First Encounter with Animal Death; Turning Guilt to a Positive Experience

Today, my son had his first experience with the death of an animal. It's not his pet, as we don't have one, but it might as well have been one for him.

It was raining hard the past few days, and as such, snails are coming out of the woodwork. Today was exceptionally sunny, so they took the opportunity to go to the playground. While playing, he came upon a very very small snail. Having just watched Turbo the previous week, he wanted to play with the little snail, which he admiringly called Baby Turbo. He wanted to feel it's tiny shell. But -- as most 3-year-olds -- he does't have full control of his hands and fingers' strength and crushed the poor thing.

He was shocked and asked his Ate "Fix natin si Baby Turbo" (Let's fix Baby Turbo.) He cried. A lot. The same cries he makes when he is emotionally overwhelmed when he knows he did something he shouldn't have done. It was the cry of guilt and sadness. As his dad, I felt and heard the pain in his cries. (Parents, you know this.) And whenever he is reminded of the incident, he cries again. I hugged and comforted him, telling him that it's okay. I tried to redirect his attention first, as it was time for his bath.

While he was taking a bath, I searched the internet for some advise. Most of the things I found are related to kids dealing with death of their pets. While not technically a pet, these are definitely something I can use.

Later, I asked him again what happened to Baby Turbo. He's trying to hold back his tears but is clearly upset. With a sad face and eyes winking back the tears, he tries to change topic. Staying on course, I asked him to look into daddy's eyes. (We're training him to look into our eyes whenever we have to say something serious or important.) I said that I know that he is upset because Baby Turbo died. (Yeah, those internet advise said no sugar coating -- use the word "dead" instead of "passed away".) I said that it's okay to be sad and to remember next time to be more careful. I asked if he wanted to pray for Baby Turbo, to which he immediately clasped his hands in the praying position. (We teach him to pray every day and every night and every meal.) After that I asked him to give me a hug. It took a few tries but when he finally did, I knew that he found a certain amount of comfort in it.

He felt better at least for a bit, but I knew that he is still upset. This experience was weighing heavily on his mind, as it shows in his face and his body language. It's expected, I guess, as he is still in that grieving mode. This is his first grief so I have no idea yet how long his grieving period is going to last. All I can tell is that his crankiness level has increased tenfold but I'm extending my rope; after all, this is a traumatic experience for him. I just let him be and let him express it and deal with it on his own way. I'll just stay on the sidelines for now and observe how he progresses.

11:58 AM, he is about to eat his lunch. Before that he prayed on his own. (Normally we need to remind him to pray first before eating.) He prayed to Papa Jesus to bless the food, the "rice na may sabaw" (rice soaked in soup), and to take care of Ate Keizha (his cousin who just got out of the hospital) and Baby Turbo. As he ate, his crankiness went done several notches. So he was hungry and upset, never a good combination. :))

I'd say things are looking up, taking a turn for the positive. All things considered, something good has come out of this experience. A hard lesson in life (and death) introduced at an early age, and slowly reinforcing the praying habit. And I'm blogging again after another extended hiatus. :D

My First Allergy Scare

1. Normal evening. Just looking for some things for my bookbinding project.
2. Yes, I know. It's just a hobby I picked up somewhere. How quaint.
3. Anyway, I finally found the wax, the threads, the crafting needles, and some bookbinding sticky tape. Found them stashed in of 'em plastic stackable cases. I put them away to a container I frequently use, expecting to do them the next time I'm free. I had to go to bed early as I am on shift the next day.
4. In hindsight, those stackable cases were pretty dusty. Note to self: clean them later. Need some goggles and a facemask next time I do any cleaning around the house.
5. As we finished preparing for bed, I turned off the light. It was pitch black all of a sudden. It has to be, so my son can sleep sooner than later.
6. By this time, my nose was beginning to get really stuffy. I thought nothing of it at the time, recounting my dusty encounter with while looking for my things. My wife decided to get me some stuffy nose meds and water to help clear it up.
7. Shortly, my eyes have become unbearably itchy. I went out the room to get the eyedrops we have in the fridge, drop some on my eyes, then returned to bed.
8. It helped, but besides the slight relief, my eyes are still bothering me a lot. I decided I should get another dose of the eye drops.
9. I went to the toilet first though as it I really needed to pee. Turned the lights on, and saw my face. Holey sheet! My eyes were all puffy and swollen! I got the eyedrops again. Then went back.
10. Told and showed my wife, we decided to go to the nearest hospital, NUH.
11. For a while, I had this silly notion that the eyedrops would work just fine, even though my face was really swollen. First time I had that. Denial I guess.
12. My face reminded me of the vampires in Buffy and Angel. You know, the prosthetic makeup / whatever on the forehead and around the eyes of the vampire actors to make them look, you know, vampirey. Hehehe.
13. Decent clothes checked, phone checked, money checked, and so is my IC. (Never forget your IC!) Thankfully, a taxi was just unloading some passengers close by. I had to run there though, before he drives away. We got the cab and we got in.
14. I'm still relaxed for someone in my state, I guess; eyes nearly getting closed, breathing becoming more difficult. The taxi ride was thankfully a short one.
15. By the time we got to the ENI, I was still pretty calm, my mouth was open because my nose already closed up. I can no longer breathe through my nose.
16. The nurse there offerred me a wheelchair but I declined. I can still walk, I just can't breathe. In hindsight, another silly idea on my part. That was my chance to finally sit on a wheelchair! Damn! Missed opportunity again. Hehehe
17. Seriously though, I had to keep my mouth open most of the time. A bit tough for me to talk to the nurses when they examined me. They thought that I got this from taking paracetamol. Good thing the missus was there to check what the nurses were typing in my records.
18. I wonder what would life be like if I actually am allergic to paracetamol? It's the most common meds for the most common ills. With that out of the picture, I wonder what else I could take?
19. Just to backtrack a bit. In the NUH Emergency Room, there are some steps: Step 1: temperature check. Step 2: registration and payment (S$100 standard cost). Step 3: Triage (nurse's initial assessment). Step 4: Consultation with doctor (wait for queue number to be called; waiting time that time was 2 to 3 hours). Step 5: Pharmacy and payment of any remaining balance.
20. In my case, though, I didn't have to wait for my queue number to be called in Step 4. I guess they figured this was already an emergency. They said my BP is quite high. 195/105 or something. I guess that's one effect of not being able to breathe! So from Triage, I went straight to what looks like an ER. Lots of nurses and patients in varying ages, shapes, and conditions.
21. The nurses back in Triage offered me to sit on the wheelchair but I declined again! Oh well, I'll never get to sit on a wheelchair this round I think.
22. Back to the story: in that ER, I lied down on one of them fancy hospital beds. It was getting cold so the sheets were a welcome sight.
23. Nurse gave me six tablets. No idea what they were, they just told me antidote to the swelling and allergies. I'm guessing it's some form of antihistamine. (Thank you, Dr. House! Hehe)
24. I felt the immediate effect of the tablets. The itch around the eyes disappeared. And my nasal passages have opened up a bit. Big relief!
25. Shortly, they told me they will give me a big dose of anti-allergy meds via injection. They said it will be extremely painful so it had to be done on the bigger muscles: the thighs.
26. It's been a while since I got pierced with a needle. First thing that popped in my mind was when I gave a bag of blood for my mother almost a decade ago. The next one that I remember were a series of vaccine shots I got from the local clinic. I was jobless at that time, so I figured it was a good time as any to get myself some shots. Yep, never been vaccinated before. That was my first time. Hehe. All of my previous needles were on the arms or shoulders. Never on the thighs. I wonder what it would be like...
27. Okay needle's in. I've had bigger needles stuck on me. It was fine. But when the nurse pressed the meds in. Ooooh... It's like acid eating away your flesh from the inside. Yeowchies! Well, they did say it was painful...
28. Besides the irritating pain on my leg, I feel a lot better. I can now close my mouth as I can now breathe again through my nose. No more itchy eyes. And the swelling has hone down a bit. I was taken to some kind of recovery room. Recovery room had 10 slots, I was in number 5. Doctor told me to rest there until morning, as the antidote I took has that lovely drowsiness effect. Not sure what they were talking about. I was up and lively.
29. Then again, it just might be the fact that I haven't peed yet for the last few hours. Missed my chance at #9 above.
30. Good. Peed my worries away. The bed feels a lot softer and more comfortable afterwards. Still not sleepy though. I brought out my phone and used up all my energy in Marvel WoH and I started blogging about this rather fascinating experience.
31. And just like that it was morning. 6:30. I must have dozed off into a deep, dreamless sleep. I remembered I'm supposed to go to work today. Sent SMS to my boss and to my shift partner, then emailed the rest of the team regarding my MC.Thank God for Mobile Technology!
32. I was discharged shortly. They gave me a one-day MC, a referral letter to the NUH Dermatology Clinic for follow-up (this seems to be a common practice here), and a prescription slip which I am to take to the Pharmacy (aka Step 5). I hauled my butt off of bed and went straight there. A little anxious as it's really cold and it's raining really hard outside.
33. Got my medicine from pharmacy. Got 42 tablets of prednisolone (looks like the same one I got earlier in #23) and 10 tablets of loratadine. A quick wiki search says they're anti-inflammatory steroids (yikes) and antihistamine for the allergies, respectively. I have to take 1loratadine and 6 prednisolone in the morning after meal.
34. I was quickly on my way to the Kent Ridge MRT. I could have been there sooner if I didn't get lost! :)) It was my first time through the NUH grounds so I got to see a lot of eating places before I got to the taxi stand and the MRT.
35. Got home quickly and nicely. Once I'm in bed I dozed off immediately. I woke up past 12 noon.
36. A lot of things happened after that, but that is a story for another time. :)

Confessions of a Coca-Cola Addict

I am twenty-nine years old, a husband and a dad. And I am a Coke addict -- the drink, not the drugs. I have been an addict for most of life. And I am trying to change. I've been trying to earlier, but I always go back to my old ways. I hope that by sharing this with you, I can cope and finally kick the habit.

The earliest time I remember having my first coke was when I was seven years old. I was in school with my mom during the end of the semester to get my report card. After getting it, we went to the canteen in the ground floor of the main building. There, my mom bought me a coke and a brownie. Can't remember the how much the brownie was, but the coke was only one peso and fifty cents. Ever since, I have always bought and drank coke.

I am always drinking Coke. When I'm relaxing. When I'm studying. When I'm playing and having fun with the Family Computer (the original NES). It may have contributed to my weight gain. But I didn't mind. I didn't care what the others think. To me, what's important was (1) I'm doing great in school, and (2) I'm enjoying my Coke.

Daddy-to-Be's Long Reprieve

And it's another one of those times when I'm so no blogging for a long while. Not that I don't want to.I simply put it (blogging) off because I'm busy with something else. You know, important things that requires my utmost attention... sort of. :)

So what the hell have I been up to?

Birthday May
My birthday. My birth month. Yey! Yipee! Nothing unusual. Same old, same old celebration at the house with my wife. TV. Cake. Food. Never gets old! :)

Then towards the end of the month, we returned to good ol' Philippines -- way after the May 2010 elections. Our last visit was way back August 2009. Those were painful times for us... So at least now, it's good to look back at our last visit as a more pleasant one.

Unfortunately, the last visit was not without casualties. The touchscreen of Che's Nintendo DS Lite is broken. Well, not broken broken. Just that it can't detect the stylus accurately anymore. It's like there's always a stylus pointed at the upper left region of the screen, so when you're not doing anything, you will see the pointer always on that location. Oh well, I guess it's time to move on. I'm actually eyeing that new Nintendo DS XL. Not sure if the R4DS works on that as well though; haven't had the time to look into it yet...

Then there's this nagging cold and flu. I had this since before our flight home, but I thought I could get by with just Tempra Forte. Guess not. And the weather did not help at all. Raining slightly for ten minutes followed by intense sunlight everyday really did a number on me. Good thing I still get to drive the car... Wow, I missed driving!


Raining June
Yep, rain, rain, rain, and more rain. Good to know that by the time we left, it already started raining again in Manila... At least for the first few days, that is.

So we had the usual cleanup-after-returning-from-a-trip. A bit harder that usual since we're also rearranging stuff for the baby. :) We finally decided to get a Trends portable aircon for the master bedroom. And yes, we're living in a flat without an aircon for the last two years. So installing the portable aircon was a welcome change. It was fun installing the exhaust for the portable aircon; removing the dusty old roman curtain, covering the exhaust cover with printed foil cover (heh), and moving things around so we can place the aircon as close to the window as possible.

Then there's two events that keeps Singapore busy these days: the annual IT Show in Suntec City and, of course, the Great Singapore Sale (GSS). Things just got a bit busier. :)

We already planned this way back... The next big thing that we will buy is a videocam. And so, after much comparison, and weighing of the pros and cons, we finally decided on buying a shiny blue Sony HDR-CX150E. It's within our slightly tightening budget, lightweight, has an internal 16GB harddisk, supports both the Sony memory stick and the SD card, touchscreen, 3.1 Megapixels, 25x Optical zoom, Full HD (1080). And since it's the IT Show, we got a lot of freebies - extra batt, video frame, tripod, etc. And so there you have it. A good buy to suit our needs.

And the very first thing we shot: Che's ultrasound. After three previous sessions of failing to determine our baby's gender, we finally got a confirmation: IT'S A BOY! Hehehe :) And we got it all on tape -- or disk, whatever. :)

Then the ongoing GSS also got us busy. Preparing the baby stuff, choosing the crib and stroller, and more. All these considerations is sometimes abit hard to swallow... Oh well, part of being a new dad. :)

Then on top of these all, there's one other thing we are having a hard time with: what will be the baby's name? We've narrowed down it down to about ten combinations -- we decided that baby should have two first names, so as to avoid the problem I had with NBI Clearance: if your name is too common, chances are, somewhere around the country, there is another person with the same name. :)

So there you have it. The things that got me all riled up. :) Hopefully I can get to post something more often. I do have some opinions about what's happening around. I'm still deciding whether I should publish it or not, though. :)

Good day!

Fighting A(H1N1) Tips for everyone

With the soaring number of cases in Asia -- being led sadly by our dear homeland the Philippines -- the swine flu scare is causing widespread panic and concern, especially infants and pregnant women who are said to be more susceptible to illnesses.

With this in mind, now would be a great time to remind ourselves of the things we can do to stop the spread of the virus. Here's some ways, though do not limit yourself to these:

Wear facemask. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Best way to treat the flu? Not having it in the first place! It not only helps people from getting virus, but also helps infected people from spreading it to others.

Use hand soap, hand sanitizers, alcohol, and/or disinfectants. Cleanliness is next to godliness. So just make sure you use these. Washing with soap and water for 15 to 20 seconds kills whatever germs you have on your hands. If not available, having a handy alcohol or hand sanitizer should suffice. be sure to use them, especially when you use your hands to handle things which might have been passed on from one person to another... which brings me to...

Don't touch anything! Or rather, mind what you touch. Are you in the habit of holding onto handrails, escalators, door handles? Things or places that other people have handled? Better not hold those if you can help it. If it cannot be avoided -- example, you have to hold onto handrails because your balance is just way off the higher you get like yours truly -- be sure you disinfect your hands asap -- see previous item. In addition...

Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. CDC (Center for Disease Control) experts state that this is how one gets infected. If your hands touch something contaminated by the virus and then you touch your eyes, nose or mouth, you introduce the virus inside your body.

Eat healthy foods. Studies show that the A(H1N1) strain in the Philippines is not as strong as the other flu strains in other countries such as US -- hopefully that's true for the cases in Singapore as well. You can easily beat it if you have strong resistance. So first step to building resistance is always eating the right food. This is where your "glow" foods come in -- in case you forgot your Health Education 101, your food groups are "Go" (energy), "Grow" (well, grow), and "Glow" (body resistance).

Load up on vitamins. Better consult your doctor to make sure you're getting the right kibnds of vitamins. Normally for fevers, flu, and the like, vitamin C is the first thing to consider. You get it from citrus fruits (e.g. oranges) or in capsules, tablets or pills.

Lots of sleep. Can't stress this enough. Your body needs sufficient rest to function properly. Ensuring you get at least eight hours of sleep is a good way to start.

Mind your distance from people. Observe your personal space. The closer you allow yourself to other people, the higher the risk of you picking up viruses. Sure, you may be seen as a snob. But hell, are they going to pay for your medical expenses if you get sick because of them? No? Then what the hell... :))

Stay home. Unless your home is stinkin' rat's nest, its the safest place to be. Try not to frequently go out, especially hangout places where there is sooo much human traffic. Similarly...

Limit your flights. That's primarily how the virus spreads from one country to another. We've made an observation: whenever I fly somewhere, an hour or so after getting out of the plane, I almost always start to cough or sneeze or have a runny nose. Not surprising. It's not like the flight crew actually replace the seats and disinfect each and every one of them between flights. Take note!

Check your temperature. Keep tabs on how you feel. Not feeling well? Having chills? Sore burning eyes or ears? Check your temperature. Having 37.5 C or higher temperature indicates a fever or flu.

See your doctor at the first sign of trouble. Don't wait until you're not able to walk. You know your body. The moment you sense something is wrong, have it checked out. In the first AH1N1 death in the Philippines, the victim might have been saved if only she was treated a lot sooner.


On infants and pregnant women...

Thankfully, some flu drugs are promising to be relatively safe for pregnant mothers and infants. A recent publication from the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests that the well-known anti-flu drugs TamiFlu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir). You can check out this article from the Canadian Press here dated June 15th for more information. This is not a definitive answer, but at least this is an option.

Still, it is best to consult your doctor. If you have doubts, get a second opinion. Might be expensive though.

I suggest keeping tabs on the news about the virus to be abreast of the latest information. Checking the CDC website on swine flu guarantees that you are up to date. Check this CDC link for pregnant women.

Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that this pandemic dies out sooner than later.

So, it all comes down to personal hygiene and personal health. Be mindful of these, and you should be just fine. More importantly, be aware of yourself and surroundings. At the first sign of trouble, go to the doctor.

Good luck and stay safe!

A short note for Francis M.

Philippines mourns the loss of one of the most iconic talents of the music and entertainment industry. In case you haven't heard -- like I was because I was knee-deep on work -- master rapper Francis M dies at the age of 44 last March 6th. News here.

Shocked I was when I first heard. I guess he's one of those people you looked up to when you grew up. Being a pillar of the Philippine rap music industry, he was like one of the immortal ones who would always be there for everyone to look up to. The last thing you'd think about him is dying.

Losing someone to cancer is one of the hardest things one has to endure. Losing my mom five years ago to leakemia as well, I have a pretty good idea how his family is feeling...

To Francis M, hope you're in a better peaceful place. To his family and loved ones, hold on and give strength to each other -- guess that's what he would have wanted.

Welcoming March 1st

Time flies so fast especially with my kind of work. I lose some days to sleep -- when coping up to my night shifts. Been busy with a lot of things also. Plus, February IS the shortest month of the year, afterall.

We have been busy with none other than Facebook! In particular, Pet Society. :) We've been busy cranking up Jessie and Doggie so that they can have more clothes and more furnitures in their houses. We've recently gotten a Samurai Helmet, Jester's Cap, Watermelon Hat, Circus Wallpaper, and some Bathroom Floor tiles. :) If you're lucky, those mystery boxes can really surprise you with those great items! I'm hoping I can get more items for the "Garden / Greenhouse" room I'm building.

I've started early last month a new blog on my comics reading. Honestly, I'm lagging behind on that as well due to the limited time that I have. Nevertheless, I still want to do that. I've already read so many recently published comics. It just takes time to actually write a review, scan some pages, and the like. Wish me luck! :)

I've also started reviewing for a Cisco certification. I was actually not taking this seriously primarily because of the cost and the job. That was, until just recently. The certification is is required by my company, so I might as well cough up the cash and get certified. I'm just hoping the company would shoulder some of the cost since this will no doubt help us do our jobs much better. ** finger's crossed **

Also, we're getting serious about this weight loss thing. Aside from our diet -- which is also an everyday struggle -- exercise is now one of our priorities. We're doing crunches everyday to tone down our bellies -- not easy though. My abdomen is wracked with pain -- I can't turn, bend, even cough without hurting. In time, I hope my belly "muscles" becomes accustomed to the exercise so I can turn up the heat and lose those extra inches off my waist!

Let's go March! Hoping for more blogs, more posts... And more importantly, more results!

Top Ten Things I learned from You on a Diet

I find "You on a Diet" one of the more unique diet books out there, in that it focuses not on the usual aspects of dieting like food, calories, exercise, and sheer willpower, but on the biology and chemistry behind the gaining and losing of weight. And it is written in layman's terms complete with cartoon drawings which, therefore tells you that this is for the common man.

Here are some of the things I learned from it so far:

10. Waistline is a better indicator of your progress -- or lack of it -- of dieting than your weight. When you lose weight, you might actually be losing muscle mass instead of fat.

09. The state of mind is half the battle. Food is the common way to combat stress, but this leads to an endless cycle. Fat Bastard in Goldmember said "I overeat because I'm sad. I'm sad because I overeat." Sounds familiar? That's why the more stressed you are, the bigger your wasteline.

08. Never get hungry! Two reasons: One, in starvation mode, the body uses less of the stored energy, aka your fat. Two, you are less likely to overeat. So don't skip meals!

07. When you feel an empty stomach, drink a glass of water first. If the hungry feeling goes away, it's actually thirst that your brain -- through bad habits, or other external factors -- interprets as hunger, which therefore tells you to eat.

06. Watch what you eat. Focus not only on reducing intake of bad cholesterol, but also on increasing intake of good cholesterol. Good cholesterol HDL helps clear the body of bad cholesterol LDL, which can only mean a good thing.

05. Walk at least thirty minutes a day. Walking is good. Do we really need to explain? Just do it, okay?

04. Muscle cells burn more calories than fat cells. Therefore, bigger muscles means lesser excess calories to worry about. So work out those biceps! :)

03. Swing diet is bad. Period. When you sum it up, chances are, you gained more weight. So do whatever it takes to prevent you from swinging.

02. Keep your hands busy. If not, you're hands find something else to do -- such as opening that candy bar which miraculously appeared inside your pocket! Turns out that playing video games tend to keep you from eating.

01. Like exercise, good sex makes you feel less hungry. The pleasure center of the brain that says you enjoyed sex is the same part that says your stomach is full; doing either satisfies it. Therefore, after sex, you are less likely to eat. Ergo, less calories that takes up residence on your belly!

Hope you're learning and enjoying at the same time while reading this.

Eating to Lose Weight

As I have posted earlier, I wanted to lose a great deal of weight. For almost a month now, we've been listing our weight in our whiteboard here and I'm glad to say that we lost several pounds already.

Best part is, there is very minimal effort on our part to lose this amount weight. By this, I mean exercise is limited only to the normal day-to-day walking; nothing unusual. The only thing we changed in our routine is our eating habits. Significantly changed, I might add.

Before this little experiment of ours, what we consume everyday is as follows:

• heavy brunch + snacks + heavy dinner + snacks; or


• light breakfast + heavy lunch + snacks + heavy dinner + snacks.

Lots of "heavy" in there plus lots of extra snacks. No surprise with our weight then.

Now, we are sticking with this eating, uhm, "patterns", if you will:

• cereal brunch + heavy dinner + snacks; or


• cereal breakfast + heavy lunch + cereal dinner + snacks.

In this new plan, we have reduced from two to three heavy rice meals to just one rice meal a day. Wheat bread or cereals serve as the substitutes for the missing heavy meals.

Weekends are also important; we noticed a trend in which we actually gained a few pounds during weekends. This is when we go out and have fun, which always includes eating a lot. We then realized that we have to be more committed; when going out, we not only plan where we will be going, but also what we will be eating.

Take this Saturday, for example. We have plans to meet with friends and watch the play "Avenue Q" in the evening. We anticipated a heavy dinner. So for today, we plan on having a cereal brunch (which I just finished), probably some wheat bread for in-betweener snacks, then the heavy dinner, wherever that will be. Sounds like a good plan to me. :)

In this case, the whiteboard is a great motivator for us. Whenever we see that we lost more weight than we expected, we are more encouraged to stick to our eating plan and to think of other ways to lose even more weight.

Like I said, we lost weight just by changing our eating habits. However, we still have a long way to go. In the next few days, I plan on including some regular exercises as well. This will be tougher for us, I think, but it's something that must be done. :)

An engineer's struggle with lupus...

The person here, Leslie, is actually one of my former colleagues in my previous job in the Philippines. I think it was about a month after I left for Singapore when I learned that she left that company as well. Before that, though, she was already out on sick leave for a few months. Sadly, it was lupus. :(

She's one of two people who got lupus from that same company. Don't know about you but there's something definitely wrong in this company... Could be the environment, could be the other people, could be the actual work itself. Whatever the case, no one's happy with illnesses that are (most likely) triggered by work stress...

Good luck to you....

http://lupus.ph/stories/pubview.php?id=145

Signs to reconsider your job

I'm pretty sure most -- if not all -- experience burnout at work at some point. When this happens, that's a signal for you to get away from the stress and take a breather... Time to regroup, relax, recollect your thoughts, whatever it is you do to cope with work-related stress.

There are, however, times in which there is just too much stress, your mind and body literally -- and I mean LITERALLY -- cannot take it anymore: lose sleep, lose weight, cannot focus, miss appointments, etc. I guess that's a big billboard saying "CHANGE WORK", "LEAVE COMPANY", etc.

From my experience, the signs that you must look for a new job include, but is not limited to, the following. (Well, you know, work-related stress may have caused me to miss a few points! LOL)


You excessively dislike people at work. In particular, whenever you hear the name or the voice of someone -- your colleague, a boss, or a subordinate -- you have an involuntary response that equates to irritation; your ears twitching, your mouth making that funny shape, one of your eyebrows rising, your eyes roll up, your face frowning, your hands clenching, your feet stomping, etc. Little things like that betray your negative feelings toward that other person.

It is normal to dislike some people at work; there are an infinite number of personalities, some of them -- or some aspects of them -- would likely not be compatible to yours. Hence, you will come across these people at some point.

What's bad is the degree / level of annoyance to that people. How many people do you dislike? How often do you deal with these people daily? Do they consume your thoughts? Are you thinking of many dark and different ways of flaying their flesh and rending their bones? Hehehe.. Okay, I may have gone a little bit overboard, but you get the point right?

Another thing is that your hostility for these people have changed you; could be as simple and subtle as turning away your head slughtly whenever you hear something you don't like , or as apparent and obvious as swearing obscenities when normally you wouldn't.


You compromise your friends/family. How many times have we seen a scene in which the working parent would miss his/her kid's recital, first game, graduation, whatever, all because of work? I remember this ad on the papers the other day: a working mom promised her kid a picnic the next day; then he got called by her boss who wanted her to do extra work on that same picnic day. What do you do?

Sometimes, there really is a need to do some extra work, hence requiring you to sacrifice some time that you would rather spend enjoying with your family and/or friends. The question is, how many times have you sacrificed your time for them for the sake of your job? Between work and family, where do you draw the proverbial line??


You have nightmares about work. If you dream about it, that means your job is ingrained in your subconscious so deeply, that it has become a part of you. Now that's not necessarily bad; that is, if you dream about the "good" stuff of your work or if you dream something that would make you suddenly wake and shout "EUREKA! I've found it!" or something, that's all fine and dandy. This is bad, however, if all you dream about are the stress and the other "nightmarish" part of work. You'll be more restless and susceptible to stress, which gets absorbed into your subconscious, then you dream more about it and it goes on and on and on in a vicious, seemingly never-ending cycle.

Personally, good or bad, I just want to leave work in the office altogether. When the clock strikes 5:30PM, by 5:31PM I should be already be on my way home. I won't let the work consume me beyond that time, unless there is really a need to extend.


You unintentionally miss your lunch and breaktimes. You are rooted in your seat so much that you lose track of time. By the time you remember you have to eat, you have already lost your appetite. Since you haven't eaten, you have even less energy and patience to resist stress and you will burnout that much sooner.

BTW, others see that missing eating times as a good way of saving money... Oh, come on!!!! Whatever you save on food will be spent on your hospitalization/treatments for your ulcer... or worse! So please... Unless you are a creature that doesn't have to eat anything, buy some food, okay?


You cannot focus on your work. You are at your desk, facing your monitor, your tasks for the day is lined up, and you know what to do. And yet, for some reason, you just sit there, stare at the monitor while there are a dozen ideas going on in your 'noggin, but still you have not done or accomplished any of those tasks.

Your brain is probably overloaded with a lot of information. Think of a PC reaching 100% CPU utilization; the PC appears to hang for a while. You are this PC! And your CPU is working overtime such that you appear to be hung, not able to do anything until some time has passed.

So what have you been thinking of, that has got 100% of your brain worked up?


You get a severe/critical health condition. This seems far-fetched, an exaggeration to emphasize effects of too much work; I just wish that this was indeed the case. :( Unfortunately, there really are STRESS-triggered ailments; I know of at least two people who have been affected so severely, they developed irreversible health problems.

This is perhaps the ultimate culmination of the effect of stress and burnout in your body. Don't wait for this to happen to you, okay?

If you are in this situation, either get rid of your condition (if possible), or change your work (change the working conditions, or leave the company outright).


These are all I can think of right now. I know I have missed a few points, but I think this post is long enough. :)