RQ was holding my head. LH said he happened to behind me when I lost it. Heng ah! Else I might have become mf the Idiot.. Or worse..

LH stayed with me while RQ went for the meeting. My thumb was looking and feeling gross. She told me how she had such an accident with her car boot a while ago - she was stuck for a while before someone walked by to open the boot for her cos she caught it in a corner and couldn’t reach the lock with her other hand! She showed me her recovering nail and, ya, I’m going to have such a nail for a couple of months after this one dropped off and die. Died and dropped off..

We went up to a toilet to clean the thumb. It started to bleed slightly again through a small puncture and I started feeling faint again! Sat on the toilet floor - thank god it was clean! - and we thought should be anaemic that caused the fainting while not ruling out shock.

That was almost 7pm (late meeting) and people were leaving the building. Each of us met some friends and they were like "Fainted?!" :p By the time LH’s husband arrive, RQ was out of the meeting and sent us to the car. LH sent me to the clinic.

What nice bosses I have! :)) Sorry to have caused any trauma though..

CY waited for me at the clinic. Was supposed to meet her for dinner but cancelled cos of the meeting. In the end, we still met :p But guess what, the clinic wasn’t open on Wed nights! We walked to her doc, whom I was reluctant to see cos I remembered him to be fierce when I went to him as a kid.. But anyway, he was closed on Wed nights too!! Down that same corridor, we found her other doc, whom I recalled to have a big scary face (I was, like, five, and didn’t know I would grow up to have a bi face too!) but he was overseas! Wa liao, 生病还要选日子! I had never wanted to see doctor so much! We went all the way to the market and found a doctor, phew!

Doc, who didn’t look fierce and wasn’t fierce, checked that my nervous system was fine by making me follow his finger moving only my eyeballs and he pressed a bit on the thumb but couldn’t assess if anything was broken; apparently it might not hurt very much if the fracture was tiny. And my blood pressure was under 60/90. He firmly asked me to go to A&E =(

We took a cab to Alexander Hospital where Sito met us. Doc was right, this A&E was not crowded :) But still waited for a while cos I was labelled as a trolley case but I walked into X-ray room so the chaps didn't call for me; no trolley what!

But the wait was ok. CY was funny, said she was hungry and as I was suspecting, she asked me to share the sandwich from the vending machine that we were talking about just a minute ago!! So we shared a nice and cheesy mushroom sandwich :)

No broken bone, heart was fine (did an electrocardiogram) despite the shock (which was the likely cause for the blackout), so they bandaged my poor thumb to stabilise (?) it and sent me back with this amazing amount of painkillers that I didn't touch at all. It was - still is - painful but I was a lot more bothered by that gross feeling.

Trivial: They asked me to write my phone number at the registry and sign to say that I wasn't pregnant for the X-ray. I looked at my right thumb and was like, um.. And they went, "Oh you're right-handed ah?" as if they knew more people who were left-handed!

So glad for the two of them, 我是幸福的! :) Else I would have felt so miserable about that gross feeling and cried! =(

The next morning, I changed the dressing cos more blood drained out during the night. Couldn’t do any chores in the house, decided that I could at least type so I went to work.

Found that it was so inconvenient without my right thumb, e.g. brushing teeth (my left arm got sore), tying hair (finger cramp), washing face (wasted a lot of water), washing hair (my left arm almost died), wearing bra (had to hook in front and turned; didn’t even do that when I first started out!), fishing for coins in wallet (the zip and all), even eating (unsteady left hand for utensiles)!

Some gross pictures to share :p

My nice and big bandage..


My pink panther plaster underneath! (I referred to it as underwear and intern said I had issues *.*)


Jang jang!! It already looked better after the nurse cleaned it up..


Quite unlucky, me.. And guess what? This morning on the way to work, an insect fell on me and when I took it off, it pooped on my hair!! Washed a bit in the sink just now but I’m so going to wash my hair at a salon during lunch!!

PS: Siok just called and reminded me that I could ask for 10% discount for manicure! :p