Wow wow. Non-trip related post!

The truth is there are other things going on in my life (even at work), just that I haven’t exactly found time to write about it, not sure why.

So coming back from that Melbourne trip where I turned 30 - resolved to be a better version of myself. Nothing from that trip that particularly inspired me to do so, just the fact that I have turned 30 and I take it as a good time to start fixing body before it gets too late.

So I restarted an exercise regime for the n-th time and amped up my skincare routine. Duly head to the gym everyday including weekdays and had to drag myself there on more than a couple of occasions because inertia is so great. There’s not many equipment in my gym and I haven’t learnt enough about weights so I just parked myself on the treadmill, and complemented with a routine which supposedly worked wonders - the one punch man workout which included 10km run, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups and 100 squats every single day. This is the so-called Level 10 which I am no where near capable of achieving at the beginning so I kinda started with a Level 2 lol and tried to level up bit by bit. Some time after my proficiency at the other three workouts overtook the running part so I just leveled up the rest at a faster pace. And some time in July I added a random 30 day flat belly workout I found online too for good measure.

Then 2 weeks in my knees gave way =.= still kind of obese at this point so I suppose my knees can’t cope with the level of exercise even if it’s “just” 2-3km daily. Felt pain similar to that after my SCSM run last year (it took me like 2 weeks before I could even walk properly). This time round it took me about 10 days, after which as a precautionary measure I included a mandatory rest day in between run days + knee guard when running. That did the trick or maybe it’s just coz I got lighter so the impact on my knees is lesser, because I never had problems with the knees again.

Skincare routine, meanwhile, just meant going through the moisturizer + cream regime everyday. The prescribed dosage was supposed to be twice a day, just that ever since the initial phase back in 2014 when I got better I have been doing less and less, maybe about twice a week oops. So there are quite a few stubborn patches particularly on my legs which refused to go away and seem to grow in size over time.

I have less expectations on this (or rather I didn’t know what to expect) but I was pleasantly surprised to see dramatic improvements about two weeks in. Improvements in a sense that the patches smoothen out even though the discoloration is still there, those didn’t quite go away even for the patches that were under control for a few years already except those at my back. My nurses were a bit surprised too as I report for my weekly phototherapy sessions and by September when I went for my half-yearly check up, doc was able to further cut down my oral pills dosage and phototherapy frequency woohoo.

So right now, it’s just about maintenance. The recently smoothened patches didn’t flare up when I experimented with a week without cream/moisturizer during the week I went back home in August, so that’s a good thing coz it is under control now. When I sweep at home there’s noticeably a lot less or minimal skin peelings, same as when I changed bedsheets. Also noticed how my hairdressers stopped talking about me needing scalp treatment for a few months now, not sure if it’s because it’s doing fine but I ran out of coal tar shampoo for about a month (forgot to restock and pharmacist was always closed by the time I am there) and it flared up noticeably. Never mind we learn as we go.

But it’s an amazing feeling. Spirits are very much lifted, thankfully because I will probably have a breakdown at some point with RAG stressing me out in the second half of the year if this didn’t help to counterbalance it. And confidence to take off my shirt in front of people who know me - it was one of the things I feared for many years because I didn’t want people who know me to remember me that way, no matter how close we may be (in fact the closer the worse - I remembered not wanting my parents to ever know what I went through earlier when my skin was at its worst).

Contributing to the lifting of spirits is the exercise regime which bore results. About 8kg lost two months in, by the time I went home in August. That was kind of a checkpoint of sorts and I kind of wanted to go “tada!” to my close ones but too bad nobody noticed lolol. Or KH and Stel did at least because I guess they are generally more sensitive to that heh. My sister did kind of mentioned doubtfully in passing, my mum didn’t notice a single thing but that’s probably coz she had cataracts maybe? (she had since underwent surgery thank you for asking)

Weight loss kind of slowed down after coming back from home and fluctuated for a bit, to a point that I wondered if it’s time to add change of diet to my regime but I resisted it for now. I have been eating less, tried to avoid carbs and lessen sugars/fried when I can (which is not difficult if you had seen the kind of amounts I have been consuming in the past), but have been unwilling to go for a complete revamp of diet because I will likely lose all pleasure in life as a result of that. I thought it didn’t have to be that extreme honestly. So persisted with my exercise regime with the faith that it will start showing results again.

While weight loss was the primary goal for the exercise routine but building up stamina for this year’s SCSM was part of it so I finally hit the milestone two days ago. 10km run without stopping to rest though it was on a treadmill la, and fueled by a healthy dose of anger built up that day at work lol. Haven’t tested it out on roads yet which is less forgiving, and with less than a month to go. 

Meanwhile abandoned the flat belly workout and the one punch man routine because they stopped helping (much) and switched to the fat burning mode of the cycling thingy in gym because I was hoping that it will help to slim down legs (legs are still fatty while at least I lost quite a bit of belly by this time). That kinda worked because weight started going down again. Extremely satisfied to be able to fit into some of the clothes that didn't fit when I put on weight, and having to buckle up tightly for almost all shorts/pants/jeans I possess coz they are now kinda loose oh yeah.

So the next checkpoint is SCSM. Then CNY/San’s wedding! Oh yea the checkpoint before SCSM was actually San’s ROM and I liked how I look at that. So yep. The goal was to lose 14kg by San’s wedding when I started this so I am inching towards there, hoping to achieve a bit of bonus by the time February rolls around. Then from that point onwards we can maybe talk about shaping the body hahaha lofty goals. It’s really a lot easier to be motivated to carry on when I see results, not kidding because I really can’t imagine being able to run an hour straight without stopping just a few months ago.


To a better version of myself indeed.

Labels: skin, updates

No the post isn't about a new hairstyle. Nor am I intending to have a new one anytime soon.

Labels: rants, skin

As opposed to the usual "updates" title hahah.

Labels: holidays, skin, thoughts, travel, updates, work

I lost count of the number of times I have used this as a title lol. Basically it's reserved for posts which don't have a focus and those that I do after some sort of hiatus heh.

Labels: holidays, skin, updates, work

So earlier this month, I mentioned that I finally booked an appointment at the National Skin Centre.

Labels: skin

Suddenly it dawned on me...that recently I have been living in a bubble.

Labels: emo, skin

Labels: emo, skin

So to picked off where I left off, went to Malacca for a weekend trip..been wanting to visit Malacca as a tourist for quite some time, just that never really got around doing it. Not that Malacca is unfamiliar to me, I went back at least once every year for various reasons, but the last time I actually visited places like A'Famosa was when I was in P1 =.= Plus who can resist a food trip? You can't really go wrong with food in Malacca/Malaysia (with a proper local tour guide). So off we go!












Special thanks to Calvin for hosting/guiding and Kevin Tay for co-guiding! Returned to Sg alone coz Chris continued on his road/food trip with his gang of friends, and Sam and EiHong went back to their respective homes. Was stuck in a traffic jam in JB, luckily managed to get a seat in bus. Spent the next few days in Sg finishing up packing and travelling around Sg completing various errands such as travelling all the way to Woodlands to meet a seller for polaroid film and then all the way south to Raffles Place to grab some brochures for Taiwan trip =.=. And finishing up packing too. Oh and before that. Picking up this little beauty and handing in to the department. I think I can safely say I will pass...the last thing that can screw me up is a lousy HR grade. Touchwood.



So right now..back at home! Thankful that things worked out nicely and that I am able to spend this period at home when I used to visualize myself frantically looking for a job/house in Sg. Though it's slightly depressing to think that this is probably the last time I can spend time with the magnitude of months at home for the next three years. But on the up side, rather than scouring job websites I spent a good portion of my first week back at home looking for and reading Taiwan travel blogs, booking accomodation, arranging itinerary etc...makes me look forward to our upcoming trip soooo much though I am trying not to get too hyper about it coz the higher the expectations the worse the disappointment (if there are disappointmets to begin with). :D

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I realized I said, few posts ago, that I will talk about my second specialist visit. Memories are kind of vague now but I do remember the very matter-of-fact dermatologist whom I consulted. Besides confirming that it is psoriasis, she went "Well, you already know what it is, and you know it is not curable. So what exactly are you looking for from me?" Alternative treatment options of course, that will reduce the symptoms or force it into a remission period. UV treatments are extremely expensive and injections are better but will be extremely inconvenient during these few months until after I start working so no, not an option for now. Ended up with another brand of ointment and various other supplements which kind of cost a bomb too (at least for a student who isnt earning money). My previous mistakes appeared to be complacency/laziness because I usually stop applying after the plaques recede leaving a smooth, pale pink patch, but apparently even you still have to continue applying wor. So yea. Trying to see if something miraculous will happen during this vacation.

She also tried to convince me to participate in a medicinal test in which they are trying to test if a new medication will work (she was much more enthu in this matter lor) and in the end I didnt participate (even though it's FOC) because it doesnt work well with my schedule since I am going home etc and they need me to be there twice a week, 3 hours each time for the first six weeks. By the way, I wasn't really comfortable with the way she used me as a human specimen and showed things like my pitted nails to the two intern (? is that the right word?) med students present in the room as well although I appreciate the importance of this to them. And she charged me double of what NSC used to charge me with half the amount of advice given! (okay maybe I exaggerated a bit, but you get the idea).

Labels: FYP, skin, travel

(Google-translated the title...havent learnt that much, only know "premier" heh heh)

Another week has gone by..so let's see what has happened this week.

Monday morning, as usual planned to wake up for breakfast, but switched off alarm at 8-ish and went back to sleep as usual. Thankfully, because I woke up once already, wasn't really deep asleep so was easily woken up by a phone call at 9am.

Turns out it was a phone call to invite me for my first ever job interview =.=

"I am calling from LTA...."

LTA? *wide awake*

Put on my most energetic-sounding voice, think I still sound sleepy though haha. Lady asked me to come down for an interview on Thursday. Even in my half-awake state, I didn't forget that Thursday was my busiest day of the week so I asked if I could reschedule it. She said she will try to make arrangements and call me back later. (Afterthought: maybe that wasnt a very smart move, considering I can try to shift my classes and make up for them).

Hung up, lie on my bed thinking for a while, then I actually fell asleep again. And dreamt that she called me a second time confirming the interview and after i hung up, i panicked because I forgot to ask her when is the interview. =.=

Anyway she did call back (just nice when I was coming back from my morning routines in the toilet, then I was thinking maybe I should start carrying my phone everywhere, even when I am bathing just in case a future boss call me). Interview time and date confirmed. Just that I didnt know what post I was interviewing for. =.=

I know, the whole thing sounded really messy and full of =.='s. I thought she called up after I left my résumé with them during career fair. And found out that she is from the Rail Group in LTA after reading her follow-up email. My classmate told me it was probably going to be a geotech related post (which I wasnt very keen on). But I didnt speculate much and just prepared for the general questions in the end. And it was a bit last minute too because I usually reserve the beginning of weeks to prepare for my mid-week FYP meetings (which was 风平浪静 by the way, but I got a feeling I had to do much more to impress him next week). And last-minute shopping for formal wear too coz Ryan inspected my wardrobe immediately after I told him I got shortlisted for an interview and declared my stock of formal wear as "not formal enough".

Went for my first interview not knowing what to expect (and cursing inside because I hoped to have some practice before going for an interview at one of the companies I am targeting). The admin lady who spoke to me on phone was very friendly, had a chat with her first because there was another candidate in the interview room when I came, and she told me she got very confused when she saw the combination of "Malaysian", Sg A Level cert and Brunei O Level cert. Even talked a bit about my skin problem. And she told me I was interviewing for the post of "Project Engineer" at one of the MRT lines under construction, either Downtown, Tuas extension or Thomson. Which was another post I wasnt very enthu about (not that I totally reject the idea) because it will be site-based.

Lost my confidence a bit when I saw the aforementioned candidate coming out, turns out it was a classmate of mine, and was on the university's Chinese debate team, and I knew what she was capable of, having worked with her on a project last sem too. As for the interview itself, to my surprise the standard predictable questions came out (tell me abt yourself, strengths and weaknesses etc) but I think I didnt do very well either..Oh well. Practice maybe? Considering I supposedly can still get called up by the other groups within LTA for other posts which I am more keen on. Gonna have to send in more applications during recess week too! A friend of mine was like "Oh no, it's recess week and I am still jobless!" and I was thinking "omg I havent even started sending in applications proper other than those during career fair". A bit too laid back already!

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CE Day on Friday afternoon, the main attraction that drew me there was the lucky draw where the only non-Coop Cash Voucher-prize was an iPad 2. Joined the sculpture building competition (still beats me why it is named "sculpture-building"...you would think that you need to sculpt something which wasnt the case) with ML, Chris and Winnie (randomly decided upon it one day when we were lunching). Ended up being the only Final Year team competing among the first and second year undergrads and maybe some grad students, which turned out to be an advantage because the other FYs who came for the event were endlessly supplying us with ideas and helping out with the building lol. We were given random materials,such as wires, tennis ball cans, aluminium strips, barbed wires, satay sticks etc and we had to build the tallest structure possible. Apparently the prize was decided by votes (in which we got a helping hand too heh heh) and we ended up winning the first prize of $200 Coop Vouchers. Lol. After distributing it to everybody who helped out (rather than among us four) ended up with $30. Haha!

Didnt win the iPad though. The winning ticket was drew and the emcee narrowed it down to four people and I was among the 4! Went to Tze Yuen in the end. Lucky girl who nearly went off for her 6pm class but decided to stay for a while just in case!

Rather fun and interesting last CE day in uni though. :)

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So I finally dragged myself to UHC to get a referral letter for a skin specialist.

Turns out Dr Patrick Tan is actually a skin specialist. Always thought he was a sports injury specialist. Because i told registration counter that i wanted a referral letter for skin specialist..they arrange for me to consult with him first.

Hearing "yeah, its very serious", even though I know it very well, causes the heart to sink all the same.

"what happened to you? the last time i saw you, you still look ok".

He probably din observe closely/properly/forgot how i look like alr.

Anyway he said it may be treatable by cream alone. "At least its not big patches, just many circular red patches." Or go for UV treatment which might cost a bomb. Sigh. "Yeah...quite serious..should go..can no longer be handled at outpatient level".

Fixed up an appointment with NUH in the end, told him Skin Centre is a bit far for my liking..and he did say even though he thinks Skin Centre is the best, NUH is "okay too". The appointment was for next month because its the earliest available date (to which I flashed back to two years ago when the GP wrote a comment "consult specialist immediately" and the admin staff fixed up an appointment for the following week..so this time its not urgent enough?).

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Recess week this week, other than job hunting, there is the TIFS (Transport Industry Forum of Singapore) seminar I signed up for, OCBC Cycle Singapore briefing (possibly my last ever volunteering job), FYP meeting, and for the first time since Year 1, Midterms! MCQ Accounting midterms and written, listening and oral tests for French. Eeks. And to think before the semester started I was thinking if I could afford a getaway to either KL or Malacca during recess week...

Labels: career, NUS, skin

Was a good break, even though its just two weeks into the new semester. Did all I wanted to do during CNY, ate all I wanted, and went everywhere I wanted. :)

Totally not sure when is the next time I will be back...which made me emo a bit the night I came back. Hopefully I will have my job secured and accommodation settled by end of May..then maybe I can sneak in a couple of weeks at home..

Came back to a number of makeup classes, including back-to-back HR classes. Sandwiched in between, unfortunately, is NUS Career Fair which I only had less than two hours to visit the booths I am interested in. Hastily got my resume fixed and dropped off a few at the fair...but there is a lot more to be done...a lot more. Need to start sending emails, doing up cover letters etc. That's like a module on its own already.

And there is FYP..blissfully ignored it during the entire 15 days of CNY, only to, as usual, regret afterwards and barely survived a meeting with prof today. 3 months left....gotta really start chionging already...

And Taiwan Grad Trip is finally happening! Got tickets booked last weekend, and I am pretty excited already. It started off as a wild idea, maybe two years back, because all five of us have sort of different schedules and possibility of scheduling conflicts is pretty high...and frankly speaking it wasnt a Grad Trip for KH coz he isnt graduating at the same time as us, an additional semester for his double degree and he had to fly back to Asia for the trip...but somehow, the dates got closer, talks about it got serious, suddenly there is a free period and we went for it! It's indeed the only time period we can travel, Val having her nurse licensing exam right before it and San having her convo right after it, and KH wont be back from Europe in May. Excited because as close as we are, we have never traveled together or go for a vacation together, not even a road trip to Miri or something. Itinerary planning to begin soon!

Okay the post feels a bit too fragmented, partly because I actually started writing it like a week ago and got distracted..had HR presentation this week too. Speaking of which the past two HR classes are actually rather bearable..to my surprise. Accounting seems pretty familiar so far, French is still fun despite it getting harder..I still can't phrase questions properly even though I am picking up more vocab.

Finally got pressured enough to visit UHC doctor tomorrow for a recommendation letter and possibly visiting specialist next week. I duno..I supposed I just want to know if there is anything i can do to force a remission period or just at the very least, prevent new patches from appearing. Shall see how.\\

Oh and guess who's back...armed with a new motherboard and hard disk...good as new.

Labels: career, family, NUS, skin, travel

While the rest of the FYs look kind of slack....it's the complete opposite for us civil engineers-to be.

Thanks to Rag Day..we only have 3 weeks and 2 days for the Design Project...mine involved design of a road diversion scheme for construction of an underground MRT station and designing support systems for the diversion of a canal in the way. Both parts are unrelated and the first part is ending on this coming Tuesday..had to present to the most fearsome prof ever. Fearsome because we never know what he is going to ask/shoot and he just had to put on that garang face during presentations. =.=

Been meeting everyday (earlier thought we have 3 hour classes + endless meetings, turns out only have one 3 hour lecture so far and the rest is meeting time), past 3 days have been from 10am-9pm...Thankful for the presence of an awesome teammate who knows AutoCAD well so us noobs dont die a horrible death (even though we pretty much know some stuff already but are still rather slow). Hopefully everything turns out well....by end of Week 4, I shall be a free man again...

FYP and the two other TE mods basically abandoned :P and all other profs understand how intense these period is for us so FYP prof din even contact us/ask us for any submissions. First lectures of TE mods and I already find myself sleepy in classes...Traffic Flow and Control seemed horribly stats-y and prof has managed to scare one of my classmates to consider dropping the mod by the second lecture. ITS is interesting but prof is monotonous though I think I will enjoy. I hope.

Final year and finally got to know more classmates. As in actually talk to them. Yea slow (coz, well, yea you know what i am gonna say). I think the process really started last semester when my regular gang was broken up coz of SEP etc. Then VIP time get to know another bunch, and now roughly the same group of people are doing transport-related modules so that's another bunch. Well. At least not going to graduate knowing a small bunch of ppl...

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Final Year resident in hall! Phantom time (though its partly because of Design Proj). Plus I duno most of the people around anyway other than the old birds who have returned from SEP/IA/whatever...at least wont skip dinner or pack dinner to eat in room coz no dinner buddies anymore. Hall starting to look like the one i entered some three years ago, though people's approach to things feels very much different now. Can sort of understand how FYs last year can do all sorts of funny things like Games Night to Final Year Residents Projects. Sometimes can be really free (or maybe its actually just relatively free).

On a side note....PP, please dont die. :(

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I realize my updates during semester time always seemed to have sort of a format. First, I will update about school stuff, then about hall stuff, then most likely bitch about my skin condition. Oh well. For the sake of keeping to that format...I was rather upset few weeks ago that even without school work to stress me out, the stupid disease conquered new areas without me noticing at all. Sigh.

Sometimes I will fantasize about picking up an old bottle that was washed up a shore and I rub it and a genie appear to give me 3 wishes. And I think I probably rehearsed what I wanted to say to him n times already. (By the way, the third wish was to ask for 3 more hee hee). Coming back to reality...I will probably visit the doctor again, now that I have so much more free time. Maybe even regular visits. Even though I wonder if it will actually help because all they ever say is to tell me that it will stick with me forever.

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Home is good. Even though it's only one short week. :)

Labels: NUS, Raffles Hall, skin

Week 10 - pinjam-ed to geotech team coz they had sth sort of urgent but maybe a bit too saikang for the perm staff to handle. Ok I feel a bit terrible for saying that.....but I wonder, if interns are not around..who are the ones doing these work? Oh and HP7.2 was awesome! I think its the best HP movie coz it is the only one that has enough time to cover everything required. Not many random scene additions (except for the jumping off the cliff part), not many things cut out (except for him repairing his wand with the Elder Wand)...tho a bit kua zhang..for the dramatic effect i guess..but overall quite good. *Like*


Week 11 - slightly more happening...sadly its not the working part....went for first complete team lunch coz there is this staff from Australian branch who came up to attend a progress meeting and he wants curry fish head everytime he is in Sg...so the team went out for lunch with him and my supervisor asked me to tag along...they ended up paying for my part too =.= Apparently its the season for clearing annual leaves too so one of the engineers in my team is taking next week off...since she wont be seeing me after she comes back so had sort of advanced farewell lunch with team..then Friday night the interns decided to have another gathering/celebration...supposed to go for xlb buffet but it's all full....even for the next week...wth? Ended up going Sushi Tei and movie....squeezed in between was a drinking/sharing session which I didnt drink coz I couldnt...sighs. Movie (武侠, starring Donnie Yen and Takeshi Kaneshiro) wasnt too bad tho...though the ending was seriously anti-climax....zzzzz.

Another 3 movies on Saturday night...kind of didnt expected it to turn into movie marathon..coz was waiting for Cass to finish her homework and so KT and I ended up watching 3 movies...No Strings Attached, Source Code and Inception (FINALLY!) Inception is a really cool movie! Thanks tho to KT for explaining some parts during the movie so I wasnt too confused. Source Code is good too if you like time manipulation kind of storylines. No Strings Attached is just kind of fun to watch.

Final internship week starts tomorrow! 11 weeks kind of flew past really...guess I will leave reflection for next week's entry.

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Got my first choice FYP! And finally know where I stood when compared to peers (roughly)...and thus wasnt too excited but totally not disappointed either with the choice I made...(ok i am hard to please) Meeting with the prof (and probably the phD students under him) with his other FYP students...shall see how it goes.

Then there is the CORS season again....will have a 6 hour week (minus off time spent for Design Proj and FYP) and my two final exams are 10 days apart...ample study time...not! Confirm will slack one...sigh....One of the modules seemed interesting, but thought by a prof which none of us like very much...the other one..no comment...no experience with the prof tho topic interests me.

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New infected areas when the old ones havent even cleared off!! I look more hideous than ever. T.T

Miss home so much, excited to go home in one week's time...yet dreading mum's lectures.....and afraid of losing temper again when she gets too persistent on my skin issues....and I reli dun wan to explain myself to everybody else.

Probably gonna visit the doc after I get back...two years since I last visited him....wonder if I should be doing more intensive treatments.....

Labels: around singapore, intern, NUS, skin

Haha, I dun even noe how I have time to blog.

Final week of classes next week, followed by reading week and it's exam time! In fact my first paper is in exactly 2 weeks time and I am nowhere near the beginning of preparations of it. So doomed.

3 projects from my TE module due on the last lecture, not to mention a presentation during the last lecture too...SSD essay is done, needed improvements (tutor: no problem passing the module, but if you want a better grade you need to improve it) hence wondering if i should just settle for the pass...at the beginning of the semester I was planning to S/U it anyway...maybe I should concentrate on resurrecting my other modules? Other modules which I know if I work a little bit harder I can catch up and maybe pull off another miracle...TE module, the projects seemed to be going ok although it does feel a bit cincai..spied on other groups work and there are definitely much worse ones and it does look like there are quite a number of lost sheep in the class so hopefully it works out? (okay i think i am being very optimistic). Geotech is another mod which needs a lot of work, especially since there are no midterms and so didnt have chance to revise for it. Structural Analysis part 2 have been surprisingly bearable so far, though it is freaking tedious. Part 1 is still kind of hard. RC structures is my most worried mod at the moment and there is this design proj going on, which, well, is kind of tentative at the moment. Dont really know whether our methods are right and with only one week to go. Its the first paper as well! *stress* Forensic module, well, surprisingly didnt do too bad for my quiz given how unsure I was about my answers, hopefully it stays that way in the finals. It's kind of killing me more than other people because most of the people are from Science and are either life science or chem students...life science students will probably struggle with drugs and pharm topics and chem students probably struggle with DNA topics. I struggle with both. Sigh.

Probably wont have time to study until reading week and someone just doesnt seem to understand that there is still significant buffer time and certain things dont need to be done during reading week in which I only have one week to study for 5 modules for which their exams are on 5 consecutive days. Gah. Why make life difficult for yourself and make others' life difficult too? I mean, I am not hiding from my responsibilities, I am merely prioritizing.

Internship-hunting has not been going well either...officially got rejected for my first choice VIP company (without an interview), sent in a couple more applications and havent heard any news, and resorted to asking my TE project team mate if his company is taking in interns and he very helpfully sent in an email to his HR dept to check...hopefully good news?

On top of that.....after around three weeks of not applying cream, it made a full scale return. Sigh.

Around 3 weeks left. Hopefully I come out in one piece.

Labels: NUS, Raffles Hall, skin, updates

This came out in today's Channel News Asia web.

Not trying to attract pity or whatsoever. More like hoping I dun get more questions about it.

SINGAPORE: Experts have urged those who are suffering from psoriasis -- a non-contagious but incurable inflammatory skin condition -- to come forward to seek treatment.

Psoriasis leads to the thickening of the skin and scaling, and affects about one per cent of Singapore's population.

Thirty-six-year-old Shawn Wong, a psoriasis patient of 21 years, said the condition caused him to be constantly depressed, as he had to cope with the social stigma and endure pain.

"You have a lot of things to be mindful of, in terms of putting on the lotion and psychologically," the marketing professional said. 

"You have to be careful not to be affected by stares; people may wonder what the red patches on your skin are, and if they are contagious. From there, you get emotionally affected and distressed by it."

Psoriasis has been shown to affect health-related quality of life to an extent similar to effects of other chronic diseases like hypertension and congestive heart failure or type 2 diabetes.

According to The National Skin Centre, there are about 2,000 new cases each year.

There are about 50,000 persons affected by psoriasis in Singapore. 

There are five main types of psoriasis are plaque, guttate, inverse, pustular and erythrodermic. 

The most common form, plaque psoriasis, is commonly seen as red and white scaly patches appearing on the skin. 

While psoriasis may appear at any age, research suggests it is more likely to affect those in their 20s and 30s.

Experts stressed that while the disease is incurable, it is not contagious.

They said they hope the public will be more compassionate to patients.

Psoriasis Association of Singapore president Colin Theng said: "Just imagine walking around with red patches all over yourself. 

"Patients are affected mentally, feel very embarrassed and depressed about their (condition). There are often times they want to isolate themselves from other people for fear of what people would think".

Eighty per cent of the new cases reported here each year are scalp psoriasis patients, and the patients can now turn to a more effective treatment in the form of a gel called Xamiol. 

Experts say it's easy to use and a quick improvement was seen as early as one to two weeks of treatment.

The standard treatment is to use coal tar, salicyclic acid and steroid lotions which can be messy and time-consuming for patients. 

-CNA/wk

Labels: skin

Well so I lost my card case today..kept my matric card, debit card, Ezlink and some other cards I stuff inside coz my wallet was too full. Had no idea how I lost it though, only realized it was missing just as I stepped inside the LT for a midterm. Thought I left it at the breakfast table but friends around said it wasnt there went they leave. Hunted for it in the comm hall after the midterm, asked hall manager and the cleaning uncles/kitchen aunties but no one saw it. Emo-ed for a while as I walk back to my room, thinking about getting replacements for the lost cards but was pleasantly surprised when I saw it halfway slotted under my door. The kind soul who returned it obviously know who I am/where I stay and also decided to remain anonymous. Super thankful :) though I am still curious about this person's identity.

Labels: around singapore, NUS, Raffles Hall, skin, travel, updates