Author: Erwin

On Thursday, this site turns five years old. That’s half a decade of erwintang.com. Well, not really since it took me a few months to get the site running. So technically, I’ve owned this domain for five years now. Still, that’s a long time on the Internets.

It’s been a lot of fun which has led to a rewarding five years. I do a lot of work on this site mainly because of you, the readers. If you’re having fun, that means I’m having fun. Thanks for staying with me this long.

Every birthday needs a celebration and this one is no different. I’ve framed my celebration around a contest. Go take a look… enter… win stuff!

Early this morning, I awoke because of a sharp pain in my left cheek. It felt like there was a lot of pressure in the area and it was very unpleasant. I was sure that something was trying to get my cheek to explode. I surmised it was a sinus infection, but that thought did not help the pain go away.

I tossed and turned, hoping to get back to sleep, but it was no use. After several minutes, I somehow got my head in a particular position that caused the problematic sinus to drain partially. It was sorta like a balloon with a slow leak in it. The pressure gradually decreased until a point where the sharp pain was reduced to a dull ache. It was then I was able to fall asleep.

When I awoke again, my sinus remained achy. Just opening my jaw caused the pain to flare up again. I was thoroughly unimpressed with my bad luck. Having no other choice, I had to get on with my day even though I was feel pretty crappy.

Luckily, the students in my tutorial finished their assignments early and I was able to steal away to UBC Student Health before they closed. I was just planning on making an appointment for the next day, but they were able to schedule me in 15 minutes before close. After her examination, the doctor confirmed that I did indeed have a sinus infection. Though she was concerned about the severity of the initial pain, she said it was a good sign it had drained partially on its own. She offered to give me a prescription for antibiotics, but told me it was my choice since the infection could clear up by itself. I decided to hold off on the antibiotics since I try to stay clear of the stuff unless absolutely forced to take it. The doctor did recommend that I use steam and a decongestant to aid in clearing up my sinuses.

With that, I thanked the doctor for her help and I was off. When I returned home, I took a long, steamy shower. After emerging from bathroom, I immediately noticed my cheek was less achy. I decided to take a nap before dinner. In the process of lying down, my sinuses drained even more.

I feel much better now and can only hope this will be the last thing to bother me from this horrible cold.

I saw the doctor today. My chest is clear and I’m not pregnant. She says I’m still coughing because there’s some residual irritation left over from the cold. She offered to fill out a prescription for a cough medicine with codeine in it. I accepted.

After returning home from the drug store, I looked at the recommended dosage, “1 tor 2 teaspoons, 3 times a day”. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to take 2 teaspoons right away. About a year ago, I took 2 teaspoons full of virtually the same medicine before going to bed. When I woke up, just waving my hand in front of my face was a psychedelic adventure. This time, I carefully administered to myself half a teaspoon. I then went to invigilate an exam. I think it certainly did help a bit.

When I returned home, I took another half a teaspoon before going over to dinner at SJC. The difference was more noticeable there. I was actually able to converse with people at my table without blowing chunks of food in their faces. Even Adam said I looked better.

I’ve been feeling pretty good all night, only coughing a bit, but still coughing. I’m going to hit the codeine once more before going to bed and we’ll see how I am in the morning. I’m watching my codeine consumption because it can block up your pooper.

Hey, on a totally unrelated note, I saw Greg Williams today, he of the “Lunch at the Village blog” fame. He was in fact, just coming back from the Village with his lunch. I tried to be sneaky and asked him what was in the bag. He began to answer, but caught himself and said, “I guess you’ll find out.” The answer can be found here. One more thing. When I went to One More Sushi to get take out, I saw Greg’s girlfriend leaving as I was entering. She was there without Greg… and with another man… who wasn’t Greg. Shhhhhh…. don’t tell Greg.

I’ve been told now by two different sources there seems to be some sorta strain of super cold going around. Karen at Friday night’s dinner told me about a rather nasty strain that she’s seen making the rounds. Tonight, my sister informed me that her recent cold hung on for a few extra days, making her illness last a total of ten days. This might explain why I seemed to have gotten worse on Saturday night after thinking I was in the clear. It’s a good thing I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday. I haven’t had a cold this bad in a long time.

While we’re on the subject of being sick, why don’t I list the illnesses I’ve had since the school year started? Let’s start off with food poisoning, which I had at the end of September. After living with my parents and commuting to school for three weeks, my Mom decided to send me off in style by improperly cooking some sausage. That first week in my new apartment was an absolute trial. Worst case of food poisoning ever. Usually if you get food poisoning, you go to the can and provide a “liquid refund” of some sort and it should be over. Not in my case. Holy crap (pun intended). I also got a severe headache and it hurt to move any part of my body. That lasted about five days. And don’t even get me started on my GI tract. For more than an entire week, my body’s only purpose was to make poop. The whole experience bordered on life-changing or pants-changing, you take your pick.

So, a day after I finally felt recovered from being a brown machine, I developed a cold. It also lasted about a week and I was cursing my crappy luck by this time. Two illnesses back to back. It made a for poor start to the fall.

When I recovered from the cold, I noticed some itchy red marks on my skin. I thought I had hives. Turns out it wasn’t hives, but that’s not important any more.

I’ll leave you with one more thought. If there was a Taco Bell within walking distance of my apartment, I’d be a happy camper. Good food at reasonable prices. And consider this, a Gordita Supreme with Chicken contains only 12g of fat, that’s with cheese and sour cream. After eating undercooked sausage, I’d take that any day.

I dragged my ass out of the apartment tonight to attend Jeff’s farewell dinner. Jeff is leaving SJC and UBC for two years as part of his PhD work. He’ll be studying in Japan. Jeff, I know I will miss you. I look forward to a trip to Future Shop sometime down the road.

We went to Sushi Aoki for dinner, which is always an excellent choice for Japanese. Other than being kinda out of it, I was actually alright for most of the evening. That is until sometime after I ate my food, at which point I started to cough nearly uncontrollably. It went on for like an agonizing five to seven minutes. I’m just glad everyone just left me alone to work it out by myself.

After my coughing fit, the waitress took a group photo, which you see above. Despite my thumbs-up, I was not feeling so great. Karen said I looked pale. I prefer to call it being in a state of “conservative bloodflow”.

Part of the group then departed to go see a movie. As Karen left she said, “and the next time I saw Erwin, he had a tube down his throat”. Wonderful. That left Eddy, Frank, Woba, and myself. I convinced Eddy to drive me to Safeway so I could get some more cough medicine and anal throat lozenges. When we got to the Safeway on 10th, I discovered something amazing. It’s actually possible for a hot girl to wear a skirt four inches long and still keep both her ass cheeks covered. If you want more details go ask Frank, Eddy or Woba, this blog is about me after all.

After buying medicine, a sandwich, lozenges, and some caffeine-free Coke, the boys dropped me off at home. I’ve been trying to study and work ever since. Right now, I can feel my sinuses are just a bit achy, which is usually a sign they’re drying up. Hopefully that means my body is beginning to stop producing mucous.

Anyways, let’s hope I feel better tomorrow.

So I’ve been sick for about a week and I’m getting quite tired of it. I’ve done less work than I’d liked to have done and don’t even start me on the number of social events I’ve missed out. The fact I tried working all evening while everyone else was spilling green beer should be an indication of how untimely this illness is.

The thing I can’t believe is how limited this cold is in terms of symptoms. My nose isn’t really all that runny and it sure isn’t stuffed up. I don’t have pains or headaches. I’m not tired or fatigued. So what’s the problem? I’ve got a cough that’s just kicking my ass. Every half hour or so, I get these uncontrollable coughing fits where it feels like my body is trying to cough up an alien that’s been breeding in my lungs. In between those fits, I just cough regularly. And here’s another weird thing, sometimes my cough is “productive”, other times it’s just a dry, hacking cough. That makes buying medicine a real treat because I’ve read you should never suppress a productive cough. Do I buy a cough medicine with a suppressant or an expectorant?

Well, I’ve had it with this poopy cold. I’m going to see a doctor tomorrow to get some professional advice. I don’t care if she prescribes a rectal lozenge, I’m doing whatever it takes to get better.

If you haven’t, you might want to click here. Pretty cool.

At first it was my web server, now it’s my own computer. I’ve experienced some spectacular crashes in Windows XP for about the last day and a half. I’ve seen things happen that I’ve never even heard of. While I was working on my resume tonight, something happened and this window popped up. It told me a serious error had occurred and that I should hurry up and save all my work because XP was going to reboot in one minute. In the corner there was this countdown until restart. Of course, when the time ran down to zero, my computer anti-climatically just sat there. Apparently, even the restart utility had crashed. I had hit the manual reset button to get things going again.

In other news, I did not go to Stephen’s wedding dinner tonight, depriving me a meal of roast lamb, golden potatoes, and rice. I felt tired all day and didn’t want to talk to anyone. What kind of guest would I have been? Just some grumpy Gus sitting in the corner, eating his lamb, and sending the children running with his horrendous hacking cough.

Anyways, I’m going to see if I can crash my computer while editing some other important documents. Take care kids!

So I have this wedding dinner thing to go to tonight. Remember my friend Stephen? Yeah, he got married last week in Hawaii. He’s back in town now and this dinner is a chance for all his Vancouver friends to celebrate his nuptials. Dinner is for sure gratis and I think I heard it’s an open bar as well. The evening will take place on some Greek restaurant on Davie Street (no, not Stephos, another place).

This all seems fine and dandy except for the fact that I’m still sick. I’ve entered the coughing phase of my illness. You know the phase, where people on the bus don’t want to sit next to you because it sounds like you’re going to cough up a lung. Yeah, that one. I’d really like to go because I haven’t seen Stephen in person in years and this is his wedding after all. I’ve never even met his bride before. On the other hand, I don’t want to be sitting in a corner all by myself interrupting all the speeches with my coughing. True love is… *cough* hard to find… *hack* I thought I had true love…

I’d also hate to realize that after half an hour of being there, I was feeling miserable and just wanted to go home to my bed. How would I explain that to Stephen? Hey thanks for the lamb, but I gotta get going…

And what about the wedding gift? They’ve registered at The Bay and I was planning on buying a gift certificate online for them. I still haven’t done it yet. Should I buy them a gift even if I don’t go to the dinner? I’m leaning towards it since Stephen has been so helpful with restarting my server all these months.

Hopefully, I’ll be better tomorrow, but I’m not planning on it. It usually takes several days for my cough to subside. Well, I’m off to take some Dimetapp cold medicine. That stuff knocks me out like crazy! I’ll be lucky to be awake by 1pm tomorrow.