Jump Rope

While waiting for my injured ligament to completely heal for jogging, I have taken to jumping rope to maintain my stamina. Was doing an online search on jump rope techniques and I came upon an amazingly stupid product called the ropeless jump rope.

I went to the JumpSnap website out of curiosity and I saw the most hilarious video featuring a bunch of people jumping to an imaginary rope. Think the emperor and his new clothes.

I Am Smart

Permit me to be a narcissistic. I just realise I am a truly smart human being, and maybe that is why stupid people who pretend to be smart irritates me to no end.

Take for example this civil servant (one of those on the pensioner scheme) who came to argue about the coverage of his calcium tablet. As of 1st July 2007, the ministry officially announced that non-standard medicines would no longer be covered under Medical Claim Proration System (MCPS). For civil servants it is also commonly known as the CSC scheme. However, in recognition of the fact that the number of non-standard drug treatments available are increasing with medical advances, the ministry is still covering non-standard medicine provided:


1. the medicine is prescribed by the doctor for the diagnosis/ treatment and
2. there is no standard alternative available in the institution. (not the exact words, but that is the gist of it)

The above mentioned civil servant came to my pharmacy yesterday to collect Caltrate Plus. It's nothing really fanciful, just calcium + vit D + small amounts of zinc, manganese, magnesium and copper. When we told him that Caltrate Plus, obviously a non-standard health supplement, cannot be claimed under MCPS he started arguing that the ministry send out a letter saying that all medicine prescribed by a doctor can be claimed. We then whipped out the same circular that was given us by the ministry and pointed out to him that the ministry only covers non-standard drugs if they meet the 2 criteria mentioned above.

My junior offered to contact the doctor to change the Caltrate Plus to some other calcium tablet which he rejected and told us he would bring the letter from ministry to prove us wrong. Fine so be it.

So he came today, with the letter which was exactly the same as the one that we had. He kept harping on the phrase, "However, non-standard medicine can still be covered if..." Somehow it eluded him that the "however" only applies if the 2 criteria mentioned above are met. When I tried explaining that to him, he insisted that the calcium tablet be covered because of the "however" and the phrase that says "if prescribed by the doctor". I was frustrated by then, and having difficulty controlling my anger at his idiocy. Told him it is only applicable if criteria 1 AND criteria 2 are met. Not criteria 1 OR criteria 2.

Frankly speaking I do not know how many times I repeated that it is criteria 1 AND 2 not 1 OR 2. Frustrating when talking to people who pretend to be fluent in English and cannot even understand the simple concept of "and" and "or".

Anyway, the ultimate was when he said I did not offer to call the doctor to change the Caltrate Plus to another calcium tablet yesterday. Good job. I was not the person he spoke to yesterday so how was I to offer to call the doctor yesterday? This senile and imbecilic fool insisted he spoke to me yesterday, and when my junior came forth to clarify that she was the one who spoke to him, he still insisted he spoke to me. Felt like slapping him on his head. Oh, but I really should not do that because that will really kill whatever pitiable amount of brain cells that he has left.

He took down my name, perhaps to lodge a complain, so I would probably get hauled up to have a cuppa with those patient grovelling fools in the Quality Improvement Unit. Oh well, I am only a temp staff who is slowly planning my way out of patient-care. That is right Singapore, you are going to lose another pharmacist from the patient-care sector. Go look for your foreign pharmacists if you can and see if they have a strong enough stomach to handle your stupid citizens.

Kiasuism to the Boot

What exactly is wrong with Singaporeans that practising kiasuism is like a national hobby?

Parents complain about the stupid PSLE Math questions being too difficult. Get this straight. Your precious pumpkin ain't smart. If they are truly smart, they would not be crying shamelessly after the paper. Anyway, lousy genes begets lousy off springs.

Then there was this idiotic woman who kept telling me "excuse me" and pushing me when we were both trying to get off the overly crowded bus. Fortunately for her it was the beginning of the day and my mood is not that foul. Had it been the end of the day I would turn into a crocodile and snap at her.

Crappy life.

GEP

Yes, the gifted education programme aka GEP's in the limelight these days. Somebody wrote in to the forum "complaining" about an education centre that is offering training courses to help a child get into GEP. The author believes such courses are giving children unnecessary stress and it is not fair for those whose parents are not rich enough to send them to such courses. I will not go into the debate that is going on in the forum, but there is something that I do not agree with.

Contrary to believe that IQ is innate, IQ can actually be trained. Do this simple exercise yourself. Take an IQ test at a reputable website, and record your score. Then for the next 3 months, you go to other not-as-reputable websites that offers IQ questions/tests every now and then to hone your skills. Then go back to the same reputable website and re-do the IQ test. You will find it is not difficult to increase your IQ by another 10 points.

Such being the case, we really cannot fault the parents who wants to send their children to get into GEP. Give them kids a chance to practise, but no need to stress to much on getting into GEP. After all, GEP is not a guaranteed road to success.

Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategies never fail to amaze me. Take Anlene milk powder for example. Previously the company claimed their milk powder contains phyto-K which is scientifically proven to improve calcium absorption. Out of curiosity I went to PubMed to do a quick search of the scientific journals. Nothing turned up from my search regarding phyto-K. That's right. It is all a marketing gimmick.

Recently they came up with another marketing gimmick: nano-calcium. According to the company, nano-calcium is smaller than the usual calcium. Now, anybody who has been paying attention in chemistry class knows that such a thing cannot happen. A calcium atom is a calcium atom. You cannot make a calcium atom smaller by squeezing all its neutrons, protons and electrons into a smaller space. They occupy a fixed distance from one another because that is the most stable state to be in. Duh.

Frustrations @ Work

I am frustrated. Doing the same thing day in day out. Calling up doctors to do the same intervention everyday. Just what is wrong with those stupid orthopedic doctors that they cannot drill into their heads that max glucosamine is 1500mg/day so if a tablet is 750mg/ tablet, the patient cannot be taking 3 tablets a day.

You would think doctors should be able to do simple math, but they never cease to amaze me. Painkiller to take 1 tablet twice daily for 2 months = 30 tabs. Somebody please enlighten me on how 1 x 2 x 60 equals to 30?! And there was a doctor who actually told the patient that pharmacists can calculate the number of tubes of cream to supply. I like to think I am brilliant, but I must admit I am not that brilliant. How am I suppose to calculate the number of tubes of cream to supply when all I know is that the patient needs to apply the cream twice a day for 1 month?!

Stupid doctors. If you do not like us calling you so often, then make it a point to prescribe properly. It is not as if we enjoyed calling you.

Stealing...

Stealing is stealing whether you do it in the real world or in a cyber world created by those who developed Diablo, right? Or maybe not. Was playing online Diablo out of boredom just now. Somebody joined the game I created and dropped some really good items on the ground which my brother promptly asked me to pick up. I know this is a cyber world and all these items are not really worth anything in the real world. Nevertheless, that player must have taken the trouble to fight bosses after bosses to get those items and I felt bad picking them up without seeking the approval of the other party.

This prompted a mini argument with my brother. To me, taking without asking amounts to stealing, but my brother argued that no players drop items on the ground for others to see in hope that others would keep their hands off them; anything on the ground is up for grabs. I had received powerful weapons or armor from other players before but those players would specifically let me know those are for me, that player did not.

My brother then continued arguing that those weapons are definitely for me because the weapons dropped are specific for the Amazon class whilst that player is playing the Paladin class. I mean, fair enough, but at the very least send a "thank you" message to that player. My brother just shook his head while he took control of my character looking through the items "given" to me and proceed to transfer some of the armor to his characters. He saw no point in asking nor thanking.

I am disturbed. Will there be a day when we live by the cyber rules and forget the social and moral rules that we have now?

Sprain

Sprained my knee last Saturday. No wonder I was experiencing so much pain when walking down staircases. By Monday my knee was visibly swollen and I was not even able to bend my knee properly. In a twist of event yesterday, I felt my leg bone shifted when I walked down a slope. Voila! No more pain when I walked down the staircase this morning, but doctor's order was to stay away from high impact sports for 2 weeks. Sighz...

Rasa Sayang

Malaysia and Indonesia are fighting. Over a song. According to the papers, Malaysia wanted to use the song, Rasa Sayang, in its tourism campaign but Indonesian government is trying to block that by claiming copyrights to the song.

Pardon my ignorance, but Rasa Sayang sounds like a Malay folk song to me so why can't Malaysia use it in their tourism campaign? I am sure other people have used this song for commercial purposes to represent the Malay culture, so why does the Indonesian government only make a stand to claim Rasa Sayang's origins now?

Somehow I am apt to think that this is again triggered by some stupid political issue. Indonesian government, after all, has the tendency to find excuses to fault other countries. It started with Singapore affecting Indonesia's ecology by importing sand used for construction, then it is Malaysia ripping off her heritage by using the song Rasa Sayang. Indonesia does not even know the composer of the song so what right does she have over the song?

上星期你还来我这儿。11岁的你已情窦初开了吗？虽然妈妈说不能想念哥哥，你是否一直在偷偷想念他？我想也许是吧。不然听说哥哥走了你也不会小声地问：“难道哥哥就不会想念我吗？”

可这回换我问你一句：“难道你不眷恋这个人生吗？” 这个答案我永远都不会知道了。