Smile

It has been another very exhausting week. The sort where I get home in time for past-midnight TV shows but I am too fatigued to follow the plot and my eyesight is ridiculously blurred. I slouch into the sofa, yawn, and feel that life is being sucked out of me, to the final breath. I have little appetite to finish up the dinner laid before me. Has all my slavish slogging been worth it? Does anyone care? I don't know. Just the other day, someone pulled me aside along the corridor and told me that I just wasn't working hard enough. That was a crushing statement.

I'm seeing the doctor this coming Monday to review the results of my nerve test. I doubt there will be good news, and that's judging from experience. Probably I'll be hooked up on a long-term rehab programme with no indication of when I can expect to complete it. Or maybe I'll just be sent for another medical test once again, and have to wait one more month before I receive the results. But in spite of all my cynicism, the hope burns within me that maybe the doctor will tell me it's a miracle and I have been healed.

I need a vacation. A good and long and restful vacation, a vacation where I can find time for myself and find myself. But that will not be possible.

Right now, I just wish I can smile a genuinely happy smile. I wish so hard. I try to smile, and it comes out plastic.

Easing back to action

Sometime next week, I plan to make my first visit back to the gym and do some light weight training for my legs. May it turn out well.

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Update as of 2000 hrs

My arm feels so loosely attached right now that it's almost as if it were on the verge of slipping off my shoulder altogether. What a terribly demoralising sensation!

To the Library

Had my nerve conduction test conducted yesterday morning. The nurse performing the test told me that one of the three branches of the main nerve leading from my neck to my arm was damaged. As the damage was relatively "upstream", it accouted for most of the muscle weakness and deterioration "downstream" of my neck. She didn't answer me directly when I asked her what were my chances of recovery. However, judging from her approval that I could seek acupuncture and all sorts of other non-Western treatments if they helped, I figured that I must have messed up the nerve real badly. From my experience, usually the hospital staff would staunchly stick by Western medicine and scoff at other forms of alternative treatments. Ah well, at least I was mentally prepared for this. :)

Got home early from work last night for the first time in weeks. Quickly washed my face and hands, and then sat down in front of the couch for a 9 pm TV dinner. I was so tired that I fell asleep as I was eating, only to be awoken by Mum at around 11 pm, asking me if I wanted to take a shower before I went back to dreamland for the night.

Went to Orchard early this morning to see a physiotherapist recommended by Philip. Many thanks to Sotong and Ripley for the wake-up call. I was very worried that I wouldn't wake up in time and would miss my appointment. The physio session was good. Got taught a few new exercises. Was also told encouraging comments that gave me some optimism to look forward to recovery.

And then I met up with Ripley for lunch at the Coffee Club in Takashimaya, where I also bumped into an old varsity friend, Prabin. He's now a banker at Barclays, so I guess he should be reaping in big bucks :) After lunch, Ripley and I headed for the library where I borrowed two new novels and where we attended a special 1.5 hr seminar on Travel Photography. Afterwards, we migrated to Kinokuniya for a short while and then split up on our separate ways home. It was a fruitful afternoon.

Smoking Poppy

Went out for a second movie this afternoon, this time, with the befrienders and children from my Club Rainbow group. We went to VivoCity at around noon and watched "Happily N'ever After". A light-hearted animation about happy endings and the lack of them, but not exactly my cup of tea. But some of the kids enjoyed it, so that made it a worthwhile film. Spent a good afternoon afterwards with the children at the Pet Shop and the Comic Shop, and took some lovely pictures under the sun on Level 3 of the building.

As I was processing the photos at home, I couldn't help noticing how gaunt I've become though. :( I hope my injury is not permanent. I hope I find a happy ending to my story.

Finished reading Smoking Poppy. It's a fantastic read. Its British author, Graham Joyce, does magic with his enchanting and colourful narration. It's the story about an Englishman Daniel Innes who dropped all that he was doing to set off for Chiangmai after he had received news that his daughter Charlotte had been arrested and put in prison for smuggling drugs in Thailand. Accompanied by his son Phil and a loud and blumbering side-kick of a friend Mick, Daniel flies to Chiangmai. But instead of finding closure at the prison, the three men become drawn into a long, torturous trek through the thick forests of northern Thailand towards Myanmar, where isolated villages are engaged in the illegal and dangerous cultivation of poppy. And as the trails of opium smoke rise from these tribal huts, so also descends upon Daniel and his companions the heavy oppression that comes from shamanic evil spirits and greedy men who readily kill to keep their opium business alive. I rate this book 8.5/10.

Dough Fritters

Thanks to Roentgen, I got out of the house this afternoon, watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" at the Cathay with him, Kickjazz, SassyRunner, cfred and AngelicaWonders. Then we had dinner at a foodcourt, followed by supper comprising soya bean curd, soya bean drink, egg tarts and dough fritters in some dark back alley nearby. It was great to get out of the house, meet the folks and find out more about their lives. Takes my mind off things :) The movie wasn't particularly stunning, but it was the company that mattered more.

Red Gold

Red Gold, by Alan Furst, is a cinematic-style story set in wartime France in 1941-42. The protagonist, a film producer by the name of Jean Casson, finds himself sucked by circumstances into a French resistance against the occupying German forces, becoming involved in a risky arms deal to supply the French Communist Party with guns and ammunition. Hardly the sort of thing that a non-partisan film producer would do, but these are difficult times when the police can come knocking on your door, and you are never heard of again. One after another, the author writes about French comrades who fall in the line of duty - assasination, sabotage, espionage - many of them young men and women, barely into their teens, losing their lives in their fight for freedom for France. Viva la France! At the same time, there is also the suffering of the Jews who are being persecuted, some of them choosing to flee the occupied terrority. Throw in the Gestapo, double-crossing agents and mysterious lovers to raise the level of suspense. Plus a detailed and descriptive familiarity of Paris, which lends a sense of authenticity to the tale. This book is a gripping read indeed. Though the final line of the book just leaves one big question unanswered...

3/5 for this book.

Omaha Beach

Just when I thought my mood couldn't get bluer, it did and so I cancelled all my plans for this afternoon and evening. No more movie, no more dinner appointment. I just wanted to leave the office, get home, lie down, let my mind blank out, hope this is all a bad dream, wake up somewhere else. Where is the victory that I seek? Why is joy buried in the depths, out of my reach? All the sad and mournful tunes in this world have become my song. I feel like a sailor, trapped on a raft, adrift in the vast ocean, no land in sight. Water, water, everywhere, not a drop to drip. Who can I turn to? Hope is fleeting, elusive, haunting. Envy rages, bitterness consumes. Reassurances fail. The week has been draining, nightmarish. Words, some of them spoken and some of them written, some of them careless and some of them deliberately laced with poison, they sink their claws into my already crushed spirit. I may not look like I'm in pain, I may even try to laugh it off, but they do not see me when I am alone. But who am I in their grand scheme of things. To them, perhaps, I'm like a mere foot soldier in the first wave towards Omaha Beach. Their world moves on. My world is falling to pieces.

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Update as of 1900 hrs

But I'll come back stronger. Like a Spartan. Never say die.

A tired Saturday

Had a really late night out last night, returning home only at around 2 am. Showered, couldn't really sleep immediately, did some reading. Slipped into bed around 3 am. Had a lot of difficulty getting out of bed at 8 am this morning, but I managed to, somehow. My right arm is still stiff, and slightly in pain, but I've grown used to that. But it's still not a good feeling to be reminded by the mirror every day that I look (and feel) thinner and weaker.

I left the house at around 9 am to attend the Prime Minister's Post-Budget Dialogue at the Ang Mo Kio Grassroots Club. A highly informative session, with the Prime Minister and four other Ministers delivering short remarks on some bread-and-butter issues relating to taxes and income supplements, particularly with regard to the lower income strata in society. But I struggled to stay awake as the session went on past its scheduled time for completion.

After the event was over, I decided to take a 15-minute walk to a friend's place -- he lived in the area -- to see if he was in, but he wasn't. Then I realised that I should have called first to check. And so, I walked back to the Yio Chu Kang MRT station and took the train back home, my mission unaccomplished. Met someone on the train who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put a name to his face.

I must be really tired.

Today is the Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon.

Am I being too impatient for an answer? I really want to recover from my injury as soon as possible, and completely. But it doesn't seem like that's going to happen anytime soon, if at all. For those of my friends who have known me for a longer period of time, they would certainly agree that it was only in the recent past few years that I've decided to devote myself to more health and fitness activities. And I deliberately chose to break away from the mould of the feeble, studious scholar, because I thought it was time to embark on a new phase in my life and become a strong, sporty, outdoor-loving, confident me. I developed a craze for running, I grew to enjoy the warm kiss of sunshine upon my skin, I was pleased with how my efforts at the gym were paying off. I had recently set myself new targets in this direction, and I had hoped to meet them. And then, this.

I have used Schopenhauer's telescope to assess my situation. I want to be seen coming out of this dark period a better and more resilient person. But therein lies the inevitable...the dark period. I haven't found my way out of my moody darkness yet, and I cannot yet accept -- for now, at least -- that I will not be able to do simple things as easily as before, let alone exercise. If I never do recover, then all my efforts in this phase of life would have come to an end. As time goes by, as it inevitably will, dust will settle upon my running shoes, my gym gear, my medals and certificates, and I will have to smother my old ambitions and etch out a new niche for myself, somewhere, somehow.

Blindness

Blindness by Jose Saramago, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, is definitely worth a read. A story about an epidemic of sudden blindness that sweeps through a city, and how some of the blind patients are whisked away for quarantine in an isolated facility -- a run-down mental hospital -- where they are left to fend on their own. Only limited food and water are provided for them each day. There is no provision of any medical supplies. Military troops stand guard outside, with orders to gun down any blind person attempting to flee the installation. Under those circumstances, the blind attempt to organise themselves into some semblance of civilised society, but turf-fighting begins to form. Those staying in the different wards start to compete for the same limited rations that are left in the main corridor outside the wards. Over the course of the next few days, some of them get injured, some starve, some catch fevers, some try in vain to escape, some die from infected wounds, some get shot by spooked soldiers, some trip over the dead, and one blind thug gets a pair of scissors pierced into his throat as he forces a blind woman to have sex with him in exchange for food. A rather bleak portrayal of the human condition, and how quickly it degenerates.

The language structure of the book further adds to the overall theme of the story - a confusing blindness. Peppered with commas, a single sentence can run up to half a page, and a single paragraph can run for pages, and when different people speak, their words flow in a single stream of text, so the reader is left to figure out who said what and when. And none of the characters have a name.

I rate it 3.5/5.