Chicken

YUMMY!

We play badminton on Sundays.

Last Sunday, we went to Nando’s after badminton for lunch. Afi had a coupon that got us one whole chicken for free! So we paid only for the chips and drink. As can be seen in the picture collage above, Afi enjoyed the chicken very much. She says that the Nando’s here tastes better than in Malaysia. I really cannot tell the difference. :P

A Brazilian man at the table next to us asked me if the chicken was spicy. He said that he often ordered stuff “medium hot” at restaurants but found them to be (too) hot. I told him that in that case I really couldn’t say. We had a “hot” peri-peri chicken, and I didn’t think it was hot (pedas) at all. Spicy, yes, but not hot.

Later yesterday, while preparing dinner I cut a bit of nail off my left index finger. OUCH! That should remind me to be extra careful with the knife in the future.

[EWWW-PICTURE WARNING. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. ;)]
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Summer Rain

When my mother-in-law found out that the government was offering H1N1 vaccination for free back in May, she arranged to have us all vaccinated. It’s supposed to protect us for a year. At the moment, though, I am having a cold. My body aches and my nose is running, but at least the sore throat is mostly gone.

Perhaps it’s the changing weather. The last few days have been cold and wet. When the sun does come out it’s windy. The September equinox is still almost a month away on September 23. Only then it’s officially fall, or autumn as they call it here.

I’ve been cooking quite a bit since I got here, almost as much as I did when I was in Boston. I love to cook, and the good thing is I like to eat my own cooking. Afi said that she’s tired of her own cooking, so I am more than happy to cook all the time. She thinks that it’s a good idea that we buy a book to record our cooking; sort of our own private recipe book.

There are two ingredients I love most whenever I cook – garlic and butter. I can never get enough of both. Afi has caught on with the butter, but not so much with the garlic. Garlic is quite expensive here – as most things are – so I have to cut down on the garlic as well.

Since I didn’t bring my old Columbia boots, which soles are already so worn off, Afi had been really anxious to buy me a new pair. She said that we should buy them now before they get more expensive when summer ends. So on Wednesday – when it rained the whole day! – we went to town and got me a pair of granite Merrell Enuma Mid Waterproof. I think they are awesome.

First

I’m not working today as I am on sick leave. As far as I can recall this is my very first MC since I started working.

I missed work for health reasons before due to the occasional cold, fever etc. but never with an MC. I have more leave days than I ever had use for so usually would just call in sick and fill up the emergency leave form the next day. I rarely ever go to see the doctor just with a common cold or fever; it’s just a waste of time and money.

This time it’s different. I had diarrhea all day yesterday, and sometime last night I woke up shivering so bad I actually thought that I was going to die. The doctor told me that it was a reaction to the body losing so much minerals. Oh yes, of course, I totally knew that.

PFFFT!

The Common Cold

The Cost Of The Common Cold & Influenza
(U.S. National Library of Medicine image through Wikipedia)

During BTN course in 2004, one of the participants asked a fellow participant, a doctor, about the benefits of taking Vitamin C when contracting a cold:

A: How long does a healthy person normally take to recover from a cold?
B: About a week.
A: Is it true that I heard that taking Vitamin C helps?
B: Yeah, by taking Vitamin C you’ll recover in just seven days!
A: WOW!

PFFT!

I am recovering from a cold.

Chocolates!

[Still in sick mode]

Chocolate for Digital Media by psivamp at deviantART

As if I need another excuse to eat (or drink) chocolates, chocolates are good for cough too*!

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* Alright, I read it in Wikipedia, not the most reliable of sources, you’d say, so read it yourself, smart ass. Link to the referred very reliable and very scientific The FASEB Journal article is here.

Strike Two

+Cough+ by horrormove at deviantART

I really should’ve known better: colds come in twos. At least for me they usually do:

1. It sucks that I’m back with a stuffed nose and painful coughs in the morning from the overnight phlegm buildup. YUCK!
   
2. It [sucks]² that my voice is reduced to something between a whine and a whisper when I speak, though ever so slowly and carefully lest I break into a lung-spitting cough; the upside of which is the students suddenly become so quiet and attentive.
   
3. It [sucks]³ that I got so tired I had to leave work early. Luckily, I have only one class today; but three tomorrow! Still, I’d rather labor through the classes than have them cancelled and replaced later.
   Even dinner is exhausting.
   
4. It [sucks]⁴ that I practically had a free day-off I had to spend at home, in bed, no thanks to the goddamn cold.

I'm whining, I know. Of course, I’m ever so thankful for everything else. And I'm definitely not going to a clinic just for a stupid cold.

:-P

Friday

So untypical for a Friday, I had a relatively full day at work today.

In the morning I had a briefing session with second-year students explaining them the details of the Bachelor of Economics (B.Econs) program, particularly the elective packages. A rep from the B.Econs students society came to see me two weeks ago asking if I could brief the students. Of course I said yes, as it falls under my job as academic advisor. We (the department) never thought that it was necessary to conduct such a briefing session as at the kulliyyah level we regularly brief first year students on all three programs offered by the three departments once during the ta’aruf (orientation) week and then once again towards the end of the semester. The students also have access to the program curriculum structure, which clearly outlines all the program requirements.

Apparently many of them don’t understand the curriculum structure, which puzzles me, as even as a student I found that it tells me all that I needed to know about the program. So I got some really interesting questions. I also discovered that many of the students don’t even know that there are academic advisors in the kulliyyah to help them, which is even more puzzling given the at least two previously mentioned briefing sessions we give them during their first year. It really makes you wonder whether they get what you’re saying.

Anyway, it was kinda fun.

Immediately after that a fellow staff member who just got promoted full professor treated us a big lunch. YUMMY!

During the afternoon this cold I’m nursing graduated from the blocked-nose phase to the extremely annoying runny-nose-and-rampant-sneezing phase. I know that I have to be thankful that it’s just a common cold, but it sucks nonetheless. I didn’t help too that I had to sit through two-and-a-half hours of kulliyyah meeting which didn’t really discuss anything.

So in the end I’d say that it was a so-so day to end a so-so week.

Sick Test

Four piles of unmarked assignments sat on my desk for two weeks, untouched. I moved them onto the shelves this morning to clear my desk.

Sir, when are we getting back our Assignment #2?
I haven't looked at them yet.
???
You can find the solution on my website.

Today was Quiz #2:

Sir, what is the meaning of this word [lumber]?
Timber.
???
Balak.

I might as well teach English in school. A student, in my office last week:

English saya OK, sir (unlike others).
...
What does “continue on indefinitely” mean?

I received Assignment #3 today. There are now twelve piles of papers on my shelves(2 x 4 piles of assignments + 4 piles from the quiz). The mid-semester test is tomorrow, which will add four more piles. I so wish I have a TA.

No thanks to a second round of cold, I’ve been sniffling and sneezing like crazy all day in the office. If only I could cancel the test and take the week off and sleep. Strangely, and thankfully, I didn’t sneeze even once during class. Otherwise I might just infect the whole class, and perhaps even the whole university!

Now, that doesn't sound like such a bad thing somehow. Maybe so many people would get infected and they would close the university. Imagine the headline: “IIUM shut down for cold pandemic”. With the avian-flu scare all over the world, it doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Cold Fusion

Does catching a cold qualify as being sick? I wouldn’t say so; a little down, kurang sihat, but not sick, as I explained to a colleague. Sick is when you need to seek medical help. You don’t need to see a doctor just for a common cold. But still, it’s a bitch to catch a cold.

Bitch point numero uno: the usual telltale was there since the beginning of the week but I ignored it. STUPID. I felt that all too familiar chill inside, which for me always means that there is a fever or a cold coming; my body was under attack. Knowing it, I should have popped a couple of Panadol® and bury myself under a blanket to sweat it out. Nine times out of ten, it will all be over the next morning. But I didn’t do any of that; stupidly sleeping late instead three nights in a row.

Bitch point number two, and this is the big one, is the cough that follows. Perhaps the cough is really part of the whole common cold package, but even if we can never find a cure for the common cold, I’d say that getting rid of the coughing part is one huge accomplishment. The blocked, and later running, nose and sore and scratchy throat is nothing compared to coughing like your lungs are coming out.

Enough of this; there are many more people in this world with real diseases.

The rain today had the small river behind the house overflowing for the first time in years. It was quite a sight, and my mother certainly was not amused when I joked that we should move out.

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PS: Cool coughing blood illustration credit: +Cough+ by horrormove on deviantART.