A Prolonged Explanation
Well, yes. It's been almost a week, in fact about 10 days, since I last typed in here. The explanation is simple: there is another Dell laptop, whose charger I've been using all along; but that charger was taken for the other Dell laptop when my siblings decided they needed that laptop for the end-of-semester exams that they've been having all this week. In any case I only just realised that the house has a couple of international-standard socket converters, so I'm using one of those and my own charger now. Another reason for the absence, quite simply, is that I've been fairly busy for the past bit of time and so haven't had the opportunity to do anything about it until now.
Let's see, then... interesting occurences that have occurred lately and that I still remember--then again, if it was monumental I should remember it anyway, so anything I don't remember here can't be too particularly monumental. The first of these interesting experiences, then, should probably be on the 31st of May--a scant 4 days after the Women's Lunch. It was a Saturday, and so my father had the day off; my kid sister has noted that the life in Fifth Hun seems to suit him much better than the one in the Big S, if only because it's so much less formal here. Much more relaxed: one would compare the difference to the one between life in KL and Patience. Certainly the Big S left him no free weekends, or after-hours badminton games with the staff on Friday evenings. He's much better at badminton than I am, though that's no surprise if you know that I haven't played badminton in at least 2 years--and the last time I played, my grasp was so bad that at one point the entire badminton racquet flew out of my hand and went three courts away, spinning all the while. Quite dangerous, as the Gorilla mentioned.
In any case it was a Saturday and my father was free. It was the Saturday on which the Olympic torch, incidentally, was passing through Fifth Hun, a few streets away from where we were planning to buy bicycles, mostly at my kid brother's insistent request. I think he's been asking for bikes for quite awhile, or maybe my father simply thought it might encourage him to lose a few kilos or something. In any case we happened to choose that particular Saturday to buy bicycles, and since the Olympic committee in their wisdom also happened to choose that particular day to have their runner pass through the area, we thought it might get a little congested, what with police roadblocks and crowds of sighseers and whatnot. So we went in the morning to that street, spent a lot of time bickering over the details of the bikes and what my parents thought the shopkeepers should include with the bikes that we were buying--after all, we were a lot of potential buyers and that street wasn't doing much business at the time, which simply made us a wonderful advertisement. My family has the interesting trait of looking like a crowd whenever we congregate--which, apparently, attracts other customers to wherever we're congregating at the time. At any rate we spent a few hours while my father haggled and complained and generally got us what he wanted, and we three kids (yes, I insist on my right to call myself a kid) milled outside while I took photos and chitchatted a bit.
In passing, I must note that my kid siblings have a rather odd trait of refusing to speak Mandarin unless absolutely required: I suppose it's a remaining sign of the thoroughly disenjoyable time they had in the public schools of the Big S, where snooty rich kids exist by the hundreds. While I do understand their dislike of the people, I still think they should speak Mandarin while in public in China--if nothing else, it prevents us from getting the white-people prices. I wonder how much money in untaken discounts we've lost, simply by not blending into the locality. But back to the topic.
We had lunch at a little restaurant; unfortunately, the glut of people on that street that day far exceeded its modest serving abilities, and our lunch was an hour in arriving. They made it up to us with a hefty discount, free cakes and popcorn, and a lot of verbal apologies. My father, of course, was quite vocal in his disapproval of the place, but I confess I quite understand their lack of efficiency: surely they can't be used to having so many customers in a day. Perhaps I'm just too nice to others, but I find myself quite unable to be as freely and vocally critical of others as my father is. It's a pro-and-con thing, of course: there are advantages to having clear and outspoken opinions, even in this age when tolerance is exalted above all else; in this regard, perhaps, I am indeed a child of this age, when little can really shock me and so very much of what shouldn't be is dismissed with an "Oh well, thus it is and thus it will always be". The Gorilla asked me once about this: I apparently have a reputation for letting pretty much anything happen without much complaint. My answer then still, I think, applies: I find very few things to be important enough to lose my temper over. Still, I suppose I have lost it before, so... hm. How strange a being I am.
At any rate we left the driver after lunch, as we had 4 bikes to be shared amongst 5 of us; my mother rode, side-saddle, on the rear rack of my father's bike. I have photos of the riverside we were cycling along, and let it be said that Fifth Hun has pretty rivers and riversides indeed. And the nice thing is they built a park on that riverside, so it's a nice place to cycle: long concrete paths, lots of open spaces, pavements and skating rinks and plenty of flowers and trees by the sides of the paths. Very pretty: I've got lots of photos of the area. And just as a sidenote, it's one of the few places in China I've ever seen with butterflies and dragonflies. No frogs or bees or things, but even butterflies and dragonflies are nice things to have around--and they're relatively used to people too: one of them bounced off my neck while I was cycling, and it rather stung. I must've been rather fast.
We cycled home from there, on the roads that the cars use, and it was around then that my mother, who was still sitting side-saddle behind my father, was engrossed in a woman on a motorbike who seemed to be having trouble balancing. The woman on the motorbike didn't lose her balance, but my mom did lose her concentration, and her right heel got caught in the rear wheel of the bike. It apparently happened quite quickly, so a U-shaped chunk of flesh got cut out by the spoke--my dad, also, cycles fast--and some time later she was in the hospital with a heel wrapped in iodine-stained bandages. Not the best way to end the day on which you buy your bike.
The next few days were a lot of visitors offering fruit and milk and sympathies, while the family and the maid (who, really, acts more like an old family friend who just happens to cook and clean every day) maintained a sort of vigil: since my mom was unable to get out of the bed, she got a catheter plus a bag and a potty, all of which required constant attention and periodic emptying. She also had an IV that similarly required attention and occasional topping-up, plus pillows under the injured foot to rearrange, keep in position, etc. My dad took the first night, and I the second: the two kid siblings were just beginning their exams and so couldn't do it. Not, I think, that they would have wanted to do it in any case: it takes a little mental readying to accept the fact that you're essentially cleaning up a parent's bodily wastes and to get past the initial ick factor... but then, I bypassed a lot of ick factors over the past few years anyway.
So I played nurse: cleaned the potty, emptied the catheter bag, washed face towels, got fruit, ran errands, called nurses when something needed their attention (seriously, that hospital is understaffed and very demotivated), delivered meals and washed up afterwards, etc. Don't ask me what the nurses there were doing: in all the hours I spent there, I didn't see them do much more than appear once an hour to change the saline drip, take a temperature, or maybe wheel in (and then out) the infrared mechanism that's supposed to speed up healing. Personally I'm rather distrustful of the sheer number of drips they administered, but the maid later said that doctors here collect fees depending on the price of the treatment they prescribe: which inclines me to the opinion that my mom's hospital bill (nearly RMB 4,000 for a 4-day stay) has been padded somewhat.
I must say, however, that it was tiring--at least, it got tiring after the first two or three days. Ironically, though, it was those days that I was busiest: hourly duties, almost constant watching of various measurements and things to make sure the initial healing, after the stitching and all, was proceeding well... and then when she got better, and didn't need quite such constant care, I got less busy and became pretty much needed only during mealtimes to send food over and clean up after that--essentially a caterer, and so I got bored during the interim. It's odd.
At any rate, however, she's back home now: she was released yesterday morning after the doctors got her to sign a slew of documents that essentially release the hospital and its doctors from any liability should her injuries be aggravated. The fear of lawsuits, I must say, is one of those things that China certainly didn't need to import from America. So she's now on crutches, getting around, being careful (I hope) to not put any weight on the injured foot, etc. The wound's dressing is to be changed tomorrow morning, so we'll see what progress has been made then.
My results for the last semester have been released, and while I'm not at all happy or satisfied with them, I can at least breathe and say truthfully that I'm above average, even if I'm only so by a margin of a grade or two: slightly above average, then, am I. While they're not terribly ego-boosting, and in fact are rather disappointing in the view of all my acquaintances who have very nearly straight As, I must only say that whatever they are, God must have a use for them. At the very least, I can say that I won't be intimidating anybody else by the inundation of arcane and erudite jargon. Meanwhile, here are the results, and you'll notice that I list the worst ones first:
Math: C (expected, what with me blanking out during the exam and all)
Chemistry: C+ (C for Chemistry, it's a running gag with me by now)
Lab work: C+ (disappointing, very disappointing)
Anatomy: B- (oh well)
Materials Science: B+ (slightly disappointing, but strangely rational)
Physics: A- (intensely surprising that I did the best on this one, eh?)
What my parents are going to say about these remains to be seen.
Let's see, then... interesting occurences that have occurred lately and that I still remember--then again, if it was monumental I should remember it anyway, so anything I don't remember here can't be too particularly monumental. The first of these interesting experiences, then, should probably be on the 31st of May--a scant 4 days after the Women's Lunch. It was a Saturday, and so my father had the day off; my kid sister has noted that the life in Fifth Hun seems to suit him much better than the one in the Big S, if only because it's so much less formal here. Much more relaxed: one would compare the difference to the one between life in KL and Patience. Certainly the Big S left him no free weekends, or after-hours badminton games with the staff on Friday evenings. He's much better at badminton than I am, though that's no surprise if you know that I haven't played badminton in at least 2 years--and the last time I played, my grasp was so bad that at one point the entire badminton racquet flew out of my hand and went three courts away, spinning all the while. Quite dangerous, as the Gorilla mentioned.
In any case it was a Saturday and my father was free. It was the Saturday on which the Olympic torch, incidentally, was passing through Fifth Hun, a few streets away from where we were planning to buy bicycles, mostly at my kid brother's insistent request. I think he's been asking for bikes for quite awhile, or maybe my father simply thought it might encourage him to lose a few kilos or something. In any case we happened to choose that particular Saturday to buy bicycles, and since the Olympic committee in their wisdom also happened to choose that particular day to have their runner pass through the area, we thought it might get a little congested, what with police roadblocks and crowds of sighseers and whatnot. So we went in the morning to that street, spent a lot of time bickering over the details of the bikes and what my parents thought the shopkeepers should include with the bikes that we were buying--after all, we were a lot of potential buyers and that street wasn't doing much business at the time, which simply made us a wonderful advertisement. My family has the interesting trait of looking like a crowd whenever we congregate--which, apparently, attracts other customers to wherever we're congregating at the time. At any rate we spent a few hours while my father haggled and complained and generally got us what he wanted, and we three kids (yes, I insist on my right to call myself a kid) milled outside while I took photos and chitchatted a bit.
In passing, I must note that my kid siblings have a rather odd trait of refusing to speak Mandarin unless absolutely required: I suppose it's a remaining sign of the thoroughly disenjoyable time they had in the public schools of the Big S, where snooty rich kids exist by the hundreds. While I do understand their dislike of the people, I still think they should speak Mandarin while in public in China--if nothing else, it prevents us from getting the white-people prices. I wonder how much money in untaken discounts we've lost, simply by not blending into the locality. But back to the topic.
We had lunch at a little restaurant; unfortunately, the glut of people on that street that day far exceeded its modest serving abilities, and our lunch was an hour in arriving. They made it up to us with a hefty discount, free cakes and popcorn, and a lot of verbal apologies. My father, of course, was quite vocal in his disapproval of the place, but I confess I quite understand their lack of efficiency: surely they can't be used to having so many customers in a day. Perhaps I'm just too nice to others, but I find myself quite unable to be as freely and vocally critical of others as my father is. It's a pro-and-con thing, of course: there are advantages to having clear and outspoken opinions, even in this age when tolerance is exalted above all else; in this regard, perhaps, I am indeed a child of this age, when little can really shock me and so very much of what shouldn't be is dismissed with an "Oh well, thus it is and thus it will always be". The Gorilla asked me once about this: I apparently have a reputation for letting pretty much anything happen without much complaint. My answer then still, I think, applies: I find very few things to be important enough to lose my temper over. Still, I suppose I have lost it before, so... hm. How strange a being I am.
At any rate we left the driver after lunch, as we had 4 bikes to be shared amongst 5 of us; my mother rode, side-saddle, on the rear rack of my father's bike. I have photos of the riverside we were cycling along, and let it be said that Fifth Hun has pretty rivers and riversides indeed. And the nice thing is they built a park on that riverside, so it's a nice place to cycle: long concrete paths, lots of open spaces, pavements and skating rinks and plenty of flowers and trees by the sides of the paths. Very pretty: I've got lots of photos of the area. And just as a sidenote, it's one of the few places in China I've ever seen with butterflies and dragonflies. No frogs or bees or things, but even butterflies and dragonflies are nice things to have around--and they're relatively used to people too: one of them bounced off my neck while I was cycling, and it rather stung. I must've been rather fast.
We cycled home from there, on the roads that the cars use, and it was around then that my mother, who was still sitting side-saddle behind my father, was engrossed in a woman on a motorbike who seemed to be having trouble balancing. The woman on the motorbike didn't lose her balance, but my mom did lose her concentration, and her right heel got caught in the rear wheel of the bike. It apparently happened quite quickly, so a U-shaped chunk of flesh got cut out by the spoke--my dad, also, cycles fast--and some time later she was in the hospital with a heel wrapped in iodine-stained bandages. Not the best way to end the day on which you buy your bike.
The next few days were a lot of visitors offering fruit and milk and sympathies, while the family and the maid (who, really, acts more like an old family friend who just happens to cook and clean every day) maintained a sort of vigil: since my mom was unable to get out of the bed, she got a catheter plus a bag and a potty, all of which required constant attention and periodic emptying. She also had an IV that similarly required attention and occasional topping-up, plus pillows under the injured foot to rearrange, keep in position, etc. My dad took the first night, and I the second: the two kid siblings were just beginning their exams and so couldn't do it. Not, I think, that they would have wanted to do it in any case: it takes a little mental readying to accept the fact that you're essentially cleaning up a parent's bodily wastes and to get past the initial ick factor... but then, I bypassed a lot of ick factors over the past few years anyway.
So I played nurse: cleaned the potty, emptied the catheter bag, washed face towels, got fruit, ran errands, called nurses when something needed their attention (seriously, that hospital is understaffed and very demotivated), delivered meals and washed up afterwards, etc. Don't ask me what the nurses there were doing: in all the hours I spent there, I didn't see them do much more than appear once an hour to change the saline drip, take a temperature, or maybe wheel in (and then out) the infrared mechanism that's supposed to speed up healing. Personally I'm rather distrustful of the sheer number of drips they administered, but the maid later said that doctors here collect fees depending on the price of the treatment they prescribe: which inclines me to the opinion that my mom's hospital bill (nearly RMB 4,000 for a 4-day stay) has been padded somewhat.
I must say, however, that it was tiring--at least, it got tiring after the first two or three days. Ironically, though, it was those days that I was busiest: hourly duties, almost constant watching of various measurements and things to make sure the initial healing, after the stitching and all, was proceeding well... and then when she got better, and didn't need quite such constant care, I got less busy and became pretty much needed only during mealtimes to send food over and clean up after that--essentially a caterer, and so I got bored during the interim. It's odd.
At any rate, however, she's back home now: she was released yesterday morning after the doctors got her to sign a slew of documents that essentially release the hospital and its doctors from any liability should her injuries be aggravated. The fear of lawsuits, I must say, is one of those things that China certainly didn't need to import from America. So she's now on crutches, getting around, being careful (I hope) to not put any weight on the injured foot, etc. The wound's dressing is to be changed tomorrow morning, so we'll see what progress has been made then.
My results for the last semester have been released, and while I'm not at all happy or satisfied with them, I can at least breathe and say truthfully that I'm above average, even if I'm only so by a margin of a grade or two: slightly above average, then, am I. While they're not terribly ego-boosting, and in fact are rather disappointing in the view of all my acquaintances who have very nearly straight As, I must only say that whatever they are, God must have a use for them. At the very least, I can say that I won't be intimidating anybody else by the inundation of arcane and erudite jargon. Meanwhile, here are the results, and you'll notice that I list the worst ones first:
Math: C (expected, what with me blanking out during the exam and all)
Chemistry: C+ (C for Chemistry, it's a running gag with me by now)
Lab work: C+ (disappointing, very disappointing)
Anatomy: B- (oh well)
Materials Science: B+ (slightly disappointing, but strangely rational)
Physics: A- (intensely surprising that I did the best on this one, eh?)
What my parents are going to say about these remains to be seen.
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