Bias

The latest top news locally is about corruption saga of City Harvest Church. More than $20million is allegedly misused for personal purpose of the church leaders and this money comes from tithe of the congregation. Yup Protestant churches are well known to follow strictly the rule to give back 10% of their earnings back to God.

As a fellow Christian, I am saddened by this case. Afterall, all men are sinners and we should not judge one another. Even the religious people are humans too.. They too will fall into sins, just a matter of what sins. We should not instantenously see them as the biggest scums of the earth or something like that.

As a Catholic, however, part of me is being evil and "rejoicing". Even though both Catholics and Protestants are Christians, there is always an unseen enmities between us. Yup it is a shame and a scandal to our God. After all, we all preach about the same God the same Bible and ironically we are not working together to create His Kingdom. Before passing any judgement, however, I remember that Catholic is not without scandal too. Remember the child sexual abuse cases? I think that is even more despicable and disgusting than money embezzlement.

Anyway, we still do not know the outcome. However, as a human being, I can't help but feel disgusted that these people are still bringing God. IF (yes that's an assumption) they really have done something wrong, it is really shameless and a blasphemy to still tweet publicly about "God" and "his Kingdom". Oh well, not guilty until proven otherwise.

The above merely shows how biased people can be. I admit that I am naturally not a good person. I am nasty, I am short-tempered, I am selfish and so on. It takes a great deal of self control for me to keep my calm and cool. I am very very angry with my colleagues today. Complain complain and complain zz..

You know it was not my choice to join the customer service workgroup. I was not there for the meeting and I was not the one suggesting the lame and stupid idea. In fact, I tried to make the idea less idea and less lame for them. I even try to make it more beneficial to them: think of something positive about your colleagues. Gosh, how difficult can it be? It is just human nature to point out negative things easily.. It is just an Asian culture that it is difficult to praise someone for their strengths. Hello.. all of us are humans. We all have strengths and weaknessess. I just cannot take it when people complain but they cannot give suggestion to improve. If you think that you are much better than that person, then you prove it! Do the job better! Complaining does not make you better. I get irritated when I heard people say "A is slow! B is slow!". Hello.. if you think they are slow, then you help them to make it faster lar -_-" Just imagine if I start going around telling people "Hi I think you are very stupid can you please be less stupid?". Well I don't do that. Because I am not stupid. I am able to distinguish what can be improved and what cannot. If you think something can be improved, you can tell that person to improve. If you know that it cannot be improved, then you find someone else to help to improve it.

Anyway, fine fine fine.. Since all of you are happy to be "good, friendly, helpful" people, then I shall keep it as that. My initial plan was to make a "cert" for everyone with positive affirmations from the rest. Thanks to your "cooperation", I can save the time from making the "cert". What's the point of doing when everyone is "good, friendly, and helpful"? What's the point of doing this when you know everyone is not being sincere? Oh well, FAIL FAIL FAIL.. Fuck you all. I am angry. I hate to do things for the sake of doing.. When I have poured in effort to do something, I want to achieve something. But again, perhaps that's because I am smart.

Aging..

When I was still a kid, I remember that I used to joke about my parents with my sisters. One of the jokes is that we can always tell whenever my mum is climbing the stairs. So when we are in the middle of doing something which we should not do, the sound serves as a warning for us to quickly wrap up what we are doing and pretend that we are being good children. It was a good fun back then. But now it becomes a sort of painful reminder about how old my mum is. I start to make similar sound when I climb the stairs to my room. Perhaps it is because my bones are denser and heavier now that it causes the *thumping* sound.. Perhaps it is because of work that I run out of energy even to put down my feet lightly. Kinda sad to know that I am starting to age too even without knowing whether I can do anything to repay my parents.

I learn to appreciate my parents more as I am living with a family here and as I am watching how my boss is conceiving. Lets start about conceiving first. It is my boss' second child and her wish to have baby boy will come true. Everyone realises that she sounds more tired than her first pregnancy. Perhaps having a baby boy is always more difficult than a baby girl. Or perhaps a SON is always giving a bigger headache for parents than a DAUGHTER. Lol.. There was one point of time that she was worried that she had gestational diabetes as sugar was found in the urine. Thank God everything normalised in the following urine test. Women who develop gestational diabetes has higher likelihood to develop diabetes later in life. For the more unlucky, the gestational diabetes may even continue after pregnancy. It is really not easy to become mothers. So much suffering for the 9 months.

Even after the baby is born, the joy is somehow short-lived. The baby constantly cries for attention and love etc. My house owners' daughter often leaves her son under the care of the grandparents i.e my house owners. I feel very irritated with this baby you know. Cry cry cry over every single thing zz.. To be frank I often harbour morbid thoughts about how I want to silence this brat.. Zz.. I shall not go into my wild imagination. One thing that strikes me is HOW THE HECK MY PARENTS CAN TAHAN ME WHEN I WAS A BABY! Sleepless nights having to tahan with all my cries and my screaming etc.. Perhaps I was a worse baby than this baby. In fact up to now, perhaps there are times when my parents have sleepless nights thinking about how their bratty son doing overseas.

As much as I dislike this baby, I dislike the parents more. Seriously, I cannot imagine what kind of parents will leave their children under the care of grandparents for most time. Seeing how often this baby is left with the grandparents, I wonder whose child he is. You know.. I understand if you cannot take care of your baby when you are working.. Leaving him/her with grandparents is okay. My parents also left me with maid (ok that sounds worse than leaving a child with grandparents). But at least after you end work, pick up your child lar!! Even on weekend, please spend time with your child!! With that I am grateful with my parents.. No matter how busy they are with their work, having to juggle family life and work life, at least they still spend time with me and my sisters for dinner onwards.

T_T Sob.. I miss my parents.. One of the thing which I hate most with living overseas alone is that I miss all the precious times to spend with my parents. I remember that my godma was telling me when she consoled my aunt after my grandpa passed away. My godma lost his dad when she was very young. So she told my aunt "Don't blame yourself saying you did not do enough for you father. Be glad that at least you can have your father even when you are 50-60 years old already. I already lost mine even before I turned 12". Yup I am thankful that I still have my parents now.. I hope I still have them for as long as possible. But thinking that I actually spend time with them for 15 out 25 years of my life just make me sad. Of course one day children will have to live apart from their parents: either because of marriage or because of death. Still, "leaving" them at 15 years old is just ... sad.. I still don't know what is in store for me..I wonder will there any good thing coming up by me coming here.. I don't know God's plan for me.. For now, I can only pray that God will take care of my parents well. I am sure He is a better "replacement" for me for the times when I cannot be with my parents.

Pottermore

Yes, as the title suggests, this is about Harry Potter. But it is not a word of my creation. Pottermore is the most current Harry Potter project from J.K Rowling. As she mentioned previously, she would no longer be writing a new story about Harry Potter. But that does not mean that she will let her wonderful creation die. And Pottermore is an official website created for Harry Potter universe and Harry Potter fans even after the end of the books and the movies.

The website is selling Harry Potter books in ebook and audio version. Other than that, the rest of the content is purely for the pleasure of the fans. No money is required to access the rest. One just need to register and to prevent cyberbullying, after registering, we are offered with few nicknames to choose. In case you are wondering how on earth there would be millions and millions of nicknames which are related to Harry Potter, the nicknames contain numbers. So the same nickname may be shared by many people with the number as the difference eg. harrypotter01 and harrypotter02.

So what is the rest of the content? We are able to follow the stories from the books and each book is broken down to its chapters. Unfortunately, only book 1 is completed =x Each chapter is broken down to about 2-4 scenes. Now now.. the main focus is not to go through the story (after all, who does not know Harry Potter and his stories?). We "immerse" to the story as one of the students. In each scenes, we are supposed to find items (to collect) and clues. Among the items are several new manuscripts written by J.K Rowling. Just to name a few: a bit of history of Petunia and Vernon Dursly (they actually met with James and Lily Potter), a bit of background story about Professor McGonagall, more detailed information about wands (each core type and wood type has different symbolisms), and more detailed information about 4 Houses of Hogwarts. 

Being in Harry Potter universe is not complete without having a wand or being sorted. And two thumbs up for the selection of the wand as well as the sorting ceremony. In order for the wand to choose the owner, we are presented with 7 questions. For the sorting, we are presented with 7 questions (out of possible 20+ questions). Once you get a wand or get sorted, you cannot repeat. And unlike unofficial mini games/quizzes which we can more or less "choose" answers so that we get the house/wand of our choice, it is impossible to do so here! Take the sorting as an example, there are many questions whose possible answers are more or less than 4 to choose from. Thus it is not possible to guess "aah this option means Gryffindor, that option is Slytherin" and so on. To add on the realism, just like the Sorting Hat may ask the students for their preference, in the event of a tie between few house, there will be an eigth question asking which house you prefer.

Despite the nice new write ups about the various wand cores and woods, I am not too excited about the wands as there is not much use to differentiate the various wands (at least within Pottermore). The Sorting, however, is brilliant. It leads to House Cup competition. Unfortunately, as of now, we can only earn points from duelling and potion brewing minigames. 

Unfortunately the duelling is disappointing. I was expecting something like moving the mouse cursor to follow a pattern for a spell and how "potent" the spell is depends on how "nice" the wand is being waved. Nah it is nothing like that. The mechanics for the spell are just clicking (or pressing keyboard) when the circle surrounding the letter is at its largest. Phui.. While there are many spells, each spell has a sort of "maximum" points no matter how good you are at doing the mini game. This ends up forcing everyone to use the "strongest spell" i.e Petrificus Totalus. So why bother coming out with so many spells then -_- I was expecting that the how strong a spell is would be decided by how complicated to draw the spell and by how "perfect" we execute the spell.

Surprisingly, the potion brewing is much more interesting (and challenging). It involves adding the correct ingredient at the correct amount in the correct order, grinding ingredients to fine powder, heating the cauldron at right temperature for the correct amount of time, stirring in the correct direction for the correct number of times and finally, a wave of wand. It is challenging initially as you don't know what ingredients are which (you have to keep opening the recipe book to see what picture represents which ingredients) and the HELP does not really explain the mechanics well. The temperature control is the hardest. And there is a time limit to make the potion too (!!). And just like in the book, if something goes wrong, the whole cauldron may explode and house points are deducted. I think this feature is awesome.

I admire J.K Rowling for her work. The new original content is simply amazing especially the explanation about 20+ woods which characterise the wands and the welcome letter for each House. As you are sorted into a house, you will get a welcome letter from the House's Head Prefect. Reading all 4 Houses (obviously from other website, not from Pottermore as it is not possible to even retry your sorting), it is amusing to see how Rowling is able to write from the different point of views: how each House is boasting its own achivement and playing down other House's strengths. After reading all 4, you will realise that all the description is realistic. Everyone has their strenghts and weaknesses. You will not feel that Gryffindor is the best, Slytherin is the evil, and the other 2 (Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff) are mere spectators like in the movie and books.

For example, I am sorted to Ravenclaw, the House of the intelligents, the most individual, and the most competitive (when it comes to exam). However we respect different eccentricities of different individuals/personalities. We see Gryffindor as being a show off and is not that "good" as they do not respect people who are different from them. And we are a bit arrogant with our intelligence (we do not have secret way to reach the common room, the door knob will present us with different questions all the time and we are confident that the "idiots" from other Houses will not be able to answer the questions).

Based on the welcome letter of Hufflepuff, although it is generally regarded as the nicest and most humble House, we can see the sense of pride in them too. They pride themselves as the House which produces the least number of Dark Wizards and as the House with the best security and had no intruders over 1000 years (their security arrangement is knock on the correct barrels to the correct rhythm.. doing the wrong thing causes you to be doused in vinegar).

Slytherin's welcome letter is interesting too. They are not evil per se. They are just willing to achieve their greatness in whatever ways (which includes dirty, dishonest ways). Unlike the Ravenclaw who see one another as competitors when it comes to exams, there is a greater sense of camaraderie among the Slytherins. And the funniest words (because of the sense of pride and the sarcasm) in Slytherin's letter are:

 "Here’s a little-known fact that the other three houses don’t bring up much: Merlin was a Slytherin. Yes, Merlin himself, the most famous wizard in history! He learned all he knew in this very house! Do you want to follow in the footsteps of Merlin? Or would you rather sit at the old desk of that illustrious ex-Hufflepuff, Eglantine Puffett, inventor of the Self-Soaping Dishcloth? 

At the first glance, Pottermore seems awesome. With the graphic, sound effects, and animation, clearly a huge effort has been poured in to make this possible. However, I completed the whole book 1 in less than a weekend. I am waiting for the rest now. I am more interested in new writings from J.K Rowling rather than the minigames or other contents. Perhaps the developers need to come up with something much better to retain fans' interest.

Nature or nurture?

Sometimes I wonder, are humans naturally born as disgusting, ugly, filthy creatures or are only the people here are disgusting, ugly, and filthy? As days go by, I am always surprised with how "low" and how disgusting these people can be. Some will say these people are sick and hence not in a very good mood. Some say that these people are poor. Some say that these people are not so lucky to get a good education or to be brought up with a good family. Thus we should PITY them. I would have to disagree. Some of these people are not sick, some are rich, some are well educated. But still, they can turn out ugly, disgusting, and filthy.

It is a common sense and basic courtesy to ask/clarify something politely, especially if you are asking for help and especially if you are not very sure whether it is a mistake on your part. I can't believe how people can come rudely accusing that they are not given a change or they are not given the thing they buy. We have CCTV to see everything. There is evidence that you took your $45 change back and you put it in your wallet. How can you shamelessly accuse people that you were not given your change? There is evidence that you handed whatever item you bought to your small kid after you made the payment. If after that your kid lost it or threw it away, have some shame before accusing people for not giving the item to you. There is evidence that we gave out whatever medicines to whomever-who-asked-you-to-come. Before putting your face in a shameless predicament, you could have checked with the whomever for the facts.To make things worse, despite you people blaming others for your own mistake, there is never a SORRY or an apology even after evidence that you are in the mistake.

No correlation with education level though. Doctors are supposed to be the cream of the crop, the best of the best, and the smartest of all people. As the saying goes IQ does not equal to EQ. I can't believe how self-centred these people can be. Do you think that we *love* you so much that we want to have a conversation with you all the time? Wake up! We have no choice. We have to call you because of your mistakes. Medicines not ordered, wrong doses, wrong medicines, missing orders, wrong durations, etc. If you hate to answer the call so much, then get it right in the first place. And there is no need to shout/scream/bang the phone down. Know that sometimes people change their minds quickly and want this and want that. So do you want us to help you by calling you or do you prefer us to send these people back to you?

And the most disappointing of all is the fact that we are doing nothing to change this situation or these people. I strongly believe that as a "better" human beings, we should educate these uneducated misbehaved animals. Instead, for the sake of customer service and/or inferiority-complex, we stoop even lower than animals by condoning their actions and "just take it all".

Ridiculous, disgusting, filthy. I wonder when I can get out of this mess.. Or when I can be at the top so that I can correct these ridiculous attitudes..

My Boss My Hero

Synopsis:

Sakaki Makio, also known as "Tornado Makio", is a 27-year-old Yakuza from the Sharp Kantou Fang group. He is expected to be the next boss, succeeding his father. Despite his strength, he is also well known for his dumbness. He cannot even think for any longer than 90 seconds. After failing a multi-million transaction due to his inability in counting, his father forces him to attend a St. Agnes high school as a 17-year-old boy. He will be only elected as the next boss if he is able to graduate from high school. Otherwise, his brother Mikio will take over as the next boss. And graduation means that he has to succeed academically and prevent his cover from being blown.

My opinion:

I had no interest whatsoever initially because the title suggests a story which revolves around love story in the office, which is totally untrue. What got me eventually interested, other than the fact that it is another high school drama, was the rating which averaged slightly below 20. That means that the show was popular and there must be something worth watching.

I got hooked from the first episode as I could not stop laughing. The comedy was entertaining. It was lame, ridiculous and hilarious at the same time, especially the chaos over the limited St. Agnes pudding. Subsequently, just like other high school stories, there are stories about exam, sports competition, cultural festival, love and friendship, and eventually graduation. Gotta admit that after the first episode, the comedy somehow "died" down, except for the 6th episode which was about the "doomsday" scenario when the St. Agnes pudding maker went missing for 3 days. Again, it is lame and impossible to happen in real life, it was funny to watch nonetheless.

Unlike Gokusen (in which the teacher is actually a Yakuza), the Yakuza storyline has a bigger portion this. The school portion does not cause Makio's Yakuza background to be neglected. Other than facing school issues, Makio has to settle about the possibility of his brother taking over the Yakuza clan. Although near the end, it is kinda expected that somehow the Yakuza thingy will blow his cover. Still, it is interesting to note that there is no antagonists here. There are some Yakuza fights and arguments but they are more like "business" rather than personal hatred or something. There is no evil/bad teachers/discipilne masters here. And the supposed rivalry between the brothers turns out to be pretty sweet. The brothers are not really fighting for the boss position. Makio, after experiencing "real life" not as a Yakuza, realises that it will be better for his brother (who is not really involved into the Yakuza thingy) to remain in his legit life. Similarly, seeing how Makio seems to enjoy real life, Mikio feels that it is best for his brother to be out of Yakuza business and continue to lead legit life.

Casts-wise, I think Nagase Tomoya rocks as a near-30 year old guy acting and mingling with 17 year olds. His roll-eyes expression and his "Hanya?" expression are just 2 out of the so many stupid faces he can make. He is a secret recipe to make any show a success: a shameless main cast. Lol. While initialy I did not see any familiar names, after seeing the faces, there are actually faces which I know. I am happy to see Kashii Yuu (she plays in the first Water Boys, Yukan Club, and the first Death Note) and Murakawa Eri (the girl in Rookies). I think they are better than the supposedly main girl character, Aragaki Yui. She is pretty but a bit expressionless. Haha.. Kashii Yuu is the teacher here and it is good that she is able to portray someone more mature than her real age. Too bad Makio's good friend (Tegoshi Yuya) is kinda bad. I think there are other students who act better than him.

Anyway, I have one huge disappointment with the series: the ENDING! No spoiler but I think the ending fails to end the series on a high note. The last episode is actually quite boring and does not leave a good conclusion of graduation feeling like other high school series. I am also disappointed with the lack of love here =x I was expecting that something will happen between Makio and the sensei.. but there is none. Not fun to see Makio to date Umemura-san because right from the start, I sort of expect that it will not continue. Come on.. an adult and a teenager? No way! And although there are hints that Sakurakoji likes Umemura-san, nothing happens too!! Grrrah..

My afterthoughts:

I am 25 years old and perhaps I view school life differently. I agree that school life is the best times ^^ It is unfortunate that for most people, school life is "wasted" just for studying. Studying is important but truthfully, after you graduate and enter adulthood, nobody cares about how good you were in your school days. But you carry the memories of your high school days forever. Still studying is very important to ensure a good future.

I also felt school life sucked when I was a student. But looking back, I think school time is one of the most difficult ones. It is not easy to be disciplined to mug all the notes, to do all the homework, to remember things which sometimes you don't even understand, and to excel the exams. But I think it really teaches people how to persevere, to work hard, and not to give up. On top of it, students still have to respect and listen to the teachers and abide to school rules. Wew.. compare all these to the wild working adult life, where there are no defined rules and boundaries. This is why people who have gone through different stages of studies will mature differently. This is why educated and uneducated people behave and think differently too.

And school life is really the best time to forge friendships. As what Makio said "In adulthood, there are no more classmates. Only cheat, be cheated, manipulate, be manipulated and false friendship". No wonder I have many friends who get together with their high school friends. Well, that only applies to my Indonesian friends of course. In Singapore, haha, I think even in school people are already fake. Lol.. I did not have a good school memories here leh.. Always get picked on and outcasted. Perhaps that is the most regretful thing for me coming here. After all, I was a pretty smart, respected, and well known person in my high school in Indonesia :( I wonder what my life will be know if I had chosen to stay.. Oh well :(

Wake up call

Yesterday I had a close encounter with "death". Jeez.. I tried to sleep early on Friday night but it was disrupted when I woke up due to all the sneezing at about 4am. Thanks to that, I did not hear my alarm ringing at all. That was scary because I actually switch on my table clock alarm too! Haha perhaps I already anticipated that I would not be awake easily on saturday. Eventually I only woke up at 727 and that was because the landlady was opening my door to take out the laundry. ZOMG!! I had to report to work at 8 leh!! 

I really felt thankful for her. And more importantly for God. With such an urgent circumstance, I could actually finish my showering in 5 minutes. Haha.. Usually it took me 15 minutes. Gotta spend money on cab but lucky I still report to work on time. Fiuh.. Now I am really worried about what I should do to prevent such things from occuring again. I already slept earlier, setting up 2 alarms with handphone and 1 alarm clock but they all failed :( Perhaps because I seldom pray at bedtime anymore and this is a "wake-up" call.

Anyway Hey! Say! JUMP just released their second album titled JUMP World on the 06/06/2012. Much much worse than their first album. Interestingly, here I wrote that I did not quite enjoy their first album. Comparing the two now, I find the first one to be much better. Haha.. My prediction (as seen on the last sentence of that line) comes true. As they become more mature, they start to move towards "cool" song. I am someone who prefers "cute" song. The album is released in 2 editions: regular and limited. The last 2 songs of both versions are different -_- I really hate this kind of marketing strategies leh.. Even though not as if I am buying the album oso lol.

Regular Edition Cover

Limited Edition Cover

I think because of this I had a weird dream related to them. I was asked by their manager to call them in Japan asking which song is their next single. So I called Keito, the member who can speak English (obviously right!) and of course he found my question weird. He asked who actually asked me to ask the question. I said Johnny (lol.. that's his boss) which was not possible because the boss was in Japan 0_o. I hang up to find the manager who asked me to call them for his name. I could not find. I ended up running somewhere where I was supposed to play a violin piece in a lecture hall. It was 15 minutes before my turn and I was like "wth!", I could not even play violin! I do not even own a violin in real life! My closest encounter with violin was in JC for the failed attempt to play violin accompaniment during harmonica concert lol. But somehow in my room backstage, there was a violin but I tried to practice using a pen knife. I ended up cutting 2 strings so I could not play. Then my dad called to me ask where the heck I was hiding. I told him I would not perform because I could not even freaking play a violin! He said I should tell the organiser right from the start instead of becoming a huge embarassment now. Then I woke up.

Fiiuuh.. if only all the bad things happening to me are just dreams. I can just wake up to run away from it. That is convenient. Lol.. Anyway.. weird weird dream...

Which way?

The meet-the-management session has been more or less settled. It will be on 27th June unless something else pops out. Although it sounds as an introduction and "hi-bye" session, what my intuition tells me will be coming true. It will be a session in which I have to more or less say what I want to do at work. Or specifically, which way I wanna go: clinical track vs operations track.

Honestly, I don't know. I think I have no preference. I have things which I like and dislike on both tracks and that makes choosing even more difficult. It is easier to say what I DON'T like than to say what I actually like. 

By doing clinical track, that means I have to study and study and study. I don't mind studying. But based on my experience for ACC course which I am doing, what I cannot stand is me being stupid. There is just too much to learn and it is difficult to memorise things which I don't really see in my daily work. That's one thing. One thing which I totally hate about going clinical is the fact that sooner or later I have to go to hospital for rotations/enrichments etc. Frankly, no matter what hospitals, I just loathe the idea of going to any of them. After all, it is a place full of arrogant people thinking that they are better than others. The perks of going clinical is of course more time to run clinic or do nursing homes etc, which means less time to face angry unreasonable nasty customers. Other than that, I will get Masters which facilitates my ultimate aim to teach somewhere in the future.

By doing operations track, that means I don't need to study (YAY!). The bad thing is that I need to spend time with people I don't wish to face. Not to mention that I don't believe in good customer service to those who do not deserve it so how am I supposed to handle complaints? Sigh.. Going ops also means no further degree for me and I don't know whether it is a disadvantage for my future teaching plans. The good things about ops is that it gives me more opportunities and experience which is not "fixed" to healthcare. That means I may be able to go out of this field and do something else unrelated. If it helps me to acquire management skills etc, I don't mind since I don't foresee myself getting scolded and showered by saliva for the rest of my working life. Yep I don't mind going HQ someday and just sit around, shake hands, and sign papers. Lol..

Since the current trend for to push people towards clinical, that leaves a hole on the ops. Since the clinical people will be too busy and are required to run the whole thing, who will do the managing etc? With this I think it makes sense for me to ops. Let the others run the thing and I will be the one above them commanding them eh? Haha..

Anyways, joking aside, if I am asked what I really like to do, I think my calling is in teaching/training. My colleague suggested that instead of focusing on teaching/training PTs, I should look towards educating other healthcare professionals for whatever things related to pharmacy. A good idea actually. I believe in interprofessional relations. I think that currently most pharmacists are too self-centred, they think by constantly increasing their skills (whatever skills they want to call it), they can change people's mindset. I don't believe it. I think we should go out, get along and get to know others. Hopefully, we can build more understanding towards what one another do so that we do not sabotage one another. As my colleague is doing the public education, I think I should not compete for the same pie to improve public's perception on pharmacy. I will be happy to do the other side: to improve other professional's perception. Both involve talking so I don't mind HAHA. My friend also suggested to take a role regarding projects. Currently the person in charge of projects is someone out of the field. It is a huge headache talking to him as he does not understand the situations faced in our daily work. Come to think of it, it will be best if the project department has people on both in and out of the field. I understand about the daily work but I know nuts about how to plan/run projects. I can complement him who know nuts about daily work but know a lot about planning/running projects. Cool eh?

Lets see what happen in 3 weeks time ah. Haha.. Plenty of time for me to pray for God to lead me to the correct path.

1 Litre of Tears/1 Litre no Namida

Synopsis:

This is based on the true story of a Japanese girl named Kito Aya who was diagnosed with a disease called Spinocerebellar Degeneration when she was 15 years old. Initially, the purpose of diary was to keep track the disease progression. However, as the disease worsened and she lost the abilities to function, the diary became a proof of her life until her death at 25 years old. The story encompasses how Aya dealed with the disease and how the love and support from her family carried her through.

The special is set 6 months after Aya's death. Aya's sister is a now a nurse-in-training and she joined the neurology department where she met Haruto Asou, Aya's ex-boyfriend. She noticed how he still seemed troubled and unable to accept things after Aya's death. Now he is in charge of a 14 year-old-girl who is having the same disease as Aya. The special is mostly recap on Aya's life as told by Asou to the 14 year-old-girl.

My opinion:

A few friends recommended this to me and many friends had very good feedback about this dorama. I bought the DVD a few years back but only managed to watch it during my last holiday. I was initially a bit skeptical because I hate it when producers add something to a supposedly real-life-story just to make things interesting. Aya's boyfriend in the dorama is purely fictional. In addition, I thought the first few episodes were rather slow, boring, and nothing extraordinary. However, after the disease started to show its fang, the show was just too demanding for my tear ducts.

I agree with my friends. This is not only a good or great show, this is excellent. Not to disappoint, Aya's boyfriend fictional character is an addition to make the whole story more humane and more poignant. I am glad that it is not just a plot to make things messy. And more importantly, the character remains believable. So that is a nice addition. Overall, the plot seems believable. People can find some of the things which happen also happen in their own life. So nothing is over-dramatised here and that makes all the touching things remain that way.

It is great that the producers are not fully in money-making mode but to fully respect the original Aya and her life story. It is a nice touch that at the end of every episode, some photographs of real Aya were shown. And apparently, they consult medical practitioners regarding the medical aspects mentioned in the dorama.

Real life Aya Kito

The casts also gave a stellar performance. Two thumbs up for Erika Sawajiri who played as Aya. I am amazed that she never won any award for the show. After all she manage to show a wide range of emotion throughout the series: from a bubbly healthy girl at the start of the disease to a vulnerable girl struggling to accept her conditions and finally to a dying girl who finally embrace her life. I am sure it is certainly not easy to portray the motor disabilities and speech impairment. Nishikido Ryo (as the boyfriend) is good too. Actually I never really like him but I think he plays his character well. Aya's family members are also amazing. The acting is belivable and it is easy to feel as if they were a real family struggling together to support Aya. I think that just depicts the traditional values of Japanese families from the 1980s.

Of course I don't think the series is perfect. I am just wondering what happened to Aya's ex-classmates in the end. Wouldn't they feel ashamed or something? And for those few who supported her, did they just end contact like that? I also have a big question regarding her roommate in the school for disabled. What happened to her in the end?

The special was rather disappointing because it is just a recap afterall. I actually watched it because a promise of "new scenes". The "new" scene with Aya is only at the end, though. So that is quite disappointing. I also wonder how come her brother just 'disappeared' completely. Afterall, they still show Aya's youngest sister becoming a high school student. Anyway, I think the special allows Aya's sister to "shine" a bit. Haha.. She was so bitchy at the start of the show. Then it came to her sense to be a responsible daughter and sister in the middle of the show. In the special, she has matured further.

My afterthoughts:

Treasure your family more than your friends. Many years ago, I disagree with my parents on this. Looks like they are correct and I am wrong. No matter in what shit you are in, your family members are the only ones who will bail you out. Friends are just~~ useless, a gathering of a group of people happen to be on the same circumstances. In her school, Aya still has some friends who support her (including her fictional boyfriend), although most of them are fake friends anyway. Just imagine that perhaps in her real life, she really has nobody to support her at school. It really took a great courage from her to survive that all. And not condemning any of them, it is sad that it is human nature to be selfish, self-centred bastards, especially in fast-paced modern world. Just like the words of some of Aya's friends "Can't we just wait for additional 5-10mins for her to reach the class?"

The drama also reminds me what ultimately is the most important things that matter in life. In the pursuit of career and material needs, I tend to forget that ultimately, God's greatest gifts are good health and good family. I should be grateful as I have these. Other things will be a bonus from God. After all what's the point of having everything but not health and loved ones?

I decided to write this before I watch the movie version. That one seems to be true-r to the original story because there is no "boyfriend" character. Lets see how it fares compared to the dorama version. Btw, the girl who played as Aya in the movie version actually also played in the TV series as Aya's roomate in the disability school.

McKitty

I finally manage to collect all 4 Hello Kitty Plushies from McDonalds today! Yay!! As promised previously, I will write a post about it after I complete them all. This time around I only ate twice, once for Grimace and once for Ronald. I got Hamburglar from my friend. Initially I asked my sister to eat but since one cousin wanted, I gave that away to her. I happened to get Birdie when my colleagues were buying McD for lunch last week. Aaargh sad that I only bought 1. I should have bought more because at that time they all were buying meals without buying the toys. Haha... I plan to eat once again tomorrow to send Ronald for my cousin. Initially I wanted to give her all 4 but my stomach does not allow me to. I guess I will just give her the 2 best kitties.

Anyway, the hype is not as much as it was in 2000. I can understand why. The Hello Kitty collection released in 2000 was just WOW! I am not sure how many pairs there were but each pair was a Hello Kitty - Dear Daniel wedding couple in traditional wedding dresses. Yum yum!! My godsister gave away her Hello Kitty in Korean dress to me. Lol.. Too bad she only had that one. And I am pretty sad that she removed it from the original plastic bag. She put it in a nice box but without the plastic, there are some dirty spots. I cannot find good quality pictures (oh well, internet was not exist *yet* in year 2000 I guess) but the 2000 collection is just much much better than the current one.

Enough of the kitties! I will share good things about work. This week has been quite crazy. We missed 4-5 people for the past 2 days. Ggrrah.. And this is really a high risk job. Yesterday, my colleague and I helped out to receive vaccine stocks when the receiving person was out for lunch. We nearly died when we discovered that we signed a form when the items were not delivered *faints*. We were so glad that we manage to reject 2 forms because there were no items while doing the mistake. Thank God (yes I am truly thanking God), it was a mistake from the company. Two days ago, there were stocks coming in. Yesterday was another batch. The forms, which we found no items with yesterday, were actually the invoice for the stocks which came two days ago. Don't ask me how the heck the company prepared 2 sets of invoices with the SAME number on two different days. Fiuh.. Anyway.. since the invoice number is the same, it won't be considered as 2 batches of stocks coming in. $95 saved and we were spared from guillotine.

This incident taught me a bit about receiving stock, though. Yes, mistake is the best teacher but that was still very very scary :( This is really a high risk job. For example, everytime there is a dispensing error, I would freak out whether I was somehow involved in doing the error. Haiz.. God please help me.. I am not condemning people who make errors. I think it is a matter of time and/or luck that anybody could have made that error. I don't know which is worse though, getting a complaint or making a dispensing error.

Talking about complaints makes me remember something. As I was flipping through the feedback forms to scout for this quarter customer service ambassador (basically the staff which receives the "best" compliments, I am glad to find that last year, there were 2 forms in which I am mentioned for something positive. Yay! If only the nice people are more enthusiastic to write in feedback forms than those nasty people writing complaints, perhaps this job will be more bearable :D

Harry Potter Exhibition

Harry Potter Exhibition is open here in Singapore from today (2 June) until the end of September this year at Marina Bay Sands Singapore Arts and Science Museum. Yeah!! Fred and George Weasley were today for the opening (kyaaa!!). Not a big fan of them so I did not go today. But I think seeing them would be an experience itself.

As much as I am crazy over Harry Potter series, I did not immediatelly go to see the exhibition. I hate beating the crowd so I shall wait until the initial excitement dies down. Plus it is Great Singapore Sale periods where the number of tourists here increases exponentially. And I am convincing myself that perhaps there WILL be something special at supposed Harry Potter's birthday which, if my memory does not fail me, falls on 31st July. I shall wait until then and hope that the holiday crowd has thinned down.

Admission fee is $24, which to my great pleasure is for non-Singapore residents. For Singapore residents, it will be $20. Well, not a big issue. The big money issue will be at the end of the exhibition: the souvenir shop. I am waiting for people to go and write reviews about the items sold and the prices. Cant wait ^^ Hee hee... Once I have gone for the exhibition, I will definitely write another post :)