One of the worst days ever.

Right. Now there’s this whole fiasco going on in my home. It was holidays. I get holidays for a week. Brother just finished fixing desktop, so I wanna play. I’d waited til after my tests to start playing. Apparently, my dad’s pissed because the night before, my dad told my brother to go to sleep, but he didn’t, and stayed up to oh-my-god in the morning doing goodness-knows-what with his laptop. So new rule in the house, no video games.

Naturally, I’m kinda pissed. It’s my holidays. I didn’t do too bad in my tests, and it’s not that I did badly because of video games, so in all actuality, this should have nothing to do with me. Well, I once tried playing when my dad wasn’t home, and my mum reamed me. She called me selfish, not wanting to help my brother with his addiction. FYI Mum, it’s not selfish. It’s called looking out for myself.

So.. fine. Still pissed, but not playing video games. My brother spends whole effing days in front of the desktop now, cause his laptop needs repairing. Given, he occasionally studies. But he studies… IN FRONT. Of the desktop. It’s something to do with programming, but still. I’m loads pissed at my parents. They say, you should help your brother, we’re in this as a family. If they want it to be more effective, they should have yanked his laptop and monitored his use on the desktop which is now in the living room. Then OBVIOUSLY he can’t play video games right? If they can catch ME playing video games.

And then, the clincher. My brother actually goes back to his apartment on weekends. The apartment where his Xbox is. Where his gaming buddy lives. Where the WIDESCREEN TV IS. Are you connecting the dots yet? AND MY MUM TOLD HIM HE COULD. While, I, the child who actually does study, and wants a measly WEEK to play video games, am not even allowed to THINK about playing. This is ridiculously unfair. And my dad knows he goes back to the apartment. The addict gets his weekly fixes, but the sister of the addict who happens to be in the same house, can’t do it even though she’s not addicted, simply because it might TEMPT HIM. Where’s the logic in that?

So I confronted my mum about it. I was beyond pissed. My brother happily prances off to the apartment on weekends. He says he can’t do anything about it. My mum’s all, it doesn’t matter that this is unfair. We have to work together as a family. I told her, work together as a family? When you let HIM go off and play, even though he’s an ‘addict’ as you call him, and I’m not allowed to play? Even when he’s gone? Even when it’s my holidays? It’s just ONE RULE she says.. CAN’T YOU FOLLOW IT? Then what about my brother? Why am I the one who has to be treated like I dropped out of college and abandoned studying to play video games?

I once asked my dad when I could play. He told me, when your brother goes and gets a degree. Fuck off man, that’s 3 years. For all I know, my brother might drop out again, even WITHOUT my TEMPTING HIM WITH VIDEO GAMES AT HOME. My mum’s like… why must you kick up such a big fuss, you’re going to leave next year anyway, but in hindsight, it’s the whole PRINCIPLE of the thing. She says to me. You can play, but your dad and brother must not be at home and you can ask me nicely and I’ll let you play. WTF? I didn’t do anything wrong, and I have to ask you NICELY, and only when both my BROTHER AND MY FATHER aren’t around? Whatever.

So anyway, my dad overhears this heated argument, and yells, Stop talking about it. Like he’s really angry at me. So I shout at him. I don’t care. It’s fucking unfair. And he’s all, how dare you use that kind of language? And I don’t care if it’s unfair. You’re a rascal. And I’m like.. I KNOW. and he says.. if you don’t want to be a part of this family then GET OUT. RIGHT NOW. And I’m in the middle of my lunch, in the middle of doing physics, yell back.. FINE. And I leave with the clothes on my back, my wallet and my handphone. He tells me, don’t take anything with you. It’s all mine. I’m like, I don’t care. In hindsight, if I’d left the handphone behind and listened to him, no one would be able to find me. Serve him right then.

At first I wanted to go to Najwa’s house. But she was going to Disney on Ice, and it was awfully far to walk. But I thought I’d take a bus to go there. She said, why don’t you go to Adli’s house? And I said, I don’t know where it is. She said she’d call him, and she did, and she told me he wasn’t at home. So I said okay, I’d just walk to her house. She wanted me to take a cab, but I was scared. I walked to the bottom of the hill, and sat at the bus-stop and remembered Mandy. So I called her.

I asked if she had her car. She didn’t, and Chris couldn’t send it over, so she told her mum and they came and picked me up. My bro called me, and said that mum wanted me home. I said, dad doesn’t want me at home. He said, we’ll deal with that later. But if he doesn’t cool down by tonight, I’ll pack some of your clothes and send it to you.

So I follow Mandy around for the rest of the day. St. John’s cathedral is really cool. Bell towers, high ceilings, fascinating parish house. I stayed for her choir practice. Then my mum called, and told me to come home. I was like.. okay. Then Aunty Monica came and talked to me. I told her I was kinda reluctant to go home, because chances are my Dad would treat me like I didn’t exist, or yell at me for coming back, or yell at me for doing something stupid. The very common question thrown at me : Why are you so stupid? I swear, I will never say that to anyone. It’s so demeaning.

My Dad seriously has a problem. Last time when we went to Shanghai on holiday, I had a tendency to lag behind the tour group, because I wanted to take photos. So anyway, the tour group stops at this place, and I swear my dad was behind me. I actually looked behind and saw him. The tour guide said we could walk around, but come back in an hour’s time. I turned around, and my dad was gone. My sister, mum, and I went looking for him for the whole hour. When we went back to the meeting place, he asked, where did you go? We asked him the same thing. He said he went looking for me. And he got angry. And for the rest of the trip, he told the WHOLE TOUR GROUP and everyone else besides who would listen how I was such a horrible daughter. It actually got to the point where a fricking TOUR GUIDE actually came up to give me a lecture on treating my dad better. Luckily I didn’t really get what she was saying to me. Or I’d have slapped some one. I bet he’ll spend weeks from now complaining to everyone how I’m such a horrible daughter.

So anyway I’m home now. He’s acting as though I don’t exist. My mum probably only called me home because she didn’t want me to be a trouble to Aunty Monica. When I got home she gave me this look. It was the angry why-are-you-so-stupid look. >.> I swear.

The story of my life.

Making pizza toast from scratch.

Instructions on how to make pizza toast, courtesy of Zy. But this time, I had to make it from scratch, because I didn’t have any tomato sauce in my house.

To make a vague sort of sauce, I boiled a tomato till the skin started peeling. Then I took off the skin, and cut the tomato smaller. In hindsight, I should have removed the seeds at this time, but I thought I’d strain it out later. If you don’t take the seeds out at this point, you’ll have to strain the entire thing later. Or, you remove all the seeds now, and use a food processor or blender or whatever to puree the whole thing later. I’m not sure how it’s like for the latter alternative though. So anyway, I’d microwaved the tomato, until it was quite soft. Then I strained it. Added a bit of salt and pepper, mixed herbs, and sugar. And microwaved it a bit more.

To assemble pizza toast, you need… Whatever toppings you want, tomato sauce, bread and shredded mozzarella. First, spread tomato sauce. Then put your toppings. My fave toppings are mushrooms and pepperoni. Then liberally pile on the shredded mozzarella. It may look like a lot, but it’s mostly air. Then toast. Toast until bread is quite crunchy. Take it out of the oven, sprinkle herbs on top, and serve immediately. The glory of hot mozzarella.

So anyway, last night me and Zy made chocolate chip biscotti. It was okay I suppose. The biscotti is tasty, but the difficult bit was sawing it into slices. It was rather crumbly. The recipe is from Chef Michael Smith, bless his soul.

Chocolate Chip Biscotti
1 cup of white or brown sugar
1/2 stick (1/4 cup, 4 tablespoons) of butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 large spoonfuls of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 cup of chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the sugar and butter together in a stand-up mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time and continue to beat for a few more minutes.  Add the vanilla.
Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and add to the mixer.  Combine well then stir in the chocolate chips.
Shape the dough with lightly floured hands into a log, approximately 12 inches long and 3 inches wide. You may find it easier to divide the dough in half and form two shorter logs. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet flatten slightly and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool until you can handle it.  Slice diagonally, into 1/2-inch slices and return to the baking sheet. Bake again until the cookies lightly brown, about ten minutes. Flip them over and brown another few minutes. Cool and enjoy with a cup of espresso!

Incidentally, I rather prefer my biscotti with nuts. So I was at Popular today, and I came across a recipe in this cookbook. Periplus, Step-by-Step, Something Something Desserts. It was something like this. Very vaguely.

125g nuts
3 egg whites
1/2 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup flour

Toast nuts.
Whisk egg whites until stiff. Whisk together with sugar until dissolved. Gently fold in nuts and flour. Pour into bar pan. Bake.
Take out, slice. Bake again.

Lol. Well, I just glanced through it. But it looked quite easy. I will try it sometime. I showed Zy this photo of me which was really unflattering. Back in the time when I was actually plump. She looked at it, and was absolutely STUNNED. She still is stunned.

In other news, claimed ‘date’ that wasn’t a date, fellow who wanted (please pay attention to the –ed.) to make it up to me (for wanting to make it up to me but then going back on his word anyway) thinking that simply because I deign to look at him must mean he’s made it up to me. Very uneventful. I did sort of have fun figuring how big the place was. Cute hamsters were great. I thought it was supposed to be a special day. Well, I’m glad I expected the worst. Quite expected really. Sitting for at least 30 minutes waiting for him to be done having fun, because my ankle hurt like ohmygod. The most interesting things that happened the whole day was me getting a vague panic attack, and the time I helped some guy who broke his ankle ice-skating (while waiting for fellow to be done having fun). He wanted us to split the expenses until I verbally reminded him. Not really making it up to me, but I guess it’s the best he can do. At least he convinced the parents to let him out longer. He can now go disappoint someone else.

I will now irritate Zy with my lalala-ing.

Carbonara?

Yeah. So as the heading says, I made Carbonara. With um. Vermicelli. Only mine is really really improvised.

I used 2 eggs, about 3/4cup milk, a handful of sliced swiss brown mushrooms, a small hunk of salt cured ham, a generous helping of olive oil, black pepper, and mixed herbs and a clove or two of garlic.

I cooked the pasta first. I was a bit worried it wouldn’t be enough, but I really gotta get a hang of estimating how much the pasta expands. >.> I used maybe a 1 and 1/2 cm radius circle of pasta? lol. If you catch my drift. They say you should reserve some of the water.

Then I heated the oil in the pan, threw in my diced ham and fried it. Then threw in the cloves of garlic which had been crushed and peeled. Then removed the garlic and ham, and put in the mushrooms. At this point, the mushrooms sort of absorbed my oil. So.. maybe I’ll think of some other time to put in the mushrooms. Then I put in the milk and seasonings. And tried to reduce it. Didn’t work that well, but perhaps some flour might help. I always remembered my white sauce reducing really fast.

Then throw the ham and pasta back in, and stir. Turn off heat, stir a bit, then pour in beaten eggs and stir. The eggs shouldn’t become cooked. Like.. scrambled eggs. That’s a no-no. It should make it.. silky.. and.. I don’t know. Well, it tastes okay. Though perhaps it needed a bit of salt. I should have used streaky bacon.

That’s your recipe for today~

Operation : Detail~

I’m going to waste some time here, blogging about my experience undergoing a major operation in December 2007 to correct my spinal curvature.

…Then again, maybe I’ll just copypasta what I put in my LJ. I really should update my LJ.

Right, was admitted on the 21st. The room was quite nice. It had its own bathroom. And cupboards and tv. But the tv only had normal cable channels, no Astro. So it was kinda boring, but better than nothing I suppose. Kept me quite entertained, because it was Christmas season and they were showing Christmassy movies. Sis was there with me, because we picked her up from the station before we went to the hospital.

I did all my tests on the day, and they wheeled me around in a wheelchair even though I didn't need it. I got to get a hang of how to use a wheelchair though. It was kinda fun, but ultimately rather disgusting, because I imagined that I would be touching whatever was on the floor because I was handling the bars close to the wheels. Hm. Had an okay night. Went to sleep, and the anaesthesiologist (is that what you call him?) came in and woke me up to talk to me. Stayed up a bit, realising that it wouldn't make a difference if I didn't sleep, because I'd be sleeping the whole next day. But went to sleep anyway.

The next morning, woke up and took my Lexapro, then got on the bed and the nerve conduction lady came in and prepped me by sticking the electrodes on me with very sticky stuff. Then they wheeled me to the operating theatre in my bed. I still wasn't panicking, strangely. I lay in the waiting area and they told me to take off my sarong, so I just had the top gown which was long enough anyway. After a while, they wheeled me into the OT, and it REALLY DOES HAVE THOSE BIG LIGHTS. Ehem. but anyway, the anaesthisiologist was there and he put a plastic IV into my vein, and he was really happy because my veins were very visible. Kinda freaked me out. Then he put a gas mask on me and told me to breathe, it was just oxygen. I didn't know whether he was lying, but I breathed anyway. He told me that if I wanted to say a prayer, I could say it. Then he said they were gonna put me to sleep. Within a couple of moments, I was out like a light.

The next moment I woke up to him telling me to move my legs. Then they wheeled me back to the ward into the ICU. For the rest of the day I woke up and slept, and felt hungry because the extra strong anti-emetic they gave me was supposed to empty my stomach. (I sort of vaguely remember waking up and seeing Dr Kwan and my mum at the end of my bed talking. I’d heard from my 2nd Aunt that the stuff they give me, can make me well.. you know, the first time I wake up, I’ll talk and everything, but the next time I wake up I won’t remember a bloody thing.) In the middle of the night, I woke up for a moment, and the boy/girl next to me... I think he threw up. Either that or he belched really loudly. His dad walked past me with a kidney dish though, so I think he did throw up. I got scared anyway, and pushed the call button for the nurse, and she said he was just coughing. She eventually called my mum, who was sleeping in my room. She came and sat with me, and I listened to my mp3 player.

The next day they wheeled me into my room.I slept quite a bit that day, and tried to take in some toast but was unsuccessful. It was very dry. The next couple of days were a haze, and I didn't really keep track. I think on day 2, they took out everything. The self giving morphine, the catheter, my second IV and the drain in my back. Pulling out the drain in my back was agony. It was like he was bloody pulling out my spinal cord. Ouchies. On a good note though, I had a very successful operation because my spine was very supple. I did not become paralysed or lose feeling in my legs. I obtained 75% correction on my curve, so I stretched quite a bit. Taller by 2.5 cm. When they changed my dressing, they found that I didn't sweat at all, so my wound was clean and dry, and healing nicely.

I had to have ...3 packets of blood methinks. After that, my mum said that my lips looked so red. Lol. (The doctor later said that during the operation, I wouldn’t stop bleeding. They applied pressure to my wound for ten minutes, and I still hadn’t stopped bleeding.) They gave me morphine by injection after they removed it from my IV, and that was agony as well. I had pain medication as a suppository as well. They sponged me for the first day and the third day, then after that I cleaned up myself. After they removed my first IV as it made my hand swell, they gave me my antibiotics orally, and they made me very sick. So sick that I got panic attacks.

On one of the days, I had a panic attack, and became suicidal. My mum was angry at me because her friend came, but I was feeling so bad that I needed her to count for me. I was ruining her life. I said it would be better if I died. She didn't say anything, except that it was my choice. I climbed out of bed and left the room, and walked around the 10th floor. It wasn't really very high, well... at least, without me making some dramatic plunge in front of several patients. I went downstairs to the adolescent and child psychiatry unit and burst into tears, and they recognised me, and were panicking because I told them I wanted to die. I was crying so hard, I thought I would throw up. I did not. They phoned the ward, and apparently they'd seen me walking around but did not pay me any mind. They didn't notice I was gone. They sent a nurse down to get me. It was the nice Indian nurse who had talked to me the first day. Soon I was back in my room. Mum came back too. She didn't say anything. They called Prof Stephen, the psychiatrist who was supposed to see me but didn't. I started reading my new Artemis Fowl book, and he came a while later and prescribed Zentex. I think it's spelled like that. (It’s spelled Xantax.)

I got my period the day before I left the hospital. Very troublesome. Dr Kwan came in after I complained at length about the antibiotics making me sick. I had taken them for 5 days including op day. He said that since it was just for prevention of infection, 1 to 5 days was enough and I could stop. Besides, my wound was nice and clean and dry when they changed my dressing. But I should wait for Dr Deepak to come in and have his say. Dr Deepak said he wanted me to take it. I rather didn't want to take it, and he said that I should take it for 2 or 3 days more at half the dose. I still refused. So he didn't give it to me. I got rather worried, but now it's said and done. Yesterday I worried my ass off about getting an infection, but I guess if I didn't get some bacteria in the first couple of days, it's a little safer now, since my wound is starting to heal. Besides, the second dressing they put on, was a spray that hardened me thinks. Rather cool. Waterproof as well. With another plaster over it. I smsed Dr Deepak about it because I was so worried, and he said that it didn't really decrease the risk of me getting an infection if I took it for another 2 days. Was gonna call Dr Kwan today, but my mum totally threw a fit so I didn't call. Admittedly, I shouldn't be bothering them. It was my choice after all. But still a bit scared.

So now we're here. Alot of people visited me. Some brought food and chocolate. Mostly family. Kit, Marc, Brian, Kent and another dude came and saw me right before I left. Hisa, Nao, Elder and Hisa's friend came and visited me the day before, and Christine came and visited that night. It was a bit difficult to put on a brave face, but it was okay. I was very glad. My mum's pissed like nobody's business though. On the way home, my dad lashed at me for being suicidal. He was all, out of the tens of thousands of people that have panic attack, YOU want to kill yourself. How come just you want to kill yourself? What about everyone else? and It doesn't matter me if you die, and you should have told me before the operation, then I wouldn't have wasted my money. Also you're just using your panic attacks to control us. Ma says he loves me that's why he said those things and besides, they're true. BULLSHIT pardon my French. I got really upset and cried a lot. He had to pay extra 5000 ringgit because he didn't prepare the check earlier to pay the company for my rods. The people estimated it would be 40 000, but we had to pay 48 000. My health insurance was supposed to cover up till 40 000 methinks, but my dad was lazy and didn't renew. So he renewed it a bit late so he had to pay out of his pocket first. And now he's all pissed because it's messing with his comfortable retirement plan.

Whatever man.

Anyway, thanks to all the people who visited, you really made me feel loved!

Yeah. So that’s what was in my LJ. In hindsight, I am really glad they didn’t pull out the tube that they put down my throat while I was awake. The tube was to help me breathe or something like that during the operation, and to keep me under. I mean, I had all that crap pulled out of me while I was still awake, if they tried to pull a tube out of my throat while I was awake, they’d watch me go into cardiac arrest right before their very eyes. A few days later,

Today I have to go back to the hospital for a review. They're gonna look at my wound and check that it's healing properly I guess. I think they will remove the dressing and my stitches. Glory glory hallelujah, I can (hopefully) finally take a bath. A proper shower, not just sponging. I've been getting infections in my skin that pop up as acne because I haven't been able to clean my back properly. I hope they'll go away soon. Not to mention my entire back is itchy, but it's all numb anyway so when I scratch, it's still itchy. -_-''' Also, yesterday I woke up because I dreamt that I felt nauseated. This is the second time this has happened, and it is most distressing. I must ask the doctor about this.

Something rather... amazing happened to me a while ago, when Mariya, Daniel and Annette came over to see how I was doing. Right, FYI, I have Artemis Fowl the first book and the fourth book which I bought in Singapore a while ago. Then my eldest sister asked me what books I wanted while I was recovering, and I told her Artemis Fowl, and she got me the latest book which is the fifth book. I was reading the fifth book when Annette came over, and she saw it and said she had two Artemis Fowl books that one of her backpacker friends had left with her about 3 years ago. He stayed at her place for a while, and he loved Artemis Fowl too. But he didn't have enough space in his backpack, so he left the books behind. She asked if I wanted them, and I was like.. yeah, sure. The kids bring em over, and BY THE GODS they are the two exact books missing in my collection. The second and third book. Such foresight her backpacker friend had, to have left these EXACT books behind! If he ever comes again, I must thank him for helping me complete my collection.

And that's my life~

Very fascinating. I will have to update my LJ now. It’s been ignored since last year, poor thing. On Monday, my monthly assessment starts. I’m so dead. But then again, not really. I’m sort of prepared for Chemistry and Math. I’ve got one whole day before Physics to study. But on Monday I have PA and Math. PA I have to study two frigging long chapters on Malaysian.. um. Government? Just to answer 10 objective questions. –_- Kinda not worth it. Anyway, that’s it for tonight.