Here's My Story

The two breadmakers went kaput. For a while, I tried this soft Asian milk bread recipe  but it was never as soft and took too much time. My sister then obtained a no-knead bread recipe from a mutual friend, who kindly simplified (a lot!) the recipe (thanks!) to this: Place initial ingredients (3 cups of warm water, 2 small pkts of yeast, 1 tbs salt) into a 5L container. Mix a little, doesn’t matter if yeast is not entirely dissolved. Pour 1 kg of white flour into container and mix with a wooden spoon until moisture is even.  Leave in a warmish room for 2-5 hours.  Cut out sections with a serrated knife to bake. Shape dough briefly with floured fingers to roll size (e.g. 5cm diameter, 2cm height). Bake in oven on a floured surface, 230 degrees. For a crusty finish, place a container of water in the oven while baking. Place remainder of dough in fridge. Use as desired over the next two weeks. Allow the dough to reach room temperature prior to baking. I adjusted it to a third of

One day, after he was done with a meeting with fellow committee members, Ban called me: Ban: Don't think I can make it for dinner. Can you please tapau (pack) for me? Me: Sure. Ban: Also, do you want Nyonya chang and bak chang (2 types of rice dumplings)? Me: Yes, please. Only Nyonya chang. Ban: How many? Me: As many as possible without being embarrassing Ban to his colleagues: As many as possible without being embarrassing LOL. The funny thing was that he didn't know what he had really done until I told him, once he got home. We laughed about it...a couple of times. Haha.

Before meeting Dr D with the MRI results , dad told me of yet another new symptom: dizziness about an hour after taking Oxycontin, an opiate to be taken twice a day (with 12 hour gap). This happened about twice a week, and had been going on for 3 to 4 weeks. My suspicion then was the i ncreased dosage of Oxycontin . I suggested that we tell Dr D about this. However, as it happened at times in the past and this frustrated me each time, my dad adjusted his story: the dizziness didn't always coincide with intake of Oxycontin because it did happen in between intake. Dr D was smart to ask the right question: did dad take Oxynorm ("breakthrough" opiate to be taken only at the onset of pain, in between the intake of Oxycontin) when pain occurred, or whenever he was scared that pain would come? He answered the latter. Haiz. Yes, once again, he unilaterally adjusted doctor's instructions. His dizziness thus was likely caused by overdose of opiate because, clearly, he didn

After the 2nd follow-up appoint , mum needed to take the extra dose of olanzapine (sometimes once, sometimes twice a day i.e. the maximum) and it was working in dampening her self-hurt urge. Her sleeping pattern, though, fluctuated i.e. sometimes she had little sleep. However, just less than a week to her 3rd follow-up appointment, her sleeplessness was so bad that she started shaking due to anxiety. Once again she hurt herself using a peeler :( This despite having taken the max presribed dosage of olanzapine. According to my family (I wasn't there), this self-hurt urge emerged when she felt very restless but manageable if she had sufficient sleep at night. Another important fact was that it was not driven by "voices". Since it was post-election public holiday (next two days were declared as holiday by the incoming ruling coalition after the 14th general election ), my family brought my mum to the A&E department at Penang GH. In the end, the on-call doctor prescri

Here's the latest results (about 3.5 months after the last test ):                                 Jan 2018          Ref. range          May 2018          Ref. range    Total cholesterol           4.6                 < 5.2                     4.6                  < 5.2 HDL ("good")               2.01               > 1.04                  1.81                > 1.03 LDL ("bad")                  2.3                < 2.6                     2.42                < 2.58 Triglycerides                 0.7                 < 1.7                     0.81               < 1.68 Total/HDL ratio            2.3                 < 5.0                     2.5                  < 5.0 It's a little worse but still "normal". I'm happy with these results given that my intake of fenofibrate was reduced to alternate nights. Doctor advised me to continue this regime and retest in 3-5 months time.

I couldn't vote in the previous general election ("13th GE") because I was having flu and so was unwell to drive back to Seremban to vote. Prior to that, I was working in Singapore and I didn't make the effort to register and vote. This time, however, I made sure I registered early for the 14th GE and later changed my address (from Seremban to PJ) promptly after my parents moved to Butterworth. Since Ban and I are not morning people, my dad suggested that we try voting during lunch time to, hopefully, minimise the crowd. So we went for lunch at 11am-ish and then went to the nearby school to vote. Oh my, there were many cars parked along the main road and so we didn't attempt at all to park anywhere near the school. There was a rather huge crowd in queue lines. I was fortunate to be asigned to a much shorter queue and yet that took me a total 1 hour. Ban took about 1hr 35min. Fortunately, we brought umbrellas. So hot! I brought water too and shared some with Ba

During my nearly 50-day stay at Butterworth recently, I sometimes experienced slight pain in my back left teeth when I brushed teeth and ate apple from fridge. Strangely, no such sensation when I drank hot or cold drinks. So the day after I arrived back at PJ, I visited a dentist nearby. After a few knocks and air-jets, we both found a particular spot that caused considerably pain and, it would seem, that it was my wisdom tooth at the back top left. Also, there was slight crack on the tooth beside the wisdom tooth. The dentist recommended extracting the wisdom tooth and then could have clearer look at the crack on the neighbouring tooth. I was a little concerned because my friends took a few days to recover from such extraction but I was going for a nice lunch and movie later. The dentist assured me that mine would be quick and didn't need "surgery", which was what my friends had (teeth fused a little with bone and so needed to be surgically sawed). Phew! The most p

The first follow-up appointment after discharge  was scheduled 5 days later. The doctor asked mum many questions. In summary, mum felt frustrated because couldn't do as many things as she used to and dependent on others, but her frustration decreased by about 30% since discharged doctor assured her that it is only temporary as she is still recovering mum felt sad everyday but was sadder when she was in ward doctor consulted with the geriatric psychiatrist and thus decreased dosage of Olanzapine to 5mg day 10mg night next appointment is in a week's time Sadly, on the morning of the 2nd follow-up appointment, she was caught twice trying to hurt herself with a peeler. Dad persuaded her to take her morning medicine earlier than usual and then later read newspapers and crocheted. Fortunately, the urge to self-hurt subsided. The 2nd follow-up appointment's (this time seen by the geriatric psychiatrist himself) summary is as follows: she heard voices prior to hurting

Here are the average dividend yields on cost for shares that have paid out dividends: Note that I initiated position in ComfortDelgro, HongKong Land and UOB just recently and so I have yet to receive dividends from these companies. The overall dividend yield on cost weighted by invested amount is 5.8%, excluding the 3 share counters mentioned above. There are 8 share counters with dividend yield (on cost) less than 5% (number of consecutive years of this low yield in bracket): Keppel Corp (2) Kingsmen (4) SATS (3) SPH (2) ST Eng (4) Sembcorp Ind (4) Silverlake (2) Sing Shipping (3) Hmmm maybe I'll sell if its average dividend yield is less than 5% for 5 consecutive years? 10 consecutive years? I'm not sure. Note that this is "average" yield and so even if the company starts to improve its current dividend yield, it takes time for this average figure to cross the 5% threshold. Here is the average cost of each share counter compared to its then

Finally, I was able to sell my condo unit in Singapore after my agent managed to, at last, get a reasonable offer for it. The price definitely didn't match its all-time high but was above my minimum I set for my agent. As per tenancy agreement, the existing tenancy then was transferred to the new owner. Everything was done in early Feb this year. Phew! So the plan is invest the proceed, over a period of 10 months, into dividend-paying shares and thus making dividends my main source of income. I thought long and hard on how quickly I should invest the proceed: a single lump sum risks doing so at market high; the longer I spread it over a period of time means the more I need to use my capital to pay for my expenses (before dividends are sufficiently enough to cover them) although a large chunk of expenses is now gone (i.e. repayment of home loan). Incidentally, there's less actuarial work because a client has completely ceased needing the actuary's service. Hence, this m