It nearly drove me mad,‭ ‬mad I say‭! ‬And I am,‭ ‬as usual,‭ ‬powerless to do anything about it.‭ ‬I now believe that it is the time to confess everything that I have done for the past ninety something days or so.‭ ‬Chup-‭ ‬chup,‭ ‬e-hey and no more delays,‭ ‬with every substantial somethings told,‭ ‬and every little bit counted in,‭ ‬do or die or I shall count myself guilty for operating a blog like this without substantial clippings of my life,‭ ‬as required by the norms of blogdom.

‭ ‬I'll begin at early March,‭ ‬with summaries I've salvaged from my manually written diary entries.‭ ‬I'll try to keep everything short too so as to prevent whatever readers I have out there from being bored to death from my ramblings.

‭ ‬So here it goes:

‭ ‬The first week of March was uninitiated.‭ ‬I still haven't found a job yet and I don't have a clear direction of where I'm heading.‭ ‬I tried to work as much as I could on my wuxia translations but‭ ‬without someone else to read it for me and guide me,‭ ‬it is impossible for me to gain much of a headway‭ ‬with it.‭ ‬I've just barely managed‭ ‬2‭ ‬meager pages before giving up temporarily due to time constraints.‭ (‬It was nearing the end of April when I started to resume my work again, and updated at the end of May.‭)

From then on I dabbled in a little of this and that.‭ ‬Learned some,‭ ‬but not much.‭ ‬Some things were self taught,‭ ‬while others did not come in so easily.‭ ‬But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that,‭ ‬is it‭?

Then came in the bid for Dark City and Elarti.‭ ‬Suffice to say,‭ ‬I gave up on Dark City while waiting for more news from the Editors of Projek Elarti.

‭ ‬Not long after that,‭ ‬the people from the State Library called me,‭ ‬summoning me for an interview I've applied for three months ago.‭ ‬Feeling lethargic and sick of the whole job seeking thing,‭ ‬and thinking that it might be a deliriously long full time job with not much of a salary,‭ ‬I rejected it.

‭ ‬It was only much much later that I got my hands on the original summoning letter by snail mail,‭ ‬stating that the job that they might want me to take is actually a part time job with quite a decent wage.‭ ‬I realized then that I could not have made a bigger mistake in my life.‭ ‬But its too late to go back now,‭ ‬isn't it‭?

By the second week of March,‭ ‬I've gotten myself a new cellphone,‭ ‬renewed and reinstated my bank accounts and finances and bought myself a life insurance with a‭ ‬30‭ ‬year coverage.‭ ‬These expensive moves,‭ ‬coupled with the fact that I did not have any way to sustain myself monetarily had left be poorer that ever before.

‭ ‬With the exception of my deplorable stash at the bank,‭ ‬I have no other notable sources of liquefied assets readily available for my immediate use.‭ ‬Needless to say,‭ ‬I'm flat broke for the first time ever in my life.

‭ ‬By a scant few days later,‭ ‬my STPM results came out.‭ ‬It looks something like this:

‭ ‬Miserable results really,‭ ‬and now my arrogant dreams of becoming a doctor or a corpse cutter seemed so distant now.

‭ ‬My hopes were dashed and my fears were made so real.‭ ‬With no other alternatives,‭ ‬I've to put law as the first‭ ‬2‭ ‬choice courses for local university entry.‭ ‬But that too seemed to be a fanciful and wishful thing,‭ ‬as I've learned out the hard way after the applications were closed.

‭ ‬Currently,‭ ‬I felt that it is as if I'm trapped in a forced and rigid deadlock,‭ ‬with no way out.‭ ‬The only way for me to escape would be to apply for courses at local private universities first,‭ ‬but that seemed to be a very redundant choice.

‭ ‬What if I somehow got admitted into a public university‭? ‬Wouldn't that waste me a lot of money‭? ‬Applications to private universities aren't cheap,‭ ‬you know,‭ ‬even for local Malaysian ones near you,‭ ‬and I'm quite reluctant to draw on my bank savings,‭ ‬which are literally my life savings accumulated from years of self abdication and miserly acts.

‭ ‬These things caught me in a stranglehold at that point,‭ ‬and the back of my head is now strewn with highly unmanageable white hairs as a result of that.‭ ‬The yearly talk the MCA gave for pre-U students at the Teochew Association didn't help that much either.

‭ ‬It was nearly at the end of mid March then.‭ ‬I've since attended several‭(‬2‭ ‬to be exact‭) ‬gatherings between the old school chums.‭ ‬It was jovial and loud and festive,‭ ‬in a crippled and lonely sort of way,‭ ‬and the faked enthusiasm of some people there made it even more grief inducing.‭ ‬Naturally,‭ ‬not being the best of friends with them back then,‭ ‬made me felt even more cut off and distant from them now.‭ ‬Hell,‭ ‬they can even sense it back then.‭ ‬Alienated,‭ ‬disappointed and feeling left out,‭ ‬I selfishly turned my backs on them.

‭ ‬At the‭ ‬29th of March,‭ ‬Sandakan's biggest supermarket,‭ ‬aptly named Giant Sandakan of the Giant Supermarket chains fame was officially opened to the public.

‭ ‬And I actually had the nerve to go there on the opening day,‭ ‬alone.‭ ‬I got manhandled,‭ ‬squashed,‭ ‬cursed,‭ ‬stepped and spitted(on the right leg,‭ ‬just below the thighs,‭ ‬and I couldn't see who did it‭)‬.‭ ‬I got trapped there too,‭ ‬for three very trying hours just for trying to reach the exit.‭ ‬The number of lost kiddies were astonishing,‭ ‬as was the looting and thievery.‭ ‬The waiting lines extended up to the frozen goods department a long distance away,‭ ‬all nine of them,‭ ‬and I can see the enormity of the human nature itself then‭; ‬the willingness and the endurance humans displayed can really explain how far humans could go to get their hands on ten cent items.

‭ ‬You could still say that I'm still stupid,‭ ‬and very much still naive.‭ ‬A few days later,‭ ‬I went to Giant again,‭ ‬and this time accompanied by my mother and aunt,‭ ‬and it was a lot better then.‭ ‬Less people,‭ ‬but not any more cheaper than what we had originally thought.

‭ ‬That day(it was probably the‭ ‬3rd or the‭ ‬4th of April‭)‬,‭ ‬I had the nerve to ask my aunt of the possibility of me going for a hunting trip,‭ ‬for this particular uncle(out of the many that I have‭) ‬is a professional freelance hunter.‭ ‬She laughed at this pathetic idea and said,‭ “‬we'll see.‭”

My uncle said the same thing as well.

‭ ‬And then we went for that hunting trip on Good Friday.‭ ‬I became mosquito feed that day.‭ ‬On Saturday my back started to feel tingly,‭ ‬like something with long soft fingers stroking my back...slowly.‭ ‬On Sunday,‭ ‬nothing happened.

‭ ‬By Monday,‭ ‬the cold prickly feelings intensified a bit,‭ ‬but I dismissed it as nothing.

‭ ‬Come Tuesday morning,‭ ‬a killer headache seized me shortly after breakfast,‭ ‬and I've not been able to get out bed again without support for nearly about two weeks long.‭ ‬It was only on the third visit to the doctor's excruciatingly cold clinic that I learned of the true nature of my malady.

‭ “‬Typhoid‭”‬,‭ ‬my doctor(contact no:089-213418‭) ‬said.

‭ ‬Ha-Ha.‭ ‬Serves me right,‭ ‬right‭?

"Matikau!"

‭ ‬It felt like hell.‭ ‬My head hurt so much,‭ ‬I can't even focus my eyes properly.‭ ‬Jumbled thoughts ran through my mind like a train.‭ ‬I saw things in my half sleep,‭ ‬maddening things,‭ ‬things I can't explain,‭ ‬everyday conversation pieces,‭ ‬intents,‭ ‬many people talking and talking and yet not really talking to me but referring to me,‭ ‬just like that,‭ ‬and even that was not often done.‭ ‬Then broken and nearly faded black scenes,‭ ‬like a film,‭ ‬running over and over again in my head,‭ ‬but not quite the same every time.

‭ ‬Feverish,‭ ‬the body heating up,‭ ‬sweat covering my body and clothes,‭ ‬and once it's dried,‭ ‬the cold came,‭ ‬unbearable,‭ ‬nearly.‭ ‬The cold began at the tip of my toes,‭ ‬then it slowly work its way up knees‭ ‬,‭ ‬and then it would start to tremble.‭ ‬My teeth will start chattering soon after,‭ ‬after my heart feels like quitting,‭ ‬that is.

‭ ‬In fact,‭ ‬it was colder still at the doctor's waiting room.‭ ‬My mother thought that I was really dying at‭ ‬my first visit there.

‭ ‬Maybe I would have died back there and then,‭ ‬if not for the Paracetamol‭(‬500mgX2‭ ‬a pop‭) ‬the nurse gave me.

‭ ‬But perhaps I have exaggerated,‭ ‬maybe to gain some desperate sympathy,‭ ‬or a little bit of attention‭; ‬but I'm sure that as I snap my eyes open and look at what had happened through and through with not so seeing eyes,‭ ‬and remembering the times when it's so difficult just to carry on breathing.‭

But perhaps I did not.

‭ ‬I can't eat,‭ ‬and I can only drink a little.‭ ‬Whatever I take in pass out even more.‭ ‬There were no normal stools to begin with at the early stage of the disease,‭ ‬just yellow semi-liquid masses,‭ ‬and then it slowly evolved with time and diet change into just a thin black colored liquid.‭ ‬Earlier on,‭ ‬I had thought that these were blood,‭ ‬but apparently they were not.‭ ‬At the first few days,‭ ‬I never felt so drained in my life.
‭ ‬I took prescription Paracetamols until I feel sick of it,‭ ‬and subsisted on thin gruel like rice porridge(mainly liquid,‭ ‬made with a little rice and lots of water,‭ ‬shredded pork/chicken and salt‭)‬,‭ ‬100Plus and Excel.

‭ ‬I tried some coconut water to break the monotony of my poor fare,‭ ‬and the stuff burned down me hard but nothing nasty happened.‭ ‬In fact,‭ ‬I think it even did me some good,‭ ‬like drinking straight from‭ ‬an IV drip bag solution or something.

‭ ‬Eventually I got better,‭ ‬and of that I've much to thank for,‭ ‬especially my parents.‭

But I think I can forget about continuing my aikido lessons anytime soon.‭ ‬My body is still weak,‭ ‬and it is thinner than ever before.‭ ‬My stamina had never been good,‭ ‬and I'll have to recover slowly,‭ ‬I think.

‭ ‬Time wore on.

I waited. April floated pass like a foolish and utterly forgettable dream.

I brooded. I stalled. I worked some, and rested for some more. Disheartening rumors came and went, but still nothing much happened.

I began to fear. My cousin started to question me, for he said that he is waiting for me at KL, should I go there for my university studies. I cannot give him a good answer, not yet, and I still don't know if I'm going to a public university or not.

In fact, I am not sure of what I'm going to do, for the longer I waited, the more unsure I became.

I know that I need money. I know that I'm poor, so poor that I couldn't even afford to see myself in a better state. I wanted so much to believe, that I can see things in a better way than it was, than to live in uncertainty, to anticipate everyday not with good hopes, but with dread and despair. I pretend that all is well, I tried to gather my strength.....

For I want to see myself as being capable to protect those that I care; and be able to watch over all that I love. There are still many things that I want to do, many more things that I want to accomplish, and very many foods and beautiful things that I've yet a chance to try out.

A good life, good friends, a lifelong partner, a garden, an sizeable estate, a library, a lab or maybe more, so much more....

I don't want it to stop, please don't let it be so. I don't want to see it all terminated in front of me.

I you want to, please help me(your pathetic and lowly excuse of a human), Dear God, please help me so.

Labels: 100Plus, Allianz, Dark City, Dr Thian, Elarti, Excel, Giant, Paracetamol, STPM, Typhoid