Our Flag, Our Anthem, Our Pledge
choongyong.koh August 1st, 2008
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哭有时，笑有时；悲伤有时，欢乐有时
choongyong.koh July 25th, 2008
早上如常带儿子上学，在楼下碰见邻居。邻居告诉我，她儿子的好友刚刚失去了父亲。四十岁，身体最近才经过检查，并无大恙。不料一天在工作上忽然晕倒，一倒不起，原来是心脏病发作。
虽然我本身并不认识死者，但也勾起了自己的一些回忆：两年前楼下的家庭医生和我们一家人都非常熟悉，因为大儿子当时常常生病。有一天听到医生骤死的新闻，我们也有点不知所措。
可想而知，这些死者的家人，听到亲人的死讯时，应该会更加振撼。
最近追看香港电视连续剧《溏心风暴》，剧中也有亲人去世的情节。去世了的大妈，安排了一封在死后三个月才交给家人的信，里面写了非常有意义的一句：
哭有时，笑有时；悲伤有时，欢乐有时
吩咐家人：可以为我的死去而悲伤，但三个月后，悲伤的时候也该过去，应该继续有意义，有目标的活下去了。
很简单的一句话，但我在看到这一段时，眼眶也盈满泪水。
自己常常也会想，人生无常，什么事情都可能发生，说不定现在好好坐在这里写博客，一会儿上街因为某种原因去了。也因为这样，自己选择的道路和许多人不同，着重于珍惜现在，而不是希望年轻时猛拼，老来才享受天伦。
只不过万一真的不幸死去，希望我的亲人们也会记得这一句：哭有时，笑有时；悲伤有时，欢乐有时，在悲伤一段短时间后继续坚强的走下去。
TED | Talks | Joshua Klein: The amazing intelligence of crows (video)
choongyong.koh June 18th, 2008
TED | Talks | Joshua Klein: The amazing intelligence of crows (video)
Amaze yourself with how adaptable crows are.
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Saving Gaia ad again
choongyong.koh June 10th, 2008
So someone did complain to Mediacorp about this ad. (Wanbao article over the weekend) However, the response from Mediacorp (see insert at the bottom right corner) seems tell us that it is ok to have gory images on all other TV channels except for the kids’ channel.
Is that the same position that MDA holds? What about TCS 8 and TCS 5?
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Dr Gregory House Flame Walking Cane
choongyong.koh May 13th, 2008
I have a problem of gout. In my last attack, I told myself maybe I should get one of these. Today a mild attack come about again, not too painful, but walking is still quite a nuisance. This reminded me to do a search, and the Dr House walking cane is really on sale!.
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Gout strike 2
choongyong.koh April 18th, 2008
This week I was really unfortunate. Gout attack 1 was on Monday, and the pain on my left ankle peaked on Monday night, making me hope for my heart to stop beating. The pain receded on Tuesday evening and was ok on Wednesday. Somehow, on Thursday afternoon, after making a client visit, a bone that I never knew was protruding at my left sole was very sensitive to touch. Luckily I was still about to sleep through last night, but this morning (which happens to be the day of my second son Kang Heng’s first month rituals), the pain in the left sole started to grow and now my mobility is again limited to how far I can walk using an umbrella as a walking stick.
I took the pic above in the afternoon today, just to document how swollen my left foot is now.
Was telling my wife maybe I should be getting a stylo-milo walking stick like that used by Dr House.
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Tags: gout
Hoping for my heart to stop beating
choongyong.koh April 15th, 2008
Don’t worry, I am not going suicidal. This is just the thought that went through my mind when my gout attack was at its peak last night. Every beat of the pulse was like a 50-pound hammer striking my red-hot swollen left ankle. It is in times like these, I wish that my heart would stop beating, so that my ankle can get a moment of relief.
Gout is the condition in which excess uric acid in the body crystallizes at joint (in a random pattern), resulting in the body immune system to send the white blood cells to “neutralize” the crystals, thereby inflaming the joint, causing extreme pain that is only second to kidney failure (as a disease).
It started on 13 Oct 2000 morning (I remembered the date because it was Friday the 13th) when I had my first attack on my right knee . It began as a slight discomfort in the joint, which I usually dismiss with a quick jerk of the knee to release a “click”, which will do the trick. That day the “click” did not work, and the pain started to grow so intensely that by the end of the day I was not able to straighten my right knee. Being young and ignorant, I dismissed the problem and carried on with work. I forgot how torturous that evening was but I do remember going to the doctor the next day and ending up lying at home for the next 5 days, immobilized.
The doctor did a blood test subsequently and found my uric acid at a very high level. A check with my mother shows that she suffers from high uric acid level, but Internet researches also told me that males are more susceptible to gout attacks than females.
Strict diet follows: no bean products (tau-hu, tau-pok, tau-huay, tau-kua, all my favourites, not to mention peanut, groundnut, cashew nut); no red meat (beef is a big no no); no alcohol (good news for me, valid excuse to tell people I don’t drink - I don’t like to drink); no shell-fish (no loss to me, prawns, crab, mussels, not my liking). However, throughout the years, as I describe my condition to different people, more items that I supposedly cannot touch pops up: strawberry, spinach, mushrooms, salmon. I have to take these with a pinch of salt, because there are really too many suggestions but mostly are anecdotal. More recently, I even hear from someone telling me I cannot be eating potatoes and yams and sweet potatoes!
However, no matter how I watch my diet, the attacks still come at the rate of about 2-3 times a year. Granted that there are certain times of the year when I am a little lax with myself (who can resist the food at Lunar New Years?), but I also eat with moderation.
Some kind hearted friends suggested some traditional remedies: boiled pandan leaf water, detoxicating teas etc….but it was either the remedies did not work on me, or I was not patient enough to see if they are effective. The problem is that these remedies will not relief the pain when the attacks come, they will only prevent the attacks, and probably I did not continue with the remedies long enough to see if they really stopped the attack.
There was once I seeked Traditional Chinese Medicine help. At the onset of an attack, I ask the sinseh to give me acupuncture to relief the pain. The result was that the pain was worst after the acupuncture, but until now I don’t know if it was the original effect of the attack, or it was the after effect of the acupuncture.
So what I am doing about it now? The only thing left is to see my GP every time I get an attack and get the medicine to reduce the inflammation and relief the pain. Both Western medicine and TCM says that this condition is not curable, meaning that I will have to live with it as long as I am alive. My GP tells me I have to start exercising. Every time I get an attack, I promise myself to start exercising after the attack. When the attack is over, I am usually so overwhelmed with other things that exercising slide down the todo list into the section unofficially for tasks that I mean-to-do-but-will-almost-never-get-down-to-it.
However, this time is a little different because it is the first time I blog extensively on this. Let me promise myself that I will pick up some form of exercising (I actually got an exercising machine at home after last year’s gout attack) and sustain it after I recover from this round of attack.
Wish me luck. 
In the mean time, I am still trying to distract myself by doing something (like blogging) instead of thinking about the pain in my ankle (it has subsided to a numb soreness, but still aches when I try to move the ankle)..
Mistake clarified
choongyong.koh November 27th, 2007
Thanks to Ho Choon Hiong who promptly responded to my blog post. The mistake has been clarified and the names on the websites have been corrected.
Mistake in name
choongyong.koh November 26th, 2007
A fellow party member came up to me during yesterday’s Hammer Sales: “Hey, you went to give the big greeting card petition?” I was totally confused at this question. I was aware of some activists walking during last week’s ASEAN Summit and giving a petition in the form of a large greeting card to the ASEAN Secretariat, but what has that got to do with me?
The same party member told me that he saw my name in an article online, a certain “Koh Choon Yong” who was at the walk with Chia Ti Lik and Ng E Jay. I took some time to find out, and discovered that an article on SG Human Rights website had the name, and the same article was copied verbatim on SDP’s website. It would be an interesting thing for me to find another person with almost the same name (my name is Koh Choong Yong, but many people misspell my “Choong” as “Choon”), but on the other hand, it would be quite a bad mistake if there was no such person, and me reported to be doing something I did not do.
A quick look at SG Human Rights’ website’s About Us page shows that one of their members is “Ho Choon Hiong”. Could there really be a mistake in name? I wrote to SG Human Rights last night to clarify, currently waiting to see which is the case.
About Me
choongyong.koh September 11th, 2006
In a multi-faceted world, one leads a multi-faceted life. My life so far has been interesting enough (at least to myself) for me to keep a number of blogs for each of the major part of me. Know more about me.
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