Sick and tired

Not enough rest.. stress.. physical work.. all of this finally took a toll on my body. I have been having runny nose and sore throat since 3 days ago and I was not getting better that I had to resort to take medicines. I did not have enough rest after my Batam trip and things worsened with doing morning shift for this week. Wew..

The Games Medical Centre for 28th SEA Games Singapore 2015 will operate from next Sunday onwards and the preparation is at the peak and most gruelling stage both physically and mentally. After the stress to see if all the things would arrive on time on either Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday was the day of final meeting and moving of the furnitures. Thursday was the day I got the drug bin labels ready and Friday was the day of IT setup and the deadline of the summary of information for my pharmacy team. Fridge just arrived on Friday and I have not checked if the temperature monitoring system is alright. IT set up also did not run smoothly and I have to go back to settle it next Monday. Next Tuesday will be the arrival of the drug stock and next Friday will be mock training for everyone. Rrraaah!! The only good thing I can think about to keep me going is that I can be away from clinic for many days.

My landlady said that this week was the last week she could borrow her friend's maid who was currently overseas. She moved my things to the other room without my permission. Gosh!! I was upset and angry as I was worried that any of my fragile collection would break. I have yet to check every box for any damage as I am very tired. No comment on my new room so far as I have yet to see daylight here. My major concern is if the sun shines to my display cabinet and will affect my toy collections. But imagine, after moving heavy furnitures on Wednesday, in the evening I had to move my own things to my new room. Haiz..

I have decided to do away with my acne medications. I have been using them for almost 2 years without any visible improvement. I am turning to my female colleagues for advice. I am desperate enough to even try products recommended by them such as this Naruko Tea Tree Purifying Clay Mask & Cleanser in 1. It costs me $16 per bottle and this is the most expensive facial cleanser I have ever tried. Previously I was using Acnes brand and since I bought them from Indonesia, it costs me only $2 or $3 per bottle. I have been using body soap as face soap since I was a child. That is what my mum told me. According to my colleagues, body soap should not be used as face soap. What the heck!! Of course the rebellious part of me argues that I had been doing this since birth but my acne only started to get worse in the past 2 years. But it seems that I am out of choice and have to follow their advice.

Just finished clinic team building event this evening and an archived photo of a zoom in of my face from 2012 was shown. Everyone was telling me that it was an evident of how bad my acne is now as compared to last time. Oh well.. I wish I knew what went wrong in the past 2+ years.. 

Batam

I just came back from a weekend trip to Batam. It was my first time there and this is considered 'late' for someone who has been living in Singapore for more than a decade. After all, Batam is one of the few popular destinations (other than JB and Bintan) for a short getaway. I was not very excited for the trip because the only 'interesting' thing that people told me about Batam was: shopping and eating seafood. I am a fan of neither. Thus I was going more for an experience to know what Batam is like. I went with my colleagues and they settled everything so I only followed mindlessly. I did not expect too much because I did not want to be disappointed like when I went to Bintan last year.

Having no expectations clearly helped. Batam is actually quite well developed and much more developed than Bintan. The ferry terminal is top notch and it is surrounded by hotels and nice looking houses. First impression counts! Haha.. Our first destination was to eat seafood as it was almost dinner time. The notion about shopping was obvious from the number of shopping malls I saw on the way. Opposite the ferry terminal is already one of them! On the journey from the ferry terminal, there is a huge "WELCOME TO BATAM" signage atop a mountain which gave me the feel that it was inspired by the iconic Hollywood sign. I did not manage to snap a photo as I had not turned on my phone. Darn!

I am not familiar with geography of Batam but I felt happy and amazed to see mountains (perhaps hills??), foresty areas, and a large body of water (no idea if it is a lake, sea, or bay). It made me realise that I am quite a nature person as I get the excitement and peace that I don't get when I went to Europe. Signs of (uneven) development are apparent as well. Gorgeous mosques, government buildings, universities stand out against housing development projects which seem to be somehow abandoned with only large boards with names of the housing estates surrounded by empty plots of land.

Barelang Bridge

We ate at a seafood restaurant at Barelang. From the restaurant, the view of Barelang Bridge is amazing. I did not take a solo picture as my camera phone would not be good enough for a low light condition. The seafood dinner was kinda amazing. We spent a total of Rp 1.150.000,- for 8 people. I never spent or paid anything that much for a meal! Haha.. Only the crab was expensive at about Rp 495.000,-. The other dishes were very reasonable considering the portion sizes. Even fruit juices only cost Rp 15.000,-! The crab was tempting but I managed to avoid it because it was butter crab. A colleague did not eat clam so I ate her share while she ate my share of crab.

The next destination was Nagoya Hill Shopping Centre which is the biggest shopping mall at Batam. I have to admit that the design of the building is impressive. Unfortunately, the interior still feels like a shopping centre, rather than a mall. In case you are wondering, shopping centres are usually more cramped as they want to maximise the floor space for shops to the maximum. No wonder how cool they are from the outside, the feeling inside will never beat shopping malls. Shopping malls tend to have a "hollow" central area which makes them feel more spacious. The people from higher levels can see the ground level and vice versa. That is what I mean by "hollow" central area. In addition, shopping malls tend to have higher ceiling to add the spacious feel. My only shopping goal at Batam was fulfilled here: my diet cereal. Haha.. Initially I was upset that the price was more expensive than what I got from Jakarta. But at cashier, I got 25% discount. Ooops. So in the end I got it cheaper haha.. It cost me Rp 800.000,- ++ which is my most expensive grocery shopping ever!

We spent the night at BCC Hotel and Residence. As there were a lot of us, we chose service apartment instead of hotel rooms. The service apartment is really huge and great. The room service, however, was terribly slow. There were no hair dryers and by the time they sent the hair dryer, the girls' hair was dry already. We also asked for a bottle opener and by the time they came, we managed to open the bottles using our own improvised technique with various items like spoon, table, etc. The breakfast was not fantastic too. Although in my honest opinion, the breakfast was rather bad.

I tried Somersby Apple Cider for the first time. I am not a fan of alcoholic drinks but I am curious to try. The taste is pretty good because the alcohol does not feel that strong/drying. I hate the fact that it is carbonated, though. I only drank less than 1/3 of a bottle and I already started burping. We also gambled a bit -with real money! There is a reason why I don't gamble or I don't like to try my luck with 4Ds, Toto, etc. Haha.. My luck is bad. I only had 4 $1 coins, 1 50 cents, a few 20 cents, and 1 5 cents coins. I told myself that I would stop once I lost 1 $1 coin. Haha.. My luck sort of improved by the time I had the 50cents as a wager. Haha.. I only managed to break even.

After breakfast in the morning, I skipped the massage and the trip to wet market. I don't like the thought of strangers touching my body and wet market is something normal for me. Haha.. I wanted to sleep a bit more. Our last destination was Batam City Square Mall and the girls went for manicure pedicure. I went to Gramedia and I randomly bought comics. Haha.. I bought a 4-volume soccer comic and a one-shot comic about snow jumping or something like that. I have yet to read them but I am a sucker of sports stories. The cashier told me that it was a buy 3 get 1 free promotion. What!! Haha.. I don't have any other title to buy so never mind lo...

I am very pleased and satisfied with this trip. Haha.. I don't mind coming again to replenish my diet cereal. The best part is that the total cost for the transport (including ferry return trip) and accomodation is only $91. That is very cheap as compared to my trip to Bintan!!

I helped my colleagues with money in Batam. I guess there is an advantage of being an Indonesian who is used to see so many zeros in our currency. My colleagues have trouble differentiating the thousands (1000, 2000, 5000) and the ten of thousands (10000, 20000, 50000) notes. Hearing hundreds of thousands and even millions made them unable to count the zeros anymore. Haha... I guess if I can handle millions, I will have no problem travelling to other countries. Japan or Thailand usually have hundreds to thousands and even Korea has thousands to tens of thousands. They are all less than hundreds of thousands or millions!

This is random but I am glad that I don't snore when I sleep. Haha.. I actually asked my roommate if I snored last night.

CPPP case presentation 2

I realised that I never made noise about my first case presentation for my CPPP (Clinical Pharmacist Preparatory Programme) which happened about a month ago. It went pretty badly and I was left tired after it that I could not be bothered to blog. Haha.. I still managed to pass although the last statement in the feedback was: "managed to just pass". Well a pass is a pass so I am still happy.

I just finished the second case presentation this afternoon and I am thankful to God. I feel confident that I did much better than the first one. My strategy to choose a shittier case for the first one and a better case for the second case worked! Haha.. I mean the examiners would expect that an improvement so might as well I chose something that I did badly first and then did something which I think I could managed better for the second case and hence an improvement. Lol.. Of course the biggest credit goes to God. The main reason that I did better today was many questions were predicted correctly by me and thus I was more or less prepared with the answers. For the first case, I missed on too many things and these were the things picked up by the examiners. I did not so obviously I was not prepared and thus I just shook head and smiled for most of the time.

Doing this kind of oral examination is really nerve-wrecking. "Smoking" answer is almost impossible unless you have a poker face. The moment I showed some hesitation with my answers, the examiners would rephrase the question in a way that made me wonder if my answer was correct.. even when my answer was correct in the first place. Same thing for application question when I had to think on the spot. Most of the times, there is no right or wrong answer. But the way the examiner asks, it sounds as if there is a correct answer. Actually the purpose to test my reasoning.

Of course things did not go as smoothly as expected. I nearly died from the first question today. I was asked about vaccinations! Jeez.. I put the vaccination slides just out of "formality". Guideline recommends it so I recommend it. Even when I managed to make up some answers "Erm... even for normal healthy people, these vaccinations are recommended, of course they are even more important for elderly people who are not as healthy as younger people. Elderly should avoid getting sick altogether", the follow-up questions on Hepatitis B vaccinations killed me. I had to give up somewhere because even if I could think and answer, eventually the question would end up with the treatment which I totally had no idea because I did not read that at all. The other memorable question today was the mechanism of action of Rivaroxaban. I was too nervous and I answered: direct anti factor Xa inhibitor. Obviously they knew I studied quite hard and get everything mixed up. Sensing something not right, I rephrased it to: anti factor Xa inhibitor. Hmm.. still does not make sense with an 'anti' and an 'inhibitor'. Final answer: anti factor Xa. Lol.

The ultimate challenge comes in 1 month time for the final exam: to clerk a case within 1 hour and then to present. I am already dying preparing for case presentations when I can specifically prepare to study those topics related to the case. For the final exam, I will need to literally know everything under the sun. God help me!!

The other good news is that the person who stole my money was finally evicted yesterday. Yay!! Life is much better now as I do not need to live in fear and having to lock my room everytime I leave my room. My landlord asks me to take over his room. I am quite reluctant because I am just lazy for a change. Bleah.. I need to think of a way to rearrange my items again. I don't know if that room is similar size, bigger, or smaller than my current one.

"Alternative" healing

As somebody working in healthcare, I tend to be skeptical to other methods of healing which have not been proven by large randomised controlled clinical trials etc. However, seeing is believing. And after western medicine is not able to cure my ailment, I have no choice but to explore the alternatives.

My younger sister suffers from psoriasis which remains uncontrolled after many doctors and many different medicines. From a relative, we come to know to Mr Antonius Porat. I would say he is Gifted (big G because it comes from God). Different foods for different people may have different effects. He will inform everyone their individual food to avoid/poisons. From my sister and my parents' recollection, it seems that his healing method is just as such. When I went home in December, my sister's skin was still pretty bad so I was not convince that this healing method works. But when I went home 2 weeks ago, my sister's skin improved tremendously. Seeing that, I decided to also go for one of the session. I am thankful that there was a session in Jakarta when I was home.

I had some reservations because I consider myself to eat very little already. In addition, it seems that the poisons are likely to be food that people usually eat a lot normally. For example, my mum gets egg and chocolate (well, she loves cakes so much!), my dad gets beef and some seafood (we know he loves these 2 types of meat much more than chicken or pork), my sister gets soda and ice (which she drinks almost everyday). For myself, my breakfast is always bread from supermarket and my dinner is replaced with cereal nowadays. Lunch is only my proper meal and I always rotate among the few stalls. I will have nothing to eat if milk or flour is one of my poisons. It is not that I like these food. I have no other choice but to eat them for survival. Lol  God is great and is merciful. He knows that I already eat very little and I eat to survive, my fears did not come true and my poisons are egg, butter, and chili.

Honestly, I was happy that I only had 3 poisons and I thought they would be easy to avoid because I don't think I have them very often. I was more worried if my poisons are potato chips, fast food, or bubble tea haha.. But I know they are not likely because I avoided them for 4 months but my face is still like shit.

Apparently, it is easier said than done! I don't like spicy food and I don't actively look for spicy food. But now I realise, I often buy Indonesian or Malay food. Although they are not spicy, they always have chili as a sauce (just to make the food look red) or even as decoration. Gosh!! Like that also can! I also often eat from the new Thai stall near my workplace which also serves spicy food. I have to rely on mixed rice food stalls now.

Similarly with egg. It is kind of easy to avoid the full eggs but there are too many food with "hidden" eggs. I like sushi and I almost bought a maki set last week when I realised that tamago is also egg T_T I eat ramen once in a month or in 2 months but I guess that has to go away soon. Quite wasted if I buy one and not to have the eggs.

Butter is almost always hidden but basically all cakes will be out for me. Those commercial biscuits also may have butter so I always read ingredients list nowadays.

The ultimate challenge is, however, even when I actively avoid those that I can see, sometimes there are hidden ones. For example, I ordered the stack of green vegetables and white bean sprout but when I started to eat, I saw some chili pieces inside!! Those mixed rice stalls also share tongs/spoons for different food. Even if I don't order chili or egg, the tongs/spoons have been previously used for other food containing chili or egg for other patrons.

Enough about food, let's go back about the healing. My parents and sister are not telling the full story. Avoiding personal poison is just one part of the healing. The other part of the healing is pertaining to lifestyle. When you shake hands with Mr Porat, he will be able to "see" if you have other problems in your life which may be contribute to your disease. For example, stress, having negative personalities, conflict at home or at work, etc. One thing that he emphasizes on is to always smile and be positive. Yes it sounds corny but this works on psychological aspect.

Spiritually, he will also remind people to follow their religions teaching, whatever their religions are. He will also be able to "see" if people seldom go to church/mosque/temple or if people go but actually cannot concentrate on the service or if people actually don't fast etc.

Lastly, the session itself is also a healing process. People may start to get skeptical here as often we imagine those healing sessions we see on TV: people crying and falling down etc. Mr Porat is a Catholic but his session is non-denominational. The session opens and ends with 1x Our Father, 1x Hail Mary, and 1x Glory Be. That's all. My parents and sister told me that the session opens and ends with 'prayers' so I was expecting it to be like those healing services on TV. At the start of the session, he mentioned that he was not the one doing the healing. The healing comes from God. Thus he advises people to remain throughout the session because once the session ends, the grace also ends or something like that. He does not want people to think that he is the healer and continuously look for him etc.

Apparently there were 2 children who were ever brought by their parents to one of his sessions. Subsequently when these children went to a Mass, they pointed at the statues of Jesus and Mother Mary and told their parents "Eh.. weren't these people also present at that session that we attended?". Aha!!

I am getting impatient but it has only been 2 weeks for me. I guess I just have to believe and obey. God is the true healer after all.

Just within a week of my break at home, I already fell into another bout of depression. Work is getting from worst to terrible. I am getting sick of covering other people's backside while noone covers mine. When people are away, I am supposed to temporarily take over their duties. So what about my own duties? They take a back seat and I have to do at home. That is like working for the whole day except when I am sleeping. When I am away, I still have to do my own duties. Life sucks. Life is unfair. Bleah..

Thinking about this just makes me more emo. I want to leave my current job. But I don't know what choice I have. Where can I find greener grass? Can I be sure that greener grass does not come with shittier fertiliser? Sigh..

To make things worst, I just lost an opportunity to purchase my holy grail: Aladdin Capodimonte figure for very cheap. I posted this 2 years ago and until now I am still waiting for an opportunity to get this. 1 auction started with $195 and eventually ended with just $202.50. Other prices on eBay currently is $1300-$1800. Haiz... Sadly this seller only shipped to US. I asked if he is willing to ship internationally by eBay Global Shipping Programme. He said shipping would be $300 by USPS. I was contemplating whether to get since the total would still only be 1/3 of what the others are charging. But if shipping is by USPS, I had to fetch such a big and heavy thing from customs office and that is something good. I also don't have the space for such a big piece. So the next emo-ness goes to my parents who up to now still does not want to get me a house here. I know it does not gonna help with anything. I prayed that the piece would remain unsold but obviously that did not happen. Sad...

FML FML FML.. that's what I am feeling right now :(

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

The few years wait turns out to be quite a disappointment.. Aaaah~~~ Having said that, it is not because the movie is not good. The first Avengers movie sets the bar too high that makes it difficult for the sequels to top it over.

In less than 5 minutes of the movie, I already felt a disappointment with the obvious CG work for the action scenes. I know they want to make cool and over the top action scenes but when the CG becomes too obvious, it defeats the purpose. After all, I want to see a live action movie and not a cartoon. Some of the action scenes also happen too quickly that it is difficult to catch and appreciate what is happening. There are too many mindless destruction that final showdown simply lose its impact. The fight between Hulk vs Hulkbuster is not as good as the trailer. I mean I don't feel any significance or anything great or anything touching from the fight. It is just mindless punching, kicking, and collateral damage to the buildings. The final fight is not as dramatic as the one in the first movie as the aim is to evacuate civilians and just to break apart the floating city before it falls back and destroy the earth upon impact. Even after the mission accomplished, the resolution does not have give invoke emotions like relief etc.

The pace of the movie is rather slow and I felt quite bored at the beginning. However, the plot is quite smoothly presented: why Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch initially sided with Ultron, Iron Man's motives for his plans, how Ultron has his perverted idea of protecting the world, how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch ends up fighting against Ultron, and how everything leads to the final showdown.

Another aspect that Age of Ultron does worse than its predecessor is the quirky and witty dialogues. I don't think the cinema had a laugh greater than "puny god" previously. Is it because everything seems to be more serious this time? I don't know.

Number of superheroes and screen time for each are always inversely proportional. It is a good thing that on top of the original 6, we also have Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, War Machine, and The Vision. On the flip side, there is less screen time for each person, notably for Iron Man. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch get quite a lot of screen time. In fact, Quicksilver seems to be very powerful here although he seems to be kinda useless in the comics. Haha.. The CG for Scarlet Witch is kinda lame, unfortunately as she is just shooting red beams. Too bad they have to 'kill' Quicksilver senselessly in the end. I say senselessly because I don't see what's the point of killing him. It does not move the plot forward and it does not even cause any crazy impact when Scarlet Witch going bonkers because of that. My friend said that Marvel "killed" him because Fox owns X-men and their Quicksilver. Hmm.. I still want to believe that perhaps he is not dead yet. Otherwise, why would Hawkeye lie next to a dead man when he is recovering from his wound?

Anyway the movie is still interesting, great, and enjoyable to watch. My expectations are too high and these dampen my mood a little bit. But I do not want to take the credit away and I still think that it is worth watching. In fact, I don't mind to watch it a second time. Haha.. Kinda ironic because I did not feel as excited at the end of it as compared to when I watched the first movie.

I don't really like popcorn and never ever in my life I eat popcorn when watching movie. I was so emo and upset because of work yesterday that I succumbed into temptation and got myself a popcorn combo. Actually it was not the combo that I wanted but the collectible that come for it. I don't collect non-anime collectibles but I guess all the Avengers' mood around me made me buy it. Quality-wise it is rather rubbish but hey, I bought it just because of the hype. Lol

Sadly only the big 4 are available. I would actually prefer Black Widow :( It was quite tough for me to choose between Captain America and Thor but I guess I like Chris Evans better than Chris Hemsworth and that is why I went for Captain America. Lol.

Talking about toys, if they ever make a figure of the computer model shown at the end credits, I will want it! Yeah!

Gin

My bubble tea abstinence ended on my birthday! How ironic! Haha.. I honestly have no idea where to celebrate my birthday as I am no longer familiar with my hometown. I am fine with anything anywhere as long it is the latest happening thing in Jakarta at the moment. Lol. I still want to keep up with latest development although I don't live here anymore. My sister told me about Fook Yew restaurant which as alcoholic bubble tea.

Regardless what Fook and Yew mean in the Chinese dialect, I am pretty sure the name is chosen just to make it rhyme with Fuck You. Haha... It works in Indonesia but I dare someone to open a branch in an English speaking country. I am not a fan of Chinese food but I have to say that the food here is quite unique in a good way. It is not the typical Chinese fine dining type of food. Moving on to the alcoholic bubble tea, I decided to buy a drink which contains gin. It was my first time and I could not taste any alcohol in my mouth. Initially, I was doubting myself if the drink had alcohol. A few minutes later, I felt the warmth on my back and the dizziness. Looks like I have found myself a new favourite alcohol. Haha.. I dislike alcohol because of: gastric, dizziness, flushing, warmth, and dry mouth. This gin does not cause me the flushing and the dry mouth so it is good. Now I know that the next time I want to get a non-drinker to drink, gin will be a good choice.

I am quite happy that my mum shared my birthday luck by winning a luck draw of a return air ticket from Jakarta - Bangkok - Phuket. She bought ruby earrings from the Thai fair and got 12 lucky draw entries. Hmm, that is like getting the earrings for free. Lol.. Anyway, I have been to Bangkok so I am not interested to accompany her.

Half of my holiday is gone :( I have not really done the work things that I brought home. Because my maid is not around, I have to waste time doing my laundry and my dishes. Haiz... I have yet to tidy up my comics and toy collections which definitely will make me more angsty as I have nowhere to keep them in order. Last but not least, one of the new acne cream that I got has tretinoin in it. It triggers the initial acne breakout as one of the side effects and I really cannot stand my own face :( I don't know what is going on with me. My acne had always been in control until the last 2 years.. Is this a punishment for calling other people ugly or teasing my friends who had acne previously??

Getting old

This week had been too tiring and stressful for me that my pimples broke out quite severely again. Bleah.. I think I am getting too old that my body cannot handle this level of tiredness and stress anymore. When I was in secondary school up to university, my level of stress and tiredness was worse than now but my pimples never gave me such a great problem. Want to blame it on hormone but I think my hormone was raging more in my teenage days than nowadays. I have stayed away 100% from fast food and bubble tea for since January. I failed in the last few weeks in terms of potato chips but I managed to stay away from Starbucks during Lent. I really think my pimples are affected by my stress.

My CP3 presentation on Monday went quite badly. I smiled and shook my head for most of the questions. It was quite useless to study. I chose to lodge my topic under infectious disease so I was nearly breaking down trying to remember various antibiotics, their mechanisms of action, their antibacterial coverage, renal dose adjustment bla bla bla. I did not have time to read on the other topics and the examiners were more interested in the other topics. Haiz.. I think it was definitely a failure unless they moderate the marks. To make things worse, the whole thing was overrun. Q & A was supposed to be 10 minutes and it became at least 30 minutes. That times 5 candidates. I was so agitated and eager to leave as I had dinner appointment. It was meant to be a farewell dinner for 2 of my juniors who left the company :'( I got a surprise that they also celebrated my birthday. Lol.. I am touched.

After doubting whether it was a right thing to do to fork out another $50 to change my flight, I think it was worth it. Haha.. I did not even have the time to properly pack my luggage. I was still packing my luggage when the taxi was already waiting for me. As much as I want to save my leave for travelling next year, I was so tired that I did not want any additional stress for an audit on Friday or running clinic on Thursday. Having said that, I think this short break is not a full break as I have to catch up on the work-related things that I am unable to clear during normal working hours.

I renewed my driving license yesterday. Ironically I had to take public transport to go to the place and to go home. Yeah I can't drive. It has been many years since the last time I took bajaj so it was a trip down to memory lane. Now the blue bajaj is much more comfortable: bigger and less noise than the old red bajaj that I used to take to go for my tuition. Oops that was like almost 15 years ago. Haha...

I went for my skin consultation again today. I was offered some injection to quickly bring down the acne but as long as it does not prevent future occurrence, I don't want any invasive or expensive procedures. It is not as if I am a model or I need to have my wedding that I need to have a perfect complexion right now. However, I decided to take the prescription for Roaccutane. I am still not sure if I want to take that because again, no point of taking such a strong medicine with lots of side effects for the whole body just for my face. I still have 2 more exams coming up so I shall see how things go after that. Hopefully the stronger creams that I was prescribed with today would help.

I also had a bit of wardrobe makeover today. I wanted to get just ONE new shirt for work because I am thinking of getting rid of my greyish/black shirt which is already a bit too tight and has no pocket. Being a stingy person, I refuse to spend more than Rp 150000 for a shirt. Well, I found a "buy 2 get 1 free" promotion so I ended up with 3 new shirts for Rp 330000 in total. What a great bargain! I decided to just bite the bullet and get slim fit as I hope it will ensure that I control my diet or risk myself looking like a sack of rice in them. Lol. I am still thinking about the green and pink shirts but the materials are too thin. I am very self conscious and I don't my nipples to be visible through the shirt.

I will be 28 years old in a few minutes time so I am indeed getting old...

Cinderella

Cinderella is not really my cup of tea. The cartoon was released in 'ancient' times that it is too outdated and unbelievable in the current era. In recent years, there are plenty of movies based on childhood fairy tales peppered with dark twists. Cinderella does not follow that path and is literally faithful to the original Disney's cartoon. Another point to give this movie a miss. How about Frozen Fever clip? I like Frozen but when I heard the new song from the clip, I don't think it is as good as the songs in original Frozen. I am not sure on why I still watched the movie in the end. It is not exactly helpful when a friend kept telling me "Just watch the trailer. It is basically the whole movie!".

Apparently it was not a wrong decision. There is magic in the movie and I came out of the cinema like a little boy who just had his first ever fairy tale. I am going to skip the story as it is exactly the same as the cartoon. No twists, no changes, no suprises. Credits to the director! Being faithful to the original cartoon can either mean very boring or very unrealistic. The movie does not focus on the parts which we expect to see when Cinderella comes to mind: how she is being mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters which makes the whole story flows more smoothly and realistically. With less focus on the mistreatment, Cinderella's patience and kindness also become more believable. Cinderella speaks to the animals but the animals are not depicted talking to her again. Another good point considering realism. Humans do talk to animals/pets and animals/pets don't respond by talking in human's language you see. And it is a good choice to skip the Lucifer vs the mice parts.

I really love the setting, the environment, and the props. Every elements of fairy tales: big mansion, majestic castle, old towns, forests, etc are depicted beautifully. I think it would be fantastic to have a mansion where Cinderella lives! The next great thing is the effects when Fairy Godmother does her "bibbidi bobbidi boo" to transform Cinderella and when the effect of the magic vanishes at midnight. I think they are excellent without exaggeration to the point of unbelievable.

I don't know the actress who plays Cinderella but from the trailer, I thought she is so-so only. When watching the movie, I can't help to like her. I think she is a perfect representation of Cinderella. This may come out wrong: but I don't think her beauty is not the type that will attract people just from her look. Her beauty is more of the sweet-type and her beauty shines because of her kindness/personality. Aaaaah... What an ideal girl.. Haha.. Helena Bonham Carter did a great job as the Fairy Godmother although it is difficult to change the image of Fairy Godmother to a young lady. Haha.. She did a better job as when she disguised as the old lady. As always, she is always good when playing out-of-this-world characters. Cate Blanchett, as Lady Tremaine, is the other woman got me excited for this movie. I always know Galadriel can be a scary lady too. I definitely love her dresses. Unfortunately, the 2 stepsisters fail to shine and they fall into obscurity. They are dumb but they are not funny. I find the guy playing the prince is a bit too old but he does have a Disney prince aura.

In all, I think there is a magic in this movie and I really recommend this to everyone. I was prepared to be disappointed but I came out of the cinema filled with child-like joy. With all the realism, the message of "have courage and be kind" sounds very positive instead of being pretentious. And of course, other than believing in courage and kindness, a little bit of magic will be wonderful too.

Honestly, Cinderella is indeed an ideal girl that I am looking for: can work, can do housework, can ride a horse (drive), pretty, and kind-hearted. When will I ever find my Cinderella? Perhaps my Cinderella is still being locked somewhere by the evil stepmother.. Unfortunately, I am still not ready to search and rescue her yet...

By the way, I just realised that Lily James recorded "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and Helena Bonham Carter recorded "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" but both songs were only played at the ending credits. They should have included this in the movie!! Grr.. And Lily James has a very sweet voice too.

The excitement from getting $88 from POSB Chinese New Year promotion was short-lived. I lost another $50 this morning. Call me an idiot if you wish. I lost $250 last week but it looks like being nice is equal to being stupid. I learnt to lock my drawer but I still did not lock my room when I shower. I thought the thief would not strike back so quickly. Although the proof remains 'weak', today I am very confident that my housemate is the thief. I had only $6 in my wallet yesterday and thus I withdrew another $100 in the evening. This time there is NO WAY I could drop it or I remembered wrongly. After withdrawing the money, I went home and I did not buy anything else. After showering this morning, I realised that he was already awake. The first thing I did was to check my wallet and my feeling was true: a note of $50 disappeared.

I informed my landlady and I am grateful that she finally decided to kick him out. I have to be careful and patient for another 1 month. Sigh.. To look it in a more positive light, it cost me $300 to get rid of him from the house. $300 is close to 10% of my monthly pay and it hurts. I was even considering making a police report or get police to find fingerprint evidence etc.

A part of me feels that it is my own stupidity. If I already suspect there is a thief, why did I not lock my room when I went to shower? Haiz.. Another part of me does not want to leave in suspicion and negativity. In the previous house for 2 years, I also did not lock my room when I went to toilet. Sometimes I did not even close the door properly and the wind would blow it open, yet I never lost anything. The thief stayed on the first level in the other hose. Now in this flat, we are all on the same level so it had to be him. Coincidences cannot happen every week that I always lose something every time he is already up when I am still in the toilet.

The more I think about this, the more I upset I become. I know I have to let it go and just count my blessings instead of dwelling in my misfortune. After all, everything belongs to God. What He gives, He can take it away..

Haiz.. Okay I shall try to be more positive. I was pleasantly surprised yesterday that someone actually complimented this FON (aka me) for being friendly and helpful. LMAO! FON is our code for full of nonsense or unreasonable customers. It was a huge surprise because generally I am very impatient, curt, and maintain a black face at work, especially towards rude + racist Mandarin-only speakers. Of course when someone is very nice and friendly, I will also reciprocate them but usually they are the minority. I think this is my first compliment in 3 over years. Haha.. The last time I had any compliment was during my training days when I was at retail. That was looong time ago when I was still young, fresh, and "passionate" with what I am doing.

Today someone asked for my name and I hope she wrote something good about me. Haha.. Shameless mode one. I have to thank God for what happened today. She was in a hurry because she had to go somewhere else. She curtly told me to just put all the medicines in the bag and no need to say anything. Bleah.. I feel very irritated with this kind of people. So I just showed each medicines and since she nodded for each of them, I thought everything was okay. As she was making payment, I don't know why I was prompted to check for any hospital record. Tadaaaa... There was a recent hospital visit and there were drastic changes to the medicines. I spoke to her again and I think she realised how close the danger from all the different medicines were and she agreed to wait for me to contact the doctor and repack the medicines accordingly. She even said sorry for being in a hurry earlier. I was quite 'shy' but I was glad that I told her that the credit was not mine but God's. Usually when someone refuses counselling and acts as if they know everything, I will also not do any further checks. I don't know why today I did it. She shared that she was in hurry to see her husband who had lung cancer and liver cirrhosis. It is quite sad considering her husband does not smoke and does not drink. When she heard my surname, she was quite 'shocked' as it is the same as her husband's.

Anyway heck about compliments! I am just glad that I am able to make an impact in someone's life and thank God for that.