The Secret to Peace of Mind is

Lotion. My squeaky sneakers are squeaky no more! All thanks to lotion. I put lotion around the orthothetic sole and now it's only the tchak tchak of my crutches that gives away my coming and goings.

So it was definitely not Jeff Dunham style lotion. No SIREE. Nothing like this.

Nothing at all.

Also, if you are able to, you should watch Celeb to Binbotarou (セレブと貧乏太郎). It's a fantastic jdrama about rich spoilt girl and poor working guy. Not exactly a very innovative plot, but the I think it's a comedy that's kinda like Scrubs, where the little touches show that it's a good series. Plus it has a very catch ending theme song.


I totally dig the princess outfit.

Hobbling About

I started work today and hobbling around on crutches is not the easiest thing to do. At least the building has an elevator. I remember back in JC where I had to climb stairs to get to class in crutches! At least I had an excuse for being late back then. Now I kinda feel like that crocodile from Peter Pan. Whenever I move about, there's that distinct Tchak Tchak noise of crutches. Anyone can tell I'm coming around. In addition to that, I have squeaky sneakers which makes me rhythm in motion when I go about. Tchak squeak Tchak squeak.

On the bright side, recovery seems to be going fairly smoothly. I hope to be off 2 crutches by the end of the month and off all crutches by mid of Dec.

Ninja!!

Never mess with a 8 handed ninja.


I hope everyone enjoyed their halloween. I know I did. At least I had something to celebrate before becoming hobbled with my ACL reconstruction surgery. Here are a couple of nuggets I have found just surfing the net in my bed-idle time.

Looks like the LIBOR rate is FINALLY dropping down. Hopefully this means not just optimism at the changing of the guard of the USA president but also a less paranoid outlook by the banks.

Hopefully this will in turn lower mortgage rates so that if/when I can finally finance my home purchase, it will be cheaper.

A couple of indicators of how the world will fare should be able to be seen in the differential between the LIBOR and 3 month US Treasury Bonds rate. When things settle back to normal, this differential should be ~1%.

Also, historically the US housing market has found its "sweet spot" with a 6 month inventory. Currently, it is about 10 months worth so demand is still lagging behind supply by quite a bit.

And joblessness numbers should be sub-400,000 before the economy starts to recover.

All the information was gleamed from Yahoo! Finance.

As the clock ticks down

So by this time tomorrow, I fully expect to be in bed with at least 3inches of sterile wrap around my knee. I'm going in for an ACL recon tomorrow morning, hopefully, this will be last time they cut up that knee again. 4 times before the age of 80 is 4 times too many already.

6 weeks in crutches means a shutdown in the holiday season. The forced inactivity whilst everyone else is planning parties or holidays... Ugh. You can't join your friends to ski, to celebrate Thanksgiving, to go bargain shopping, nothing at all. I plan to catch up on my manga, anime and learn VBasic for Excel macros. Maybe I'll try to record "Pai Ka" versions of songs and use the brace and crutches to gain sympathy viewership. Haha.

An operation is kinda like a paradigm shift in your lifestyle. One day you lead a normal life, where you won't think twice about bending down to pick up a quarter that has fallen down. The next day, you become bedridden and are advised not to shower for another 3 days(!).

Oh well, for all the inconveniences, at least I have my parents to help me along and if it means that I don't need to cut the knee open again, it will be a price I am willing to pay.

At least I have an excuse to stay home in the cold and sleep in when it's snowing outside. Haha.