Sorry for taking your life away.. Furball.

Yesterday was a sad and solemn day for me, because I took away the life of Furball... Although it was an accident, but the sense of guilt was prevalent because I had directly contributed to Furball's death. This blog's dedicated to Furball... a kitten that I never knew, and would never know...

Please note, this blog's not for all as the pictures taken may be offensive to some. I felt obligated to at least post the pictures of Furball so that its little and innocent life could be remembered.

The tragic incident happened a little past 1:00pm yesterday, Sunday Aug 27, 2006. I just signed up for Celebrity Fitness membership last Friday, Aug 25, 2006, and was eager to go check out the facilities and the classes that the high-class gym had to offer. I was also going to upgrade my membership so that I could attend the fitness center's branches in One Utama and Subang Parade.

I wanted to get there before 2pm so that I could join a class called "Body Combat", an aerobic class that combines various martial arts such as Tai Chi, Kick-boxing, etc. Sounds interesting? It sure did to me. After cleaning myself up, and getting my gears ready, I head to my car in a rush, and reversed it out quickly. As usual, after reversing, I got out from my car and was about to close the gate when I saw a kitten lying on the floor, near the gate.

The kitten looked familiar to me, and it struck me that the kitten was the stray kitten that always frequented my rented house. It would always sleep in between the glass door and the grill when I was not around, and would quickly run away when I returned home. I didn't really pay much attention to it cause there're just too many stray kittens/cats in the neighbourhood I stayed in. In fact, there're way too many stray cats in Kulim, Kedah. It seemed to me like the Northern states (Kedah, Perlis) were the cats' territory, while the Southern states (Selangor, KL) were the dogs'.

Anyway, I was shocked to see the cat lying on the floor, with blood spurting out from its mouth/nostrils. I could see that it was struggling to live, its body was rotating as it kept kicking and moving its legs, while the lifeless head was lying still on the floor. With every rotation, more blood spilled on the floor. At the same time, I could hear its meowing, as if it was calling for help. There were more grosteque things, but I think I would not delve deeper into them.

A sense of guilt was quick to rush to my heart/mind and was stunned for a moment, not knowing what to do. Could I still save this kitten's life if I'd taken it to the vet? But I did know of any vet in Kulim! After several seconds, the kitten stopped meowing, and its leg stopped moving, its body stretched out, and stayed still. I knew at that time, the kitten's dead.

I took a deep breath, and quickly got myself together. I went in the house, and took my camera. I felt obligated to take some pictures of the kitten although the scene's not really that rosy. I had to keep a tiny part of the kitten's life "alive" somewhere to ease my guilt. I went upstairs and got hold of my camera and was about to snap some pictures when the camera just died on me. I thought to myself... "How bad can things get? I just killed a kitten, and my new camera died on me as well?? What a day..." Thinking that a SONY camera couldn't be that lousy in quality, I was about to head out to the nearest convenient store when I noticed a white cat beside the kitten. It was licking the dead kitten's body, and meowing to it. Again, it struck me that this had to be the kitten's mom!! Oh... what have I done... Maybe the kitten was not calling for help during its final moments, maybe it was calling for its mom? The white cat quickly hid when it saw me.

After a little hesitation, I head out to the convenient store and bought a pair of AA batteries. I popped them in, and guess what, the camera came alive! Phew... it was just not functioning because of low batteries.

I drove back to my house, I left the gate opened because the kitten's lifeless body's still there. I could see that the white cat's back, attending to its child. I managed to take a picture of the kitten's mom who was hiding behind the gate, watching its child... She probably hated me for what I did.

After snapping a picture of the kitten, I went in to look for a hoe (or "cangkul" in Malay), a pail of water, and a broom. Time to give the kitten a proper burial, and to wash away the blood stain from the floor.

I was undecided as to where I should bury the kitten, outside or inside the house? I went back and forth for a few times, and finally started digging at a patch of land opposite to where the kitten used to hang out. I dug, and dug, and dug for several minutes. The hole just didn't seem big and deep enough. While digging, I couldn't help but thought that I was one of those criminals in those Hong Kong TVB series, whereby after they had murdered someone, they would carry the corpse to a secluded area, and dig a deep hole to bury the corpse...... I kept digging until I felt that the hole's big enough to accommodate the kitten's body.

Using some old newspaper, I wrapped the kitten's body and placed it gently in the hole that I had dug. I said a word of prayer, and something silly like "from dust to dust" before closing up the hole with soil. I took some flowers and spread them on top of the kitten's grave. Before leaving, there's one thing left to do, that was to give it a name. I shall remember the kitten as Furball.... and I promised to blog about the incident in remembrance of Furball.

PS: I did still go to the gym after the whole ordeal, probably to help myself forget about the incident or to lessen the guilt from the experience. I spent at least 4 hours at the gym and boy am I feeling the pain now...

The Most Beautiful Heart

One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.

Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said, "Why, your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine." The crowd and the young man looked at the old man's heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn't fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared -- how can he say his heart is more beautiful, they thought?

The young man looked at the old man's heart and saw its state and laughed. "You must be joking," he said. "Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears." "Yes," said the old man, "yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love - I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart, but because the pieces aren't exact, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared.

Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away, and the other person hasn't returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges -- giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too, and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting. So now do you see what true beauty is?"

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man's heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect any more but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man's heart flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

Author Unknown

Busy and Painful Week + Retarded Dentist at Kulim + JID

Last Week, Aug 6 - 12 (WW32), was a very busy week for me, and painful one. Busy because I had to coordinate the lab move at my workplace. It was not trivial tasks as it involves interacting with so many different parties, both internal and external of Intel. After much coordination work, the lab was successfully moved last Friday. Everything went pretty smoothly, except for a few glitches that need to be taken care of.

Now to the painful part... No, it's not because of the lab move. Well, maybe the move contributed a little, but the pain really came from my toothache. I had my tooth patched twice since last year. It was giving me problems on and off, but not as bad as last week. I could even feel the pain going to my ears! I think it's due to the pain from my tooth that got propagated to the other nerves. Anyway, I would love to take half a day off to get this painful problem fixed, but couldn't becaused I had to coordinate the lab move. If I had taken off, I could only imagine the havoc that would ensue... I endured the pain until the lab move's over.

After struggling through the week, Saturday finally came. I promised myself to get up really early Saturday and queue up at the only Intel panel dental clinic in Kulim that I know of - Yoga Dental Clinic. The dental clinic that I used to go to - Tang Dental Clinic, closed shop because the dentist had a brain tumor and couldn't even recognize his own family members anymore, sad...

Anyway, I woke up 8am Saturday morning (even though I slept late, around 3:30am), and headed to the clinic. I started queing around 8:30am, even then, I was not the first, but the second in line. The clinic opened around 9am, and I went through the registration process that was surprisingly simple and crude. All that the nurse asked for is my medical card, and IC. She wrote down my details and reason for visiting the clinic (take note that I told her that I had a toothache, and wanted my teeth cleaned) on a small piece of paper (a size of those stick'em), on one line. She wrote one line for one patient. Wow.... I mean, she didn't even asked if I'd been to the clinic before and get me a proper patient record card. Nevermind that... I sat and waited for my turn.

Since I was 2nd, sure enough my name was called shortly. I went in, greeted the doctor, but he didn't greet back. He gestured to me to sit on the operation chair, which I did, although the chair didn't look too clean. The dentist came over and without asking about my tootache started cleaning my teeth. All along the process I could only hear him mumble something to the nurse once in a while. I never recalled him asking me to spit and clean my mouth during the cleaning process, even when the cleaning was over! I think I swallowed some of the dirt in the cleaning process. I was not too happy, but I didn't make a fuss over it.

Once the cleaning's done, the dentist again mumbled "Come back in 6 months time", and quickly jumped to the next room where a patient was waiting. I sat at my chair wondering what was he doing!?!? Hello... my tooth's aching? I looked at the nurse at the next room, giving her the look that says... "Hello, I have a tootache? What is going on here?" Well, she didn't get the message, so I had to point to my tooth and tell her that I have a tootache that needs to be attended to.

After couple of minutes, the dentist came back. I had to tell him that I have a tootache, and tried to describe as much as possible to him before he would do something! He didn't ask any questions or even try to diagnose my problem!! Unbelievably retarded. I told him that I had my tooth patched before, and it's aching again, and that the pain' quite severe. Again, he didn't ask any follow-up questions, and just started to take out the old filing and put in new ones. Again, when he's doing the filling, he didn't ask me to spit and clean my mouth until the whole thing's over! I think I swallowed some more dirt that round. I was really frustrated at that point... My tooth was still aching, and the dentist didn't say a thing, but quickly jumped to the next room again!! In my mind, I thought to myself the dentist' either a mute or a retard...

I left the dentist' room, and went to the counter, where the nurse asked me to sign a form saying that I've been treated and charged RM45. I was reluctant to do so at first after the bad service received, but I signed anyway. In addition, I asked if there's any medicine to ease the pain. Nothing! 没有! Elek! Can you believe the ludicrousity of that?!!? I even had to ask when I need to return if the pain did not subside, what food should I avoid, etc. My goodness, how retarded can the clinic be!

Special thanks to gnelia for being a good listener. She spent a good hour or so listening to my whine, which I topped with cheese. =)

Guess what, the pain remained after that, and I had to endure it for another day! I had to ease the pain by sleeping 7 hours after the dental visit. I had to wake up around 5:05pm to attend the Toastmasters Joint Installation Dinner (JID) held at City BayView Hotel in Penang. As a side note, the JID is a dinner event to install new Toastmasters Club EXCO member. Due to Intel's efficiency exercise (in laymen's term - retrenchment), the past president was efficiensized from Intel, and I was elected to become the Club President. Interesting how things turned out... The event lasted for 6 hours, I didn't expect it to be that long. But that's how long I had to endure the pain from my toothache. I didn't do much after returning from the JID event, I slept.

Thsi morning, the ache's still there, and I just couldn't stand it anymore. I drove to Kulim town to find this non-panel dental clinic that my fellow Toastmaster told me about the previous night. Thank God I found it, and had my tooth looked at. Now, this dentist, Dr. Koh is much much more professional compared to Yoga. She helped diagnosed my problem, and put some medicine to my tooth and repatched it. If the pain still persist, I would have to have the root of my tooth removed next round. Sounds scary, but... I'd do it if the pain would just go away. I was given some painkillers before leaving the clinic, and I was only charged RM40.

The results are good so far, I don't feel as much pain as before, and hope that it would go away after a day or 2. If not... back to the dentist, and have the root of the tooth removed. Ouch...