How I gained a new appreciation for my dentist…

I used to have a bad phobia towards dentists. I think it all started when I was 10 years old. I remember fainting after a particular treatment in the dental clinic and that was when I started developing the phobia. Those who know me will agree that I might have some of the worst teeth even, not to mention bad oral hygiene. (It’s interesting how my profile photo shows me covering my mouth as well)

Well anyway, the situation with some of my teeth were so bad that I had to undergo certain treatment (ie: Root Canal treatment ~RCT) and I’ve just started my first treatment yesterday. Prior to yesterday’s visit, I was worried and outright scared of what might transpire during the treatment as I have read all sorts of post which are similar to ‘OMGWTF!!! PAIN!!! I CAN’T SLEEP!!! PLS KILL ME!!!’ on the web but yesterday’s treatment was an entirely different experience for me.

So essentially in RCT, the dentist will have to remove and clean most of the area in the infected tooth till the point of cleaning the root canal, and it involves really getting into the root of the tooth. The dentist I was seeing gave me some anesthetic shots which were really quite nicely placed to numb most of the pain. In fact I wasn’t really experiencing any pain throughout the whole time I was there. Sure there were certain uncomfortable moments (ie: Me trying to not choke on my own saliva) but that was all the uncomfortable I had.

Now the problem with my tooth was that it’s rotten to the core (It’s essentially dead) and when the filling was removed, it was quite foul smelling. But the dentist and the nurse kept working. That was when I really started to admire their work. I can’t be the only patient whom they had to cope with in their line of work but still they bear with me and did their best in fixing my tooth.

My dentist was great BTW. She put the well being of the patient in front of everything else and was quite gently (ie: to ask every now and again if I felt uncomfortable and pain during the treatment). And for the whole 90 minutes, I felt at ease.

I’ll have to continue with the follow up treatment this coming week and I hope it can be the same experience as my previous one. I seriously hope it’s not something like a one-time-at-ease-experience only.

Hoping for the best

Why I’m not shooting photographs as frequently as I used to…

I haven’t been shooting for a long time (since March 2012). This time last year I would have joined on the bandwagon and go for event such as Floria 2012, Bon Odori 2012 to shoot them but I just can’t find the passion to shoot recently. I guess its because of one incident which happened in March this year.

My house was broken into!!

And they took all but one of my lens. I lost a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8, Tamron 90mm f/2.8, a Lensbaby Composer and a couple of expensive filters.

They also took 4 of my hard disk which contained most of my documents, photos, things that I have collected for the past few years. Yeah… All the photos I took since 2006 is gone.

I was in a slump. It was a hard time to get by. I couldn’t believe that it was all gone. Cost-wise I guess I would have lost close to RM6000 that day alone. And it was after coming back from the CSS camp. Luckily I had my camera and my laptop out with me that day. If not the loss would have been even more painful.

Since then, I felt that the passion was no longer there, especially when others ask me to shoot photos. I still shoot every now and then but I can rarely find the joy of shooting anymore. I even gotten into a bad relationship with someone the day I lost my stuff because someone insisted I removed the photos of him from Facebook (acting like a child seriously @@). I gotten a phobia of leaving anything valuable alone now, and I bring my stuff everywhere I go to. I can’t imagine losing my laptop (with all my project data in it) or anything else. I got demotivated to do a lot of things (even my project) for a long while.

I’ve not told many about this, only those close to me. I had hopes getting the items back but still reality is that, this is Malaysia, you don’t really get back what you lost to thieves (which itself is a sad case). I also pray that nothing worse will come out of this bad experience.

Anyway. I have decided to type this here because a few days ago, while updating the previous post, I looked through the photos I took of Dogathon 2011, and most of them were good and it made me reminiscence the time I use to shoot. That when I told myself that I need to recover. I need to somehow get back into it again. Perhaps I have mourned long enough. So you might see some more photos from me in the future (hopefully).

I’m really thankful for the support I gotten in my time of slump though. There are people who were really understanding and I thank them for that :). I have also learned to be more careful I guess in leaving my stuff (although I still have the tendency to leave things everywhere) and am currently looking for a new place to move into (with possibly better security).

Meanwhile, here’s one of the photos I took during my slump (it was a CSS event and it was kinda hard to say no to shooting a CSS event)

It’s when I get photos like this that make me treasure photography more 🙂

Android phones and what I think of them

Just recently gotten a Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 phone after my Nokia E75 died on me. Crazy black screen of death on the Nokia phone. But after the change,  I’ve gotten a deep appreciation for Android phones. Ie: There are so many cool apps to use.

Let me talk about a few

This is an app called Pocket, formerly known as Read-it-later, and what it allows me to do is to save stuff I found on the web so that I can read it offline with my phone. I have the app for Google Chrome as well so anytime I found something interesting its just a click to save and it will automatically sync with my phone when there’s a connection.

This is an app called Any.DO which is essentially one of the best looking ‘To-Do’ app out there. You can insert your task via text or even via voice recognition. And set reminders to yourself for your task. Tasks which are not completed will be brought forward to the next day and even I can feel how much procrastination I am having at times.

Laudate is one of the app which I will almost use daily. It is the daily reading bible with text for reflections and even informational podcasts of the daily reading. Useful for people like me who should open up their bible more often.

And Catch is what I use together with Laudate. Find a nice reading and reflection for the day, copy it and save it on Catch. And anyone else who is using Catch can follow what I’m sharing by accessing my Catch stream.

Even now there are apps like the Solution Calculator which can help me calculate the quantity required for my chemicals in lab. Useful for someone like me who keeps forgetting how to count.

Ted Air is another app which I am amazed about. Imagine that you can access all the Ted videos you want without having to access them from the main site. You can even download the videos for future viewing. I can basically listen to Ted for the whole day on my phone now.

Manga Searcher is another app that requires more attention. It does what it’s name says. It searches for manga and downloads them to the phone so you can access them on the go. And you don’t even have to spend time looking for the manga you want. The search function will find all the chapters for you and all you need to do is just to select the chapters you want.

Next we have widgets like this to remind me of the things I’m anticipating and not anticipating.

There is also musiXmatch which is an audio player which searches the web for lyrics for the songs you have on your phone and making them accessible offline.

And fancy playing old gameboy titles? You can do that with Gameboid and GBC A.D

Android impresses me so much that I’m on my phone so often now.
The only nitpick which I have is that the camera on the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 is absolutely horrible. But I’m quite sure you can find android phones with better cameras out there.

All in all, I am definitely enjoying my new phone.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Bible sharing during the semester break

It’s semester break now in UPM and I’ve organized a bible sharing session with those left behind. It was also nice to see the chapel very once in a while during the semester break. Thanks to the few who came.

Posted from WordPress for Android

UPM Dogathon 2011 : Doggies in Wonderland

Woofing, wagging and we’re off to the whimsical wonderland.

And that was the tagline for this year’s dogathon. The 15th Dogathon to be organized by the VETERNAK & Zoologico Club of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, UPM. Aside from being a meeting of all dogs, and a fun filled day for both dogs and owners and visitors alike, it also functions as a charity platform to generate funds for ProKasih in order to provide better stray animal welfare & to promote responsible pet ownership. Even though the weather during the event was gloomy and it looked as if it could have rained at any moment, it didn’t prevent gathering of the dogs and the games to be carried out. Here are some shots of the day:

~Dogs are still Men’s best friend~

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~Alice and her deck of cards~

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~A Pomeranian~

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~An assortment of dogs~

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~I think this is a Shih Tzu~

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~A variety of competition for the dogs. E.g: The obstacle course~

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~A Schnauzer going through the hoop~

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~A Chow Chow chilling out being massaged by its owner~

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~A tiny Chihuahua~

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~Go go go!!! The female category dog race~

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~Followed by the men’s category dog race~

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~And they’re off (Men’s category dog race)~

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~I think this Doberman was one of the winners for the Men’s category~

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~There were huskies running in the race as well 🙂 ~

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~A Dalmatian followed by a German Shepherd~

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~You’re almost at the finish line… Lets keep going~

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~Tired but still in the race… Lets slow down a bit~

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~I may look tiny but I’m faster than the whole lot of them 🙂 ~

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~A very lovely husky in the race~

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~Go get the ball, boy~

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~SIT!!!~

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~This beagle is staring at the food in the handler’s hands~

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~Huskies galore!!!~

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~Looking attentive 🙂 ~

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~Fetching the stick 🙂 ~

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~Saving the best for last 🙂 Isn’t it the cutest thing ever?? ~

Kudos to the Vet students for another successful Dogathon event. Will be looking forward for next year’s Dogathon :).

For more photos of this year’s Dogathon: Please visit my Flickr

Interested in seeing the previous years Dogathon photos: Please click on the following link: 2010, 2009, 2008 .

P/S: Lack of blog post recently… Was a bit busy… Might post a bit more from now on.