A Good Weekend

We had a nice D&D session yesterday. I'm getting the hang of game mastering. I felt very comfortable and not at all awkward.

Looking forward to the next session next week.

I'm having a decent weekend.

I also went to my doctor's appointment yesterday. My next one is in 2 weeks' time. I have some medication to try out. Hopefully they work.

The cost was high but not quite as high as I imagined it would have been.

The side effects aren't too bad so far, just a little nausea. Nothing I can't deal with.

This is a vital time. Very important.

BlablaBlablaBlablaBlabla

It's Wednesday and it feels like a good time to post. Today is one of those days when I feel the urge to write. Those types of days are quite rare now.

As usual, I don't really know what to write.

I felt like writing something about bloggers and the government being scared of them and bla bla bla but honestly, I'm tired of doing current affairs stuff. It's so tiring and it makes me mad, you know?

Besides there are dozens more people who are in a better position to do that kind of stuff anyway.

Now about me not knowing what to write.

It's a strange state of affairs considering how prolific I was a few years back. Perhaps this is what is called all wrote out? I really got nothing new to say.

Except for the last few weeks I've been running a D&D game with my friends. I still haven't really found my feet yet as a DM. It's something that I need to work on.

It's a good thing that our former DM came back from Singapore recently. I had a chat about D& D with him the other day and it was alright. Very useful.

Apart from that there really is nothing new.

This is the type of situation that makes me ask what is to become of my life in general. I feel like I've hit a point of resistance where I feel like I've done all that I could (even though I KNOW that's not true, it's just a feeling you know?) and I lack the motivation and the interest to go and try to find more.

It's like I'm a plane and I've hit my service ceiling.

No no this is not a complaint. I'm not looking for advice or whatever. I'm just tapping away at the keyboard with no idea of what I'm going to write next.

Perhaps the thing that I'm supposed to be doing later this month will help move me a bit. Maybe. I hope so. I wonder if it is possible for me to feel differently about things and live a "different" life?

One where I'm not haunted by guilt and sadness and the very negative thinking that comes and goes and comes again every once in a while?

I wonder what I would become if I ever laid my ghosts to rest? I wonder what it's like to be.. what's it?

Satisfied. Happy. Content.

I better stop writing about this. This is tempting fate. With my luck the fates will latch on to my plans and screw it up. Or make me screw it up for them. Or something like that.

It's near the end of April and time just flies by doesn't it? I'll be 34 in 3 months.

I want to say I'm scared but alarmed as I am, I can't be bothered any more. I feel that it's not a good idea for me to compare myself with other 34 year olds.

I have no right to. I reap what I sow and I am here today mostly on the back of all the things that I've done.

Perhaps one day in the not too distant future, I will be in a better place due to the things that I'm doing now. Maybe this time, I do more right than wrong.

Maybe.

Ok, that's enough for today.

Still Waiting

It's a Sunday and I'm having a rather slow day at work. It's overtime and although boring, I could use the extra money.

My computer at home has decided to act strange. When I switch it on, it work restart over and over without booting up to desktop. It would do this for about half a dozen times before booting up properly. Or when I hit reset. I haven't figured out how to work around it yet.

I don't know what's wrong with it. I hope I don't have a replace anything or reformat my hard disk. A reformat would be so much hassle. I have so much stuff in my hard disks which I have to reinstall if I do end up reformatting.

From my observations, I think it's either some kind of power supply glitch or one of the various switches is shorting out. I really hope it's some kind of electrical problem and not a hardware failure.

I hope to sort it out this evening. I need to finish my Nod campaign in CnC 3.

Talking about need, I need a haircut. Tomorrow maybe.

I don't feel so good. Kind of gloomy. No particular reason, as usual. It's seems like it's my natural state. Leave me alone for more than 6 hours and I will naturally drift towards melancholy. I don't know why. I hope I will find out soon.

I hope the rest of the day will be ok. I hope that the rest of the week will pass by swiftly. If all goes well, by next weekend I will take the first steps on the road to finding out why I feel the way I do and perhaps to change it somewhere down the line. Permanently.

Yes I'm trying to be hopeful.

While I'm hopeful, I'm also aware of the fact the 33% of the time, treatment won't work on psychological ailments.

This is me we're talking about and I have a thing for not finishing things I start. So what are the odds?

With all honesty, I have a bad feeling about this.

Waiting

Yesterday, America's latest school shooting had everyone in the office talking about it. Especially about what made the shooter do it. They were also very surprised to learn that psychological ailments aren't covered by the company.

Not many people knew that apparently.

I also noted another thing. Many of my colleagues don't really know much about psychological disorders. They don't really get the fact that it is an illness. Like flu, except that it affects one's mind and soul. That was how I described it anyway.

I don't blame them for not knowing though. Not many people know to be fair.

I still haven't went to the doc yet. Apparently, he was on leave and is only coming back to work tomorrow. Also the doc's office told me that his schedule is full. I'm calling in again tomorrow to try set up an appointment. Even then, the nurse told me that I might not be able to get one anytime soon.

It's rather frustrating. Here I am trying to be proactive and it's not really happening.

If I can't get an appointment within next week, I'll just drive down there and see whoever they have available at that time. I could sit and wait but in my experience if I sit and wait, that's all I'll end up doing. Sitting and waiting.

I'm done with that thank you. Ain't getting any younger and everyday I can feel the life flow out of me.

I suppose I could try the government hospital but that would mean lines of people and more waiting around. Still an option though. If worse comes to worse, I'll take it. We'll see what happens.

Considering the current delay, it's a good thing that I'm actually feeling really good this week. This act of taking action has given me quite a lift.

Still hoping for the best and hopefully things happen soon.

Different States of Mind

I don't know what was I so dramatic and cryptic about.

Well it seemed like a good idea while I was at work. Also at work I'm in a different environment so I guess that's why it doesn't seem like a big deal now that I'm at home where I'm quite relaxed.

So here it is.

The last 2 posts were actually about my deciding to (finally) consult a psychiatrist about my "condition". Namely clinical depression. It was a scary decision to make. I'm not sure why, but the whole thing does scare me quite a bit.

The whole thing started while I was at work last week. I was having some flu and fever so I went to see the medical assistant. While I was there, we got to talking about what the company policy was on "rare" medical cases. Like psychological problems.

One thing led to another and she recommended that I see the inhouse doctor which I did. More things led to other things and after many questions and the filling of one form later, now I have in my possession a letter of reference for a certain psychiatrist.

Unfortunately, the good doctor is on leave this week so I can only meet him next week. So my impending treatment is going to have to wait again, much to my disappointment.

There you have it.

But wait? Didn't I claim in other posts that I was no longer depressed? At the time of writing, I thought so too. But as time went by, it slowly dawned to me that it was still there. The only difference is nowadays, I can deal with it better.

But that is not enough. I want to be rid of it forever. I want to be able to feel things like happiness. I would like to go through days where I don't conjure up evil negative thoughts about things that I do. I would like to get through days when I don't fill wretched and wracked with guilt for no good reason. It would be nice for once if I lose my temper or if I feel upset it would be because something bad happened. As in the present and not two decades ago.

In short, I want to be normal and free like everybody else.

I thought I could handle it and get over it by myself but who am I kidding? What I'm doing these days is damage mitigation not cure. I've tried and it's now time to step it up a level and bring some reinforcements.

Despite it's potentially enormous cost, this is my decision. I hope I won't regret it. By the way, psychiatry isn't covered by neither my medical benefits nor my insurance. So it's all me.

One more thing. My parents and other family don't know. Most of my friends don't know. My colleagues don't know.

Should I tell them?

Friday the 13th

There is a line in a Fallout Boy song that goes along the lines of "The hardest thing to do and the right thing to do are often the same thing" or somewhere along that.

It's quite true actually. Hence the cliche.

Despite the rather ominous day\date combination, today has been excellent. I went through something very important today. I'm very relieved. Before this, I went through a multitude of negative scenarios. I was quite anxious. But now I'm not.

I continue tomorrow and these few days could mean a hell of a lot in the long run. It could even be the beginning of me reclaiming the rest of my life.

At the very least, it will help me deal with stuff a lot easier.

At any rate, I'm glad it happened. Have a nice weekend.

Ugh: The Final (Hopefully...)

Last night, I had the worse migraines I've ever had. It was so bad, I really thought I would have to cut my head off to get rid of the pain. It also meant that I wasted one entire day away from work doing nothing at all.

The good news is it seems that was the last of whatever thing I was having over the last week or so because I woke up bright and early this morning and felt no discomfort at all.

I hate being sick. Especially the kind of sick that is serious enough to prevent me from really enjoying myself but not quite serious enough to warrant a few days off work. So I hope that's it for this year. No more illnesses for 2007. I can't afford to waste time recovering from niggling little illnesses.

Today is a rather important day actually. I've decided to do something I maybe should've done a long time ago. I'm going to see someone for advise on a little matter of quite large importance.

Wish me luck.

Oh and the new TMNT movie is really cool.

Clashes

It's Friday. I still feel kind of crappy but I think I should be all good by next Tuesday at the latest.

I went for a quick check up yesterday. I'm quite surprised to learn that my cholesterol levels are normal. Very surprised considering how much I don't really care about things like diet, exercise etc. Same goes for glucose levels and blood pressure. I was expecting all those to be off the charts.

The only thing that was slightly off was my BMI. Normal BMI is 20 - 25. My BMI is 26.6. Slightly out of spec. That means if I lose at least 2Kg I would be in spec again.

It's a good thing I have a bike now. So now I'm thinking I should up the biking to a level that will push my weight down a little. Biking is fun. It's low impact and actually quite relaxing. Hopefully, next week I can con another one of my friends into buying a bike so that we can go biking in groups. All we need to do now is to build up stamina so that we can go on those long rides into the countryside. I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, I have some other stuff to write about this evening.

Firstly, I've been reading about how the government is thinking about "registering" bloggers. The government also insists that it's not for the purpose of censorship.

Riiigghhht.

Like a lot of ideas coming from the government, this is a futile thing to do. How are they going to enforce it, should they go through with this? They can't. There's a million ways to get around this. Plus, most bloggers I know (like myself) host their blogs overseas. Some bloggers (like LJ users) filter their readers.

How are they going to know who registered and who didn't?

To me, this registration idea is a symptom of the generation gap and the clash between old and new. It's another example of the older generation acting out of fear of something that they don't/can't understand and worse, can't control.

Always with their defensive and protectionist ways. Instead of finding out why bloggers write what they write, they seek to discredit and attack them instead. Instead of explaining their points of view and countering "seditious" bloggers and their "lies", the government is practically telling them to shut up.

I guess as long as people in the government expect commoners to follow and do everything they say without question and as long as the government won't give the average citizen his due respect, shit like this will always happen and will never end.

Jeff Ooi wrote a good post about this that makes good reading. Whatever happens, I'm not "registering" and that is final.

Talking about clashes and similar things, I read another clash inducing story recently. Something about how men are to blame for all the women who aren't married. I can't find the original article anymore but I can link the one from Monsterblog.

Joking aside, what do you think? I think it's ridiculous to blame one gender for the state of the other. Really, really stupid.

One line of the article reads "Is there something wrong with the Malaysian male psyche that prevents them from marrying better-qualified women?" To be totally honest, I've not met a single man who would mind having a more accomplished wife/girlfriend. Not even one. In fact, snagging a wife/girlfriend who is "better" than yourself is quite a feat I would think. I think.

I'm still single. What do I know?

Now, it might be that it's only among my circle of friends? Is it? I hope for the sake of the male species that it's not true.

Actually, what I want to say has little to do with the article. My opinion is simple and obvious.

They're two sides to the story. Some guys may have a huge ego problem and can't tolerate being together with a woman who is "better" than him. Which is really, really stupid, I think. Some women prefer to stay single for whatever reasons like career and such. Or perhaps she is unwilling to settle and make do with the next random chump that shows up at her door step. I see nothing wrong with that.

For some other people, the problem may be that they have unrealistic expectations. They expect their prospective mate to be like a character from a soap opera. Some guys expect to have wives who can cook like chefs, look like supermodels, be smart and yet be meek all at the same time. Some women expect to have husbands who are tall, dark & handsome, rich, ambitious etc and expect them to only spend all his time with them. Obviously, we live in the real world so usually if you aren't like a soap character yourself, don't expect to snag another soap character. This goes for both men and women.

There are a million reasons for a person to stay single and who is anyone to say who's fault it is.

Now what I wanted to say was how ironic it is that opinions about relationships, which in its most basic form is about two people getting together, cause so much argument and recrimination.

Anytime I read stuff about say, the Nice Guy Syndrome or the merits of local men vs white men, the feedback would inevitably be reduced to a flame war about who's responsible for whose problems. In the end, no clear conclusion is made.

I guess it happens because:-

a) people are generally passionate and feel strongly about it and/or
b) some people have bad emotions and negative experiences that they need to express and share, so they vent by arguing about relationships.

I have to say I have been guilty of both in the past.

My conclusion? It's very hard to rationally talk about relationships because it means to a lot to most of us. But that's just my opinion...

PS. That blogger registration article received a lot of feedback. Not surprisingly, most people don't like the idea either.

Ugh 3

Can you believe it?

First I got better. Than yesterday, I felt kind of sick again...

Maybe it's got something to do with me over exerting myself yesterday evening. One of my friends bought himself a mountain bike. A really nice one too. So yesterday, we decided to go for a spin around the neighbourhood. It was great. Then we began riding faster and faster.

This morning, I feel kind of sore. If I didn't accidentally kick the wall near my bed I probably would've slept the entire day.

Yes, it's painfully obvious that I need more exercise. Hopefully the bike will help.

Last night we had a great time hanging out with Asha and friends. She told us quite bizarre stories about interesting things like bad toilet habits and public toilet graffiti. You had to be there.

Later I'm going off to do some errands and help scrounge for computer parts for my friend. Hopefully we can do it quickly. It's really hot outside today.

Oh yes, and today marks the first time I've blogged from home in months.