Biological Clock Slamdown

study weeks are a perfect time to finally just sit down and have all the time in the world u want and need to hit the books. seriously.

with 24 hours x 7 days in your hands, you get to choose how u wana run your schedule. u get to decide how and when u're gonna sleep/eat/study/chill, tho to an extent its not entirely free choice cz u noe the majority of time should be spent on using the brain for exam prep and not on other funner creativity enhancing intellectual totally cool worthwhile chillaxing fun things like watching The Big Bang Theory or editing photos or facebooking that are hey did i mention, fun? grins.

i've bn traditionally sticking to the traditional (my vocab is really limited right now) 12am-8am more than adequate but not too much sleeping time for the entire week until thursday where i veered off a little but just a little so no damage done.

until last night i decided to so called burn midnight oil to finish the last bits of public health lecture notes cz kiasu must finish them all in 1 day. even if it means extending the day to more than 24 hours. heeh.

whn i woke up this morning after what i thought was a more than sufficient 8 hours of sleep, i was a little groggy but thought, hey, let's start the day with a cup of coffee! that should do the trick!

3 hours later which is now, i am slightly disorientated, feeling like i need more sleep and....... thinking that last night's idea was a really bad one. and learning it the hard way that drinking coffee worsens it.

its like my eyes and mind just wont work together.

the moral of the story is not to attempt to screw ur biological clock bcz it almost always wins hands down. it forces me to wake up at 8am no matter what time i go to bed.

sobs. my morning ruined by cerebral arrhythmia.

Sedentary Excuses

ppl say our lifestyle in our 20s determine how we're going to be like in our 30s-40s.

i never really gave it a thought until some time ago.

nearly all the patients in the wards have the triad of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia. probably around 80% of them. or about 98% of patients ageing 40 and above have it.

i take a look at MY current lifestyle and i think i might just get hypertension in 10 years time. i shudder at the thought of having to pop hypertensive pills EVERYDAY for the next 50 years of my life. its like a drug addiction- just that i dont want to take it but have to.

the food i consume at the hospital cafeteria daily has the amount of salt that can readmit a hypertensive patient who just got discharged from the hospital. i refrain from taking meats like chicken, fish, beef bcz they're all, ALL mind you, either cooked in curry, deep fried, lathered with chillies or thick soy sauce (thats also spicy). so i'm down to taking veg and beancurd for protein.

so oily it shines :S

the veg unfortunately, has a serving of salt that will spontaneously erode any mouth ulcers you have and the only way to counter it is to bury it with a sizable amount of rice or drink tons of water along with it.

ok. 4get about hypertension.

now i shudder even more at the thought of being diabetic (no i'm not condemning diabetic patients. i'm empathizing). i noe dr.s counsel diabetic patients telling them they can still lead a normal life if they control their diet, be compliant to their medication which not necessarily have to be insulin injections- cz if its not severe u can just take pills. but again, its like a life sentence to lifelong medication and limited freedom. complications are bound to set in if not at 50 years old maybe 60 years old, or some time or another. its scary thinking of how ur arteries are going to slowly thicken and one day be obstructed and you'll get eye problems, nerve problems, kidney problems, etc. the number of patients with HUGE diabetic foot ulcers and gangrene and toe amputations in the wards are countless.

why do i think i might just get diabetes 1 day. or arteriosclerotic plaques so severe that i'll get a heart attack.

this i blame on myself. my very very very very sedentary lifestyle. i am appalled at my own ignorance and laziness. like seriously. i exercise like once in a blue moon. u noe the i-will-exercise-during-my-holidays syndrome where u never get to exercise anytime at all in the end.

i can blame it on terribly unhealthy food again at the cafeteria, the lack of squash courts in the college - the only sport i think i wont play so badly and even if i do, the court size is tolerable to run around picking the balls up :P.

the lake where i can jog being 500m away. is it? now that's the worst excuse ever bcz that's super near. i can blame it on my 'busy' schedule. oh no. i'm not that busy really.

its just plain ignorance. heeh.

throw in dyslipidemia due to superrrrr oily food provided by the cafeteria (again).

nah. if i constantly exercise like jog once in 3 days i'd be fine. dont keep blaming the cafeteria.

BUT...bbb...but....

sigh. fine. i'll start exercising during this coming semester break. heeeh...

Humbled in the Lord's presence

some important lessons were learnt this wkend + today. it showed me how putting God into the picture makes things different.

its pretty simple. but i'm writing it here bcz i think its sth that impacted me.

now ask yourself how you'd feel if u had spent a lot of time slaving away at sth, all nicely put into place but in the end some1 throws you last minute work or asked u to make last minute changes in a super panicky short span of time. i'd feel like killing the person and probably at some point refuse to make the changes bcz its their fault for giving it to me last minute. its none of my business and i'm not going to give in to them.

i started helping out in my church's LCD team not long ago and being there opened my eyes to behind the scene issues that the LCD team face. praise and worship leaders are very spontaneous in requesting for song lyrics bcz sometimes it depends on the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

and what the LCD person does is to make the changes in the nick of time, tries his best to accomodate to changes. he had to sort out 3 languages of translation for the songs and rearrange the words on the slides in the programme - its not powerpoint so its a bit different. and check for typos. it was ten minutes to the start of service.

the dynamics and the attitude and speed of reaction to change amazes me. no1 complains. they just try their best to adapt to change. and above all, remain calm throughout.

wow i would have panicked and have brain freeze if thrown into that situation. looks like i have a long way to go. lol.

i experienced God in my long case exam today. wow. got a patient i just talked to this morning. and the examiner was pretty forgiving. and in all that, i was really humbled. sometimes we have a tendency to be rather big headed but yeah, i was humbled today.

praise the Lord! :)