Frustration and Content

A pretty interesting start of the year really. 2011 ended with Swan making her way over here for the holidays. Truly cherish-able memories to warm me on the inside as the winter chill makes its final chilly blast over the UK  

Well flights were never cheap especially over the holidays so she had to leave back for Malaysia on Christmas night itself. Quite an understatement but boy was it a bad idea. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING was closed. Remember the trouble we had to get to Victoria? ;P

So yea my Christmas day ended with me walking home on foot all the way from Victoria. My longest walk ever in London. I heard Norman once walked from picadilly circus back to earls court so that's like double the distance! He had his camera with him so he was snapping away through his adventure home at night. Guess I'd try that after my exams hoping I won't tell myself: 'I miss London :( ' 

It was a 3 week long full time (almost full time :P ) study period thereafter. I had practically one week for each subject. Bearing in mind that New years was right in between that period and I still had a couple of lectures! The bane of student life. 

Exams ended the 20th January which fell on a Friday. So I chilled for the weekend thinking I'd get back to work on Sunday.  hahahaah No that didn't happen well...... because its a Sunday? lolz. On Monday I started my Power System Economics coursework which was due exactly a week after that Monday and the coursework was pretty long! Not to mention that I haven't done any revision for the subject so it was a total blur-case scenario. Adding to that I had my FYP meeting on that same Monday which lasted a whole hour! Zomg yes it was that long. And it did mean more work for me. So it was PSE coursework + FYP + another 2 newly introduced pieces of coursework towards the end of that week. Talk about wanting to finish my student life ASAP.

Throughout the week I toiled my way through the PSE coursework working till the wee hours of the morning. Well that's also due to the face that I've gotten use to the habit of sleeping late and waking up even later :P The punishment? I fell ill over the weekend. Fortunately I just finished my PSE coursework on Saturday itself so I managed to get some rest on Sunday. 

Talking about this illness, it started with a slight itch in my throat. Well it soon developed into this uneasy feeling that something was STUCK in my throat. Think chunk of peanut skin sticking to your throat and it doesn't go away no matter how much water you use to flush it down. It felt as if it got bigger towards the end of Saturday so I took a peak using my flashlight and a mirror. Mother of g0d my left tonsil was inflamed! Shitz...... was quite worried since inflammation = infection = virus? So I made a quick google and it seems that it's probably just a bacterial infection since I didn't have a fever. Nope that wasn't it. A cold developed on Sunday and YES i was feeling a little feverish. Just to play it safe I decided to go get myself checked at the doctor's but doctor's in the UK do not work on weekends albeit the ones in the hospitals still do but the nearest NHS hospital is miles from where I live. No way am I getting my @ss there.

So I waited till Monday (today) and I walked over to the health center just behind my place. Made my way to the reception asking if I could get some general consultation from the GP. The receptionist asked if I've registered at the clinic before but it was my first time so I replied saying its my first time and I'm a student of Imperial college. Her reply was simple: 

"You can register here and then you can book youself an appointment online. However our registry say that the earliest possible appointment slot is this Friday "

Mother of g0d........ that's like 4 days away??!!! Fine fine so I dragged my @ss over to the Imperial College health center which was located at Southside halls just opposite uni. As I was walking over, I was reminded of my experience with the health center back in 2008. Yes that was like 4 year ago. I caught a pretty nasty flu bug and I was down for a whole week. I remember going over thinking it would be a 'walk-in and get treated on the spot by the GP' routine. Well apparently that's not how things work for the UK healthcare to say the least. I was told to return in a weeks time for an appointment!!! I seriously do not understand why this was so at that moment. The health center was practically empty since it was a holiday (Autumn break)!!!!!!! 

As I walked over I kept telling myself it would be different this time. I wasn't actually desperately in need to see a physician but it be good to get myself checked so yea I gave it a shot. So I walked in and there were 1 or 2 patients waiting in the waiting lounge. I handed my NHS card over to the receptionist and she say's that I'm not on the database anymore. Reason: They have tried contacting me on several occasions in 2009 and I was removed from the system since I did not reply to them. I'm not entirely sure but I vaguely remember them sending me a couple of emails. Perhaps I was busy and I never bothered to read them. My bad :P

I think that put the receptionist into PMS mode. There was a harsh tone in her voice (with slight annoyance) as she agreed to re-register me on the system. The whole form-filling process and her punching the data into the system took a whole half hour!!! Talk about efficiency of 'lean' healthcare management systems. Fine so I waited till she called me over to go through some of the information I wrote on the form. There was this column which required me to fill in my height and weight. Yes I know my weight but NO I do not measure my own height on a usual basis. The last time I checked I was approximately 175-176cm in height but its probably not very accurate. Thinking that it wasn't really crucial information, I left it blank. So she called me over asking if I knew my height. I explained that I don't know exactly but I'm guessing approximately 175cm. Her second most uber kao kao fantastic reply:

"You're an engineer aren't you? Shouldn't you be able to judge heights and lengths intuitively? "

Zomg....... so I'm supposed to have length/height scales implanted in my eye sockets???

Go0dlord she completed my registration thereafter. So she asked when I would like to have my appointment with the doctor? She says that the earliest slot would be the next week!!!! FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU It did not just happen again. One weeek in advance???!!! Are you kidding me.

Without venting any of my frustration I inquired if there were any slots available today. She made her finishing move. Her ulti. She replied:

"To see the doctor today? Oh you mean you're sick at the moment??"

Zomg I seriously can't believe my ears..... what in the world? Am I sick at the moment? I should have replied: "I'm guessing I will be sick in exactly 3 months, 4 days, 15 hours, 8 minutes and 5.....4......3... seconds time".

Wadafak seriously no offence to the UK. Its a great country. Its clean, transportation is great and most people are friendly but why..... WHY..... why is the healthcare so shiet????? It's just really really frustrating that we're meant to predict our illnesses. I remember myself being pretty sick with a high fever 4 years back when I went to the health center. I even told them its a pretty bad situation but I was still told to return for my appointment in a weeks time. So I left the health center with 2 choices in hand: 

(1) Get well in a couple of days with meds from the pharmacy

(2) Let my condition worsen and probably DIE

I cant seem to express my utter disappointment in any other way to to keep ranting about it. It wouldn't change anything anyway. 

Lesson of the week: DO NOT GET SICK IN THE UK. The pharmacy is your closest doctor.

So to the local health services: SCREW YOU!

ANyhow, the day wasn't all bad. I've successfully integrated strings of data and put them into formatted structures stored in a 3-D array!!! YAY!!! Talk about self learning from the internet. FYP is going well and my supervisor has been very supportive. He's like 33 years of age this year and he's almost like a brother to me. Great great guy who has devoted himself to hopefully create the world's first artificial pancreas. More on my FYP some other time la.

Until next time ;)

To get that one-of-a-kind cup [Part II]

Ok I'll take back some of my remarks about everyone having the same coffee in their cup and that the cup is only aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

I've read some notes off a forum and it makes more sense on how the cup and coffee conceptualize the whole education/life scenario.

We should think of the taste of the coffee being life's achievement. Good coffee = Good life. Firstly there comes brewing of the coffee. Sure everyone probably gets the same bag of beans but what if someone just brews a nice cuppa joe compared to the rest? This is the aforementioned distinguishing factor. We may perceive this as the quality of conduct of our life which in my case, the thereafter time scope of job seeking and career fulfillment.

The main context of the previous message is still true. You have thousands of cups of coffee to taste but which would you hand pick from the sea of cups? So yes the cup is an essential part. It reflects prestige and significance over others. Qualitatively we could consider the perception of a cup in aiding the quality of the coffee as well. A paper cup is capable of containing coffee just the same way a porcelain cup would. Then lets look into the thermal retention qualities of the cups. The porcelain cup would be capable of retaining heat better which therefore makes for a better coffee drinking experience.

Sure things change over time. But let's go over one concern at a time and for this round it is a time to set foot our of the common pond and into the sea. Be brave to take the first step forward and make it count the most ~

Until next time ;)

To get that one-of-a-kind cup

So just a couple of minutes ago I had to write an awkward letter to accompany one of my job applications. No its not the usual CV nor is it one of those generic cover letters. Those were a thing of the past and I've already written quite a number of those. This one was different: it was a "pour my heart out and here's what happened" type of letters. Why??? Simply because....... my academic results were pretty... SHIET. Well relative compared to my peers it IS pretty bad. Here's the story:

Why go to a university? Why would you need a degree? Pretty simple. If you'd watch the video below I'll try to generalize a few of my thoughts:

Well the messages in the video does really conceptualize things the way they're supposed to be. Honestly I'm very touched by the messages of the video. I mean..... the vast majority of people toil their ways through work and careers just to put a loaf of bread on the table. It soon nurtures a desire to improve one's position (the quality of the cup) that we forget the less intangible aspects of life; namely life itself and perhaps our loved ones.

So yes back to the main picture and how the video relates to the whole trail which is to follow. It is a known fact that well.... living standards follow a constantly inclined trend. Inflation portrays this though in a cynical way, people want more money things get expensive people want even more money and so on. Keep up or lose out. Today, it is a race to distinguish and be distinguished. In this stage of my life, it is the concern to start a career and gain employment. EVERYONE or at least the vast majority of the modern urban community has to academically equipped with a degree of some sort. A qualification for a job hunt which no longer recognizes tacit knowledge. Employers for one, simply recognizes the academic qualifications as a requisite towards gaining employment. No degree? Then no eye see.

Cruel as it may sound, but it is perhaps a very rational fact on how firms base their employments nowadays. I guess its more prevalent for us born during the baby boom era (late 1900's I'd presume).

Dragon=luck=good life blablabla.
This meant more babies= more graduates graduating in the same time frame =lesser chances of landing a job

So its no wonder that HRM (Human Resource Management) have to come up with efficient yet shallow means of sampling the insanely large number of job applicants. So there was a need to have the 'Prettiest brightest most precious looking ~ replace with other words describing uniqueness and value ~ CUP. Surely every cup of coffee would have coffee in them but until they have the chance to decide which to taste, HRM would need to identify the potential one which would yield the most exquisite taste!!!

So yes..... the race to get the best looking cup. No I've not gotten that cup and no I don't know if the coffee in my cup would live up to its expectations. The agony of self fulfillment and expectation management.

Until next time ;)

The First Step

Ah yessssss

The first step into the world of blogging. A blog for my thoughts and a blog to remind me of the past and to reflect the future

CHeeers!