A lesson to learn

Many of you thought I went for a scan due to my tennis elbow. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. While I was at the doc, I also complained about a persistent back pain, which strangely only attacking my left back. An urine screening was performed that the result showed I had haematuria; which means there’s blood in my urine. Haematuria is segregated into 4 scales, from 1+ to 4+ with 4+ being the worst. Mine was 4+.

I was referred to an urologist and Jules went with me the next day. They took my urine again for screening and again, there was blood. The initial diagnosis was kidney stone and an ultrasound scan was performed and subsequently, a CT scan on my abdomen was done. I was given all clear and the urologist I should do another urine test 2 days later to see if the haematuria still persists.

2 days later (Friday), I went to the GP’s clinic to do another urine screening and haematuria still persisted at 4+ and I was again referred to the urologist. When I was at the urologist, another urine sample was taken again and this is when I say God performed a miracle. The haematuria dropped from 4+ to… negative! Just to confirm the new findings, my urine sample was sent for microscopic study and my blood sample was taken to test my kidney function.

Just as I was about to leave the clinic, I was told that the nurse will called if the results are normal while the doctor will call if there are any anomalies.

While waiting for the call, there were many prayers said for me by my friends and also by my fellow mates in the blogosphere and I must say I am very thankful for that. Most of all, I am thankful for Jules who has been very positive and being very strong. All these certain helped cause I must admit, I was beginning to freak out.

Waiting for the call (hopefully from the nurse) was an absolute mental torture. It was also a very good time to reflect upon my life. All the ‘what-if’ and morbid thoughts were making my mind their playground. One thing for sure, I was in no mood to work. I just dropped all I was asked to do in the office and went home to rest.

At about 12pm on Saturday, my phone rang and the caller ID showed the number from the urologist clinic…

“Hello”
“Hello Mr. Zewt. This is Dr. Loh”

My heart stopped at that moment, it’s the doc and not the nurse. In a split second, I mentally prepared myself for the worse.

“Mr. Zewt, it’s confirmed that there is no excessive red blood cells in your urine and your blood test showed your kidney function is normal”

At that moment, I truly believe that doctor has a great sense of humour. Before I can say thank you, he hung up. I called Jules immediately and told her the news.

I think I learnt a few things from last week’s ordeal. The first is of course, one must never take one’s health for granted. It is something which we do not want to lose and yet, it is something we always put at risk in our other pursuits; be it career or any other thing. Seriously, we always underestimate this, I cannot stress enough.

Another thing which I learnt is that we all need medical insurance. I am not an insurance agent but I must say medical expenses are so expensive now that if you do not have insurance coverage, the additional pressure should there be an unfortunate incident is just not worth it. Get a medical card today, it’s not that expensive. My medical expenses last week was all paid by my company. For all the complaints I made about it, I am glad the medical policy is quite wide. I understand that a CT scan can cost thousands. I guess I just got paid for all the overtime I put in; not to mention I had mine in one of the most expensive hospital in town.

Last but not least, I have learnt that no matter how bleak the situation is; God is always in control and he is always merciful to us. I claimed from him the promise that He has a plan for me, a plan not to harm me but proper me. And of course, I cannot forget all the wonderful thoughts and prayer warrior friends I have a round me; both inside and outside the blogosphere.

Appreciating life

I love this series called Grey’s Anatomy and I am sure there are plenty out there who’s with me. It is one which depicts the lives of surgeons and their daily antics in the hospital. With a right dosage of what I call ‘subtle humour’ and a heavy presence of the sex element, it has successfully romanticised the whole hospital scene. Despite the occasional death, it gives you a very good feel about disease and hospital. But is it really the case?

I spent half a day at the hospital yesterday and though it was not my first, it was the most torturing experience, mentally speaking. The CT scan that I went to was not for my arm, it was for my abdomen, where all my vital organs are. While waiting, I could see that the whole scene was just so different from the series.

There were no smiling nurses, there were no cheerful patients, there were no doctors walking around talking to patients and certainly, there were no hospital staff flirting with each other or the patients. I could only see grumpy looking hospital staff and most of the other people are worried looking patients. I saw a mother closed her eyes and prayed when her child was wheeled in for CT scan before me. I looked at her and smiled, but she looked away as though she didn’t see me.

I know tv series are often not reflective of reality but when I actually feel it first hand, it can be quite a gloomy experience. I am again reminded of how fragile and yet precious life is.

I would like to share with you a story in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy which I watched last week. Don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler…

A surgical intern accidentally delivered ‘the bad news’ to a wrong patient. This patient, who thought she was going to die, decided to check out from the hospital immediately. She came back 2 days later to see the surgical intern who gave her the wrong news and happily thank him because she said she can finally quit her job which she hates and dumped her boyfriend whom she never love. She has wanted to do that for so long and finally, she found a reason to do it… death or in her case, the thought of death.

The whole thing was acted with great humour and while we can laugh at it… isn’t it funny that we will only do the things that we wanted most when we know that we are going to die and while we are alive, we bite the bullet and take all the shit? No, the answer is that it’s not funny, but sad.

I know… I know… I can hear it over the screen…the silent thought in your mind or a silent whisper that goes “she has nothing to lose anymore”. That is true. But do you know what is the opposite of having nothing to lose? It’s when you have plenty to lose. And that is you and me, people who think we can live forever.

We do not have the luxury of ‘having nothing to lose’ but… we forget that the irony of it is that we have plenty to lose. The only difference is that we have not lost it… … … yet. Yes, life is short, but don’t make it shorter.

Wednesday blues

Many of us have read stories about how we should not take those who are around us for granted. It’s a fact which we sometimes learnt it the hard way. But I think there is someone which we truly should not take for granted at all… that someone is… ourselves.

I never thought my right hand is so important until yesterday, when I woke up with what the doc said was a ‘tennis elbow’. No, I am not a tennis player and the injury was from badminton the day before. From the moment I wake up, my whole day was turned upside down… from brushing teeth to washing my face to eating and any action which requires my right hand. I felt like a handicapped.

That simple visit to the doctor yesterday led to some unwanted discovery in me which then led to a visit to the specialist clinic today. I had my maiden CT scan in my life today. It was quite a frightening experience… not the scanning process, but waiting for the results. The scan gave me all clear but I will have to return to the clinic this Friday to do another test.

I am sure many will agree that our bodies take the most beating sometimes. We abuse it, to the max really. If we do not learn to take care of ourselves and continue to take our health for granted, there will only be one loser at the end of it all… us.

I thank God that Jules have been very supportive and positive about things. I am glad she will walk with me all the way. Perhaps I am the one who is a little too negative. Whatever it is, the 2 days between now and Friday will be the longest 2 days of my life. Do pray for me.

The mess continues

I have been blogging for almost 10 months now and on an average, each posts usually gets about 45 comments. But if you were to notice, there are certain types of posts which do not get many comments. Indeed, those boring socio-political posts usually get very low comments count. Also, comments on such posts are usually made anonymously.

It’s quite apparent that people are not only afraid to blog about socio-political stuff, but they are also very afraid to comment. Very strange though. While comments count for such posts are hard to come by, the traffic of AZAIG will usually hit above average when such posts are being put up. I can confidently conclude that there are a lot of people out there who are interested in reading about socio-political stuff but are just too afraid actually get their hands dirty to type in something.

I linked a post written by an 18-year-old girl in September. It was a brilliant piece about the state of our country amidst the 50th Merdeka celebration. It was so good that Jules said she wish she could write like that 18-year-old. Hmmm… how come Jules never said anything about my writing before…

Anyway, this 18-year-old girl once again wrote another magnificent piece about the current judiciary issue. It is quite apparent that the younger generation are quite aware and very much concern about the local political scene. When I say younger generation, I actually meant those in their teens. I have met up with TingTitLei and his bunch of friends once and they are all in their teens. But their knowledge and awareness about the current development and how they wish they can register to vote puts many of us to shame.

Besides those teens, another bunch of people who are very much concern about the current affairs of this country is the (with all due respect)… the ‘older generation’. If you are familiar with the blogosphere, you will realise that all the hardcore socio-political blogs belongs to this ‘older’ generation.

So we have the really young generation and the ‘older’ generation very much concern about the development of current affairs in our country… what about those in between?

I believe those in the ‘in-between’ generation made up most of the ‘silent readers’ population. They are those who live in frustration and fear. Many in the ‘in-between’ generation are frustrated and to a certain extend angry at things, but they are the ones who live in fear. They are afraid that their normal comfort lives will be turned upside down if they were to do something. Frankly speaking, I am quite one of them.

A quite quote from my earlier post…”Those who refuse to do anything because they rather not be a part of the mess… by virtue of not doing anything… IS part of the mess”

Based on the above… looks like we have the younger guys hoping that they can clean the mess… the older guys trying to clean the mess… and those in between… making loads of mess.

P/S: I am certainly not expecting many comments for this one...

Are you part of the mess?

I was at a forum on Saturday, one which talked about “Christianity and Politics”. It was more like an open discussion amongst those who were there but there were some church leaders at national level who were with us. It was quite an eye opener, for me at least, to see many young people who are so aware of the current happenings around our country.

One interesting and provoking discussion point was raised by a former church-mate of mine. He said that he was increasingly ‘frustrated’ dealing with churches which only concentrate on evangelism and nothing else matters. It sparked a verbal attack by a respected figure in the local Christian community. No, he was not attacking my church-mate… he was attacking the churches...
To me… Christians have always been a bunch of hypocrites… particularly those from big mega churches. We claim that God is almighty… that Christians should not be afraid of the devil… but yet, we are afraid of ISA. We claim that God can deliver us from ‘death’, but yet we are afraid of ISA. We said that we stand for the truth… but we would rather sit on lies just to keep our ass-es off ISA.

Christians, just like some politicians… also suffer from foot-in-mouth disease…

For those who are unaware, there has been news going around saying that the current monarchy (i.e. the Agong/Sultans/Rulers) has grown increasingly frustrated about the current administration of this country. Further news suggest that our Agong may come up and ‘do something’ about it. Of course, regular rakyat like us will usually go… “yeah right”… I am one of them.

Those who have been following the local political scene closely will know that this coming Tuesday, 31st October 2007 is quite a significant date. It is the final day of the current Chief Justice (“CJ”) tenure. The govt has been ‘pressuring’ our Agong to approve the extension of the CJ’s tenure to which our Agong has yet to agree. I shall not go into why he refuses to extend the CJ’s tenure… go find out yourself.

To me… if our Agong stands his ground and refuse to extend the CJ’s tenure, then I am somewhat convinced that our Agong means business. And because I think he means business, I will play my part in making a difference and not let the foot-in-mouth disease to eat me up.

How?

Following the recent lawyer’s march from Palace of Justice to the Prime Minister’s Office, another walk has been organised and this time, the walk will be from Dataran Merdeka to the Agong’s palace to hand him a petition to reform the Electoral Commission. The date is 10th November 2007 and the walk starts at 3pm. If the Agong stands his ground and refuse to extend the CJ’s tenure, I will be there.

I shall leave you with a one point which really hit me during the the forum which I attended. It was raised by quite a young fella who was there… he said…

“Those who refuse to do anything because they rather not be a part of the mess… by virtue of not doing anything… IS part of the mess”

Are you part of the mess?

Living: Malaysia vs Hong Kong

Hong Kong (“HK) has always been a country with high cost of living. Ask any regular Malaysian about HK and you will probably hear the word “expensive” in most of their remarks. Of course, there are Malaysians who will flock to HK during the mega sale as prices then are believed to be cheap. However, they have not factored in the flight and accommodation costs yet, which are usually quite high during that period.

Anyway, I have been to HK twice and I have to admit, prices are quite ridiculous… if you keep converting them to RM. Below are the average prices of some of the things in HK as verified by one of my friend currently working there. When I said average, I mean it’s somewhere in between mediocrity and luxury.

Exchange rate: RM1 = HKD2.1
Indeed, the prices are quite over the top aren’t they? One will wonder how can anyone survive in HK. But is HK that expensive?

I have always been thinking about a way to compare cost of living between countries and I have somewhat come up with a salary-expenses multiplier method. First, let us do a salary comparison between Malaysia and HK. Below is the average (please note the word average) salary scale in the Big 4 accounting firm industry. Again, this is an average between all the 4 firms.
As you can see from the above, the salaries of modern slaves in HK are more than those in Malaysia by an average multiplier of 8.7. By using the multiplier of 8.7, I have factored in the multiplier into the prices of stuff in HK to obtain the multiplier-adjusted-prices (“MAP”) by dividing the prices of HK stuff by 8.7. You may not agree with me but I believe that by factoring the multiplier into the prices, a more reflective comparison between salary-expenses here and HK can be obtained.

Below is the table between the MAPs of HK stuff as compared to Malaysian prices.
Based on the above, you can see that things in HK are not that expensive if you are working there. Of course, some economic expert here may not agree with my methodology but to me, by factoring the salary multiplier into the prices of goods/services, a relatively reflective comparison can be made.

As such, I believe we live in quite an expensive environment unless you are a very fortunate person who happened to own a big business or work for MFC Sdn Bhd. MFC… My Father’s Company. Otherwise, a regular modern slave in Malaysia lives in quite a tough environment staring at imminent tougher challenges. Oh, I have not even mention savings yet, but I think that is a story for another time.

I also invite Malaysians living abroad to do a Zewt MAPs comparison if you think it makes sense.

Note:
This is purely a personal analysis and you may disagree with me. But should you choose to apply this methodology in any of your assignments or presentation, I would appreciate if you could mention that it is taken from AZAIG. It has come to my attention that some contents from AZAIG was used in some college presentation and claimed as original work by the presenter. While I cannot sue you, I do hope you will respect me and AZAIG.

An enlightening comment

I just got back from a small dinner gathering with some close friends so I am going to take a short cut in today’s entry. Fellow blogger Vincent left a very long comment in one of my recent post and I think his comment worth mentioning here. He is talking about how an increase in crude oil price will not benefit a net oil exporter country like ours. Quite enlightening I must say. His comments are as follows:-

Because I actually like you (I think you are better than a lot of the silly “socio political bloggers”) I shall take the time to explain how fuel subsidy works. (zewt - vincent, you're not gay right?)

Being a net exporter is actually irrelevant in many ways. In some countries where their National Oil Company is the one who runs the petrol stations, they can afford to charge the people at cost price or even subsidise the fuel significantly. I would argue that socialism is bad for business, but since it's the "people's oil" it is acceptable that they charge at cost price or a lost.

However, in Malaysia, we have loads of oil companies operating different petrol stations. Shell has the market share of about 35% while Petronas has about 32% (don't quote me on the exact figures). The rest of the market share is split out between BHP, Esso and Mobil (Projet now belongs to Shell).

Therein lies the problem. Foreign companies charge the market price. The government has to PAY them the difference between the market price and the set price of RM1.92. Which means that when the price of crude oil increases, the foreign oil companies will charge the government more and hence the government spends more just to keep the price at RM1.92.

Again, we can argue that subsidies are meant to 'help' the people. But that argument can only hold valid if the market was dominated by Petronas. But since 70% of the market share is taken up by foreign oil companies, surely it doesn't seem wise that all those subsidies are flowing out of the country into foreign hands instead of remaining within??

10-15 isn't exactly accurate. This is a case of a politician talking without exactly knowing his facts. I believe the latest figures stand at about 19 years. 10 years ago when I was in school, we were told there was enough oil for another 20 years only.

The 'discrepancies' in the figures are actually due to discovery of new wells and new technology which allows oil that was previously un-extractable to be available. Also, rising crude oil prices have made many small wells which were previously not financially viable to extract very feasible now.

I am sure you all find it informative cause I did. By the way, crude oil price hit a record high of USD90 per barrel a few days ago before settling down.