Specialist.

I’m done with lunch already and with the weather being so unstable as it is now, actually it does feel good to be hiding inside office.

I’m finally going to see a specialist to get my cough a closer examination and hopefully that is going to at least give me some answers about my condition – it does feel weird to be coughing all the time and not know what actually is wrong. I hope it’s just an annoying problem that won’t go away rather than a serious and persistent one, but I’ll leave it to God.

For the past couple of days I found myself sleeping fairly early – usually before 12 – and somehow I keep feeling very tired during the day, wanting to get some sleep. Since I’m on leave tomorrow and won’t have to return to office until next Monday, I suppose that really isn’t too bad a thought. Having said that, I know that I’ll have 3 training delegations in a row again in July, but compared with that of last year, I think this year’s volume is one that I should be able to manage.

After Thursday, there will be no public holidays until September, I think I would take a day off sometime in August.

Getting a bit tired, maybe a power nap will do me good again.

Hiatus.

After such a long time away, I’m back bringing you this edition of lunchtime rambling again. The last couple of weeks have seen me busy preparing and taking care of another training delegation, and I think this delegation was one that I’m unlikely to forget quickly, albeit for all the wrong reasons. There were too many mishaps along the way that tested my reflexes to a great deal, and while I think I managed to take care of most of them without too much of a hassle, I still think I could really have done without them. Either way, that’s good experience – good experiences gained through bad experiences are still good experiences.

My cough is still as bad, and now I’m losing quite a bit of my voice – I think I’ve lost about 70% of my voice so far, and to be honest, I don’t like to hear myself now. My voice is so coarse that it’s kind of beyond recognition, and I have no idea why it has become like that or when I’m going to get out of this problem. One thing I could establish right now is that it’s my throat that’s giving me problems, so I suppose it’s not pneumonia or something to do with the lungs. Either way, I’ll probably be seeing another doctor this week and hopefully things would really start to look up.

We are getting into July soon. That means another month closer to winter, which is nice. But I can still do with a good break. Everyone tells me that I need to rest in order to let my cough recover, but the problem is, I can hardly get any!

Korean.

Lunching in office again. Had a $17 lunchbox which is even cheaper than the $20 that’s offered at another shop. Of course, you get what you pay for, and for $17, I won’t say the lunchbox is bad, but it was quite a long way from actually being delicious. Oh well, I shouldn’t be moaning about that.

I shan’t talk about my cough today because I don’t think anyone of you is interested any more. I mean, if I don’t have a post declaring the end of the coughing, you can safely assume that the cough is still acting up badly, and I am coughing so much that for certain periods of the day I could hear Jesus calling me home.

I have been looking around for Korean classes and after 3 terms at the FTU, I am now at a crossroad, deciding whether to do it for the FTU for the 4th term, or go to somewhere else where I might be able to get more serious with learning the language. The plus point about going to FTU is that firstly it’s much cheaper, and secondly for the first time in learning the language, I would be able to follow through with the previous instructor (heck, I actually had 3 different instructors for the past 3 terms and none of them used a standardized learning package). Of course there’s always a down side, and to be honest, learning at FTU actually isn’t as serious as some other specialized language centres, and you have to live with after one year of learning you probably still can’t really converse well in Korean. I mean, when I was in Korea last month, I could converse just a little in Korean and most of the time it was still English or Japanese or Chinese or hand signals for me. Anyway my sister has decided that she might want to do at a specialized learning centre, and I’ll tag along today with her for the registration just to have a feel of what that place has to offer. The course at FTU won’t start until end of the month, so I still have a bit of time to consider. Anyone keen to learn Korean with me? We could then perhaps do at a specialized centre together! For the selected few, I could sponsor part of the lesson fee (please call to check if you are the selected few)!

Didn’t sleep well for the past few days, and I’m feeling really tired today at work. Thank God the work that I’m doing today is keeping me awake – strange but true. That said, I’m seriously contemplating taking one or two days’ leave next week to couple with the HKSAR Establishment holidays to really have a rest. June has been quite hectic for me, but I think the break is not to go out and play – I think I need a rest to recuperate from my cough (or perhaps have a really serious bout of cough for 5 days and then miraculously recover)!

Monday.

After one whole week away on a training delegation, I finally had the chance to have my lunch in office again! The week that has just gone past wasn’t too bad as most things turned out the way that I’ve visioned them to be, so it was nice in that sense. That said, I was still knackered by the time the whole programme ended, and it certainly wasn’t very exciting that I had so much work to attend to that I had to come back to office on Saturday!

Today has been another busy day for me so far, as I have another training delegation that is coming in next week, and I have quite a fair bit of preparation to do. Before I started this morning, I went through all the work that I’m supposed to do, and I found out that besides the usual preparations, I have another set of specific tasks that I need to be doing, and to be honest, it does look quite daunting! But I’m sure that everything will work out well.

The cough is still not going away. I went to see a Chinese physician yesterday and was given some Chinese herbal medication. Nowadays Chinese herbal medication come in ground form and all I had to do was to pour a sachet into hot water and just drink everything down – gone are the days of having to boil the medication on my own! That said, the medicine still tasted bitter, as they always did. But if that kind of bitterness is going to cure my cough, I’ll gladly have it. After two dosages of the medication so far, I can’t really say that my condition has improved tremendously. I do tend to think that I’m coughing less (which is good), but each cough was more uncomfortable than before (which is bad). My brothers and sisters at church are suggesting I go see another doctor for a third advice, and perhaps request for an X-ray scan. I’ll see how it goes.

And rumours have it that Manchester United are going to get listed in Hong Kong. If that is going to happen, I think I’ll try my hands at getting a lot or two. And yes, it was rainy and sunny at the same time this morning – I think the weather is really getting very strange.

Training.

This week I’m coordinating another incoming training delegation and actually I’m not supposed to be free during lunch, but for today only I could squeeze out some time so I’ll continue my lunchtime ramblings.

The weather for the past few days have been really hot and stuffy – the rain that the Observatory has promised did not seem to have materialized in a way that I wanted it to be. I had actually hope for some heavier rain rather than the drizzle that we are getting, really just to wash the heat away because the worst kind of hot weather is those when you feel the rain is about to fall but it proved to be non-coming. The kind of stuffiness that kind of weather creates is really quite uncomfortable.

Did I mention that I went to the Baptist Hospital to get my cough attended to? It turned out that even that didn’t help because the doctor didn’t think it was anything other than URTI. I wasn’t quite convinced but since he said so I’ll leave it as it is. Having said that, I’m still contemplating to see a Chinese physician and try some TCM to see if that would be useful.

I was back in BU because going to the hospital last Saturday and it was nice to see Yvonne at the SA Office – I think we had quite a good working partnership back then so that was memorable. Having said that, I’m in no particular hurry to going back to work with students yet! I guess I’m enjoying what I’m doing now, and while it may not be those kind of jobs that get your adrenaline pumping all the time, it still has a fair amount of excitement which is just nice for someone with a weak heart like myself!

Off for a quick break and then it’ll be back to work. See you all around.

Work.

I was out at work for the past two days so I didn’t get to eat lunch in office. It’s good to get a breather out of office every once in a while, but with the weather being this hot, sometimes it’s really not that fun too. That said, I enjoyed the last two days tremendously.

The cough seems to be making a comeback after I declared a few days back that things seemed to have turned for the better. It’s usually at its worst at night and in the morning, when I could really cough up to a minute non-stop. I think I’ll head out to the Baptist Hospital tomorrow morning and see what the doctors there have to say – somehow I don’t think I could trust the doctor at my estate any more. It’s not so much about not giving me an MC, but to have paid that kind of money and still not recover certainly didn’t sound too exciting. Let’s just hope the doctors at the hospital tomorrow won’t suddenly find something serious about me and admit me to stay a few nights there.

Tomorrow marks the start of a 3-day holiday with Monday being the Dragon Boat Festival. As always, I would not be heading out to see the dragon boat races (primarily because of the weather), but if anyone of you is participating in a race (in Hong Kong, may I add) and would like some moral support, let me know and I’ll try to make it.

Stay faithful. God bless.