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Two mosquito bites and my arm is like this. I didn’t even scratch. :weeping: Last time, I got that on my left foot after I had dinner with Mike and Di at Bukit Timah. What’s wrong with the mosquitoes here? Why do they like me so much? I don’t know why that whole area became so red and warm to the touch. What’s wrong with me?
At least I didn’t get any bruises this week. I’m the type of person who gets bruises very easily. Every week when I see a new bruise, I ask myself how I got it. ah… *sigh*

Too tired to edit photos…

A short update..

From this page at Raffles Medical Group website,

Current influenza vaccination does not confer any protection against the Influenza A (H1N1) virus.

However vaccination is still necessary because if you come down with flu like symptoms after vaccination, then there is higher alert as to whether you may have contracted Influenza A (H1N1) or avian flu. Early treatment can then be initiated.
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You may get mild soreness or fever after 1-2 days from the vaccination.

I am going to travel to Hong Kong and mainland China soon. I went to the Raffles Medical Clinic at Block 131 Jurong East Street 13 #01-267 today but the flu vaccines were out of stock. I should have phoned first. Argh. I’ll be calling the other Raffles Medical Clinics tomorrow.

What I’ve been up to:
Packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning.

My boxes. The blue and the brown boxes which are all of the same size were shipped from Shanghai a few months ago. I had 16 boxes at that time. I have about 20 boxes in all now. I hadn’t finished packing when I took this photo.

Colas

My sports bag and two suitcases. I’m not sure who tied those red ribbons to my sports bag and black suitcase (my mum or dad or little sisters) but I didn’t remove them. The red ribbons make it easier for me to spot my luggage at the airport.

Colas and Lisa’s boxes.

Almost all our boxes, suitcases and furniture. I couldn’t get everything in the photo. I took this photo about one hour before the 14ft moving truck came.

I have finished unpacking my things and I have cleaned my new room. I’ll take some photos of our new place soon.

I don’t know why but I fainted on the train today. I still had a good 5 to 10 minutes to go until I reach my station but my stomach suddenly started hurting and I left like I was going puke at any time. I had difficulty breathing and I tried hard not to panic. My head was spinning. I wanted to get off the train at the next station and sit down until I feel better. (I was standing.) The next thing I know, I was down on my knees or maybe it was on all fours (I can’t really remember) but then I somehow managed to put myself in a sitting position. Everything seemed to be spinning around me. I closed my eyes and everything went black. Maybe it was only a few seconds. I don’t know. When I opened my eyes, I was still feeling dizzy and I put my hands on my forehead, trying to stop the pain. It was then that I realized that the people sitting or standing near me were looking at me with shocked expressions. They didn’t seem to understand what had just happened. Everything happened within a few seconds. I think it’s quite fortunate that there weren’t many people on the train. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if it was rush hour. Still, I didn’t care about the stares. I was trying to breathe normally (my heart was beating very fast and I had a shortness of breath) and I was busy trying to make the dizziness stop. A lady gave me her seat and I remember mumbling a thanks. I sat down and closed my eyes. I started to sweat. It was weird. I’ve always complained about the temperature being too low in the buses, trains and buildings in Singapore. I’m not much of an air-con person. My whole body was sweating like crazy when it was cold in the train… It was really scary. When it was time for me to get off the train, I was still sweating like crazy and I was still dizzy. I couldn’t get up. I phoned Lisa. The train station nearest to her work place was about 15 minutes away. I told her what happened to me and she said that she’ll meet me at the train station. By the time I reached that station, I felt a bit better and could actually get up and walk properly without feeling like I would collapse. Still, I felt very weak. We sat down somewhere and she was asking me if I wanted to go see a doctor. She was rubbing my arm, telling me that I was very cold. I had stopped sweating by then. My back of my top and my skirt were a bit wet from sweating while I was sitting in the train. I wanted to have something sweet to drink. We went to KFC which was only a few metres away. Lisa helped me buy a strawberry and banana smoothie. It was sweet, sweeter than I’d like it to be but I felt better after drinking that. I didn’t really feel like eating lunch. I ate a little bit and put the rest in a box to take away later. I went back home afterwards.
I’m really grateful to Lisa. It warms my heart to know that I have a good friend who is there for me. :flowers:

The only other time I fainted in the past was when I was a kid. I hadn’t eaten all day and I fainted in a store. I was with my mum and my 2 little sisters. My mum was busy talking to someone and my 2 sisters had found chairs and they were sitting. I remember telling them that I wasn’t feeling well and asked them to let me sit. They probably thought I wasn’t serious and that I just wanted to sit. They ignored my request. Then I fainted. Luckily, my mum managed to catch me before I fell to the ground.

Today I had breakfast in the morning so it can’t be because of the same reason as last time.
My classmate tells me that it’s probably due to fatigue but I didn’t feel tired today. In fact, I felt quite good when I woke up this morning. Still, I’m going to sleep early today. I’m feeling better now but my body is aching. I’m feeling ‘weak’.

I went to bed yesterday afternoon at around 4 p.m, woke up once when Lisa came back home in the evening (I can’t remember what she said to me or if I said something back. ) and then slept all the way till 6:30 a.m this morning. I had breakfast, read Lisa’s Cleo magazine and then had a long shower. Feeling great. :flowers: Hopefully, I’ll stop looking like a panda soon.

*back to replying some old emails.*

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edited to add: Just after I published this entry, I saw this photo in the random photos section. It’s from a blog entry written in 2006 when I didn’t sleep well for a week:

Yikes.

Caught on camera.

I’ve been sleeping only 3 – 4 hours everyday since the beginning of this month because I’ve been busy helping my sisters with something. I’m finally done with all that but my body feels very weak. My back aches a lot. I need to rest and I probably need a good massage too (if only I wasn’t so ticklish!). I want to go to bed early but it’s kind of impossible for me to sleep before 1 a.m.

The other day, I went to sleep at 04:30 and about an hour later I woke up. What woke me up was some kind of pressure that I was feeling on my body. I struggled to open my eyes but I was kind of paralyzed. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t dreaming. I knew that I was awake, I knew that the pressure was real. I just couldn’t open my eyes. After a few minutes like that, the pressure was gone and I was able to open my eyes. I looked around, almost expecting to see ’something’ but of course there was nothing. I checked the time and saw that it was a bit past 05:30. I was too tired to think about it and I just went back to sleep. I told Lisa about it the next day and she told me that something similar had happened to her in the past. Like me, she was also very tired when she went to bed.
Anyone with a similar experience and maybe a good explanation?

Back in secondary school, some of my classmates (Mauritians of Indian descent) were applying mehndi (also written as mehendi/mehandi and known as henna) on their hands during lunch break and they applied some on me and on anyone else who wanted to try. It was kind of fashionable at that time. That was fun. I even bought an expensive book on mehndi designs back then but unfortunately, I wasn’t good at applying mehndi on myself.

Today,one of my friends who is from India brought henna paste (the cone type) and she applied it on my hand. While she was applying the paste on my hand, I was thinking of my secondary school days. I miss those days.

I didn’t have a particular design in mind and she chose one for me; flowers, leaves,butterflies,vines etc. Next time, I’ll see if she can help me do a more complicated design. She did a peacock on another girl’s hand and it looked great!

I took a few photos of my hand after she was done:

I remember that my Mauritian friends were saying that lime and some sugar are supposed to be applied on the design to make the color become darker or last longer. I’m not sure which one it is.

We didn’t have lime or sugar with us. About 1 hour later when the henna paste was completely dry, I scratched it off my hand but I didn’t wash my hand. I have to avoid contact with water if I want the color to darken.

The color is orange in this photo but now it has turned dark brown. I’ll try to take another photo tomorrow.
The mehndi design will fade away after about 2 weeks.

I was looking around for mehndi designs and came across this page. Nice huh? It’s a bit too much for me but this one is still okay.

I just found my Indian bangles. I bought many bangles in Mauritius and my sisters also sent me some when I was in Shanghai. I also have some bindis. I’ll wear some of them to class tomorrow. (the bangles, not the bindis! )
Here’s a photo of my blues bangles.

(this photo was previously posted in an entry back in 2006)