A Bruised Knee and More Tales of Andrew

Dear Diary,

Placing ice packs on my right knee and my right big toe… ouch… hope I don’t walk with a limp tomorrow. This evening was actually the last day of my military physical training. A month has passed and it is over at last! Yay! So I was hoping I could do well in the physical fitness this evening. Felt a little fitter after all the training over the weeks. However, unintentional mistakes caused me to under-perform! =( The night before, I actually had mild insomnia!!! That is a super rare occurrence for me… and of all time! So I had less than 7 hours of sleep last night. Groggy… today, took canned coffee and treated myself a plate of Cha Kway Teow (fried kway teow with cockles) for lunch… sorry, dun know how to translate kway teow” in English! ;-) That coffee made my heart beat faster and I realized I had mild tachypnoea suddenly! My stomach took really long to digest that late lunch I had! So when I went to the army camp and took the test, I wasn’t in such a good shape. Then again, I was confident because I did better in sit-ups and standing broad-jump than before. =P

The unfortunate event happened when I ran my shuttle run. Did poorly in it on first attempt… Mentally-reasoned that it could be my exertions during sit-ups. Wanted to retry and decided not to rest for a while because I was afraid to miss the first detail for the 2.4km run. I wanted to get home early. Bad decision. So I took the second try right after the first one. As I screeched to a stop to change direction-of-run, I could literally feel my legs went jelly! Crashed into a heap… with a gash / abrasion over my right knee and right big toe nail hurt like crazy. The fat reservist physical training instructor (PTI) asked if I needed medical attention but I shrugged off that suggestion because I wanted to go to the chin-up station quick! Failed at that station naturally. Then went to the medic and asked for icepack to treat my bruise. Barely placing the icepack on my wounded knee, they were already assembling for the 2.4km run! Arrgghhh… Hobbling, I went for the run. The medic was surprised that I persisted on continuing. The pain soon faded away as I ran but the tachypnoea came along and I was like… ahhh… shouldn’t have taken excessive caffeine!!! Completed the run among the fastest but still below my own expectation… sigh… Sometimes, I can’t help feeling that I am getting old despite my refusal to acknowledge that! Hahaha… Okay…At least, now that this training stint is over… I will not need to juggle with work, student preceptorship and army physical training altogether like what happened last year.

Looking forward to meeting my student soon on 13 May. I was looking at the name… male or female? Hmmm… couldn’t believe I can’t decipher it. And since another colleague is having her store refitted during that period, she is transferring her student to me for a few days! The scary thing is that this student has the same Christian name and surname as me!!!! It is going to be weird to call someone who has the same name and surname as oneself! So obviously, that is a guy. Haha… I sure hope my own student is female. Can’t imagine having 2 male students around. You may not believe this but male students are usually in their better selves in the presence of a girl, haha… Yeah, they also become more competitive and want to do better than the girl! Act hero or act “professor”. I saw that last year, keke… Even for myself, I could feel it too when I was a student. I am male, okay? Hahaha…

Feel like my brain is vegetating away these days. Gave up doing the rosters for the pharmacy department recently… Life is now much better indeed! Brought up the dispensary sales at my new outlet by leaps and bounds too! ;-) I am keeping my fingers crossed… I really hope to kick-start my mind and plunge back into the clinical world in which I was trained. I am also looking forward to studying something soon. Yes, a formal education! ;-) Hope I can achieve all those objectives A.S.A.P, haha…

That’s all for tonight. Take care! Happy Labour Day tomorrow, so don’t work so hard! Unfortunately, I am the on-call pharmacist. Pray that no one falls ill tomorrow… sobs… hahaha…

God Bless,

Andrew