Tonsillitis

Turns out I have tonsillitis LOL.

Woke up this morning with a fever and a killer sore throat, mum took a look at my throat and sure enough, it was all swollen and shit. Made an emergency appointment with the doctor and it was literally the fastest appointment I have ever had, was probably in there and out in the space of 2 minutes. He just took one look at my throat and saw it was so swollen and red he gave me antibiotics in case I started developing white pus filled spots on my tonsils. 

Been feeling shit all day, having fevers every few hours, having to take nurofen to make the fever go down and help with my sore throat. Antibiotics don't seem to be working yet since I only took one so far but antibiotics don't help with sore throats anyway. Been getting hot and cold flushes all day, had to force myself to eat most of my meals because I just have no appetite at all. I'll probably be like less than 120lbs by the time this tonsillitis goes away. Sigh. 

The more I lose weight, the worse my health gets. Ever since I lost a lot of weight, I've been getting ill more frequently, I blame it on London and its dirty air but maybe it's just because I'm neglecting my health. Need to get better by Sunday so I can go to work, I hate calling in sick and getting interrogated by my SM who thinks every call-in-sick is because of a hangover. Even if I told her I have tonsillitis she'll probably be like "take some nurofen and come into work" or "I'll change your shift for later so you can come and close". No escape.

Life.

Sick AGAIN.

Can you believe I'm ill again, for the 4th or 5th time in the space of a few months...

I'm currently sitting in the library of my uni where I still have another 2 hours until my lecture starts and another 5 hours until I can finally go home. Luckily this library is fairly warm, yet I still have my coat on and my face is burning up because of this fever, my throat feels like daggers and it hurts to swallow so I'm skipping lunch today since I'm surrounded by KFC, McDonalds, Subway and other unhealthy fast food chains. 

So you might be reading this wondering why I haven't just decided to skip today and stay at home where it's warm, where I could be lying in bed till whatever time I want, where I could have a comfortable pyjama day in and worry about everything else another day. Well today I have too much going on to skip, just had a meeting with the area recruiter of H&M to talk about recruitment, she was so lovely, such a lovely woman, so helpful and friendly. It was so fun being there talking to her about things that I need to talk to her about and just being really casual with her. Right now a huge load has been taken off my chest because I finally have the stuff I need to get on with my assignment which I only have a week to write. Gotta start tomorrow since I plan to take this evening off to rest.

I plan to just stay in this library until my lecture starts because I can't be bothered to to outside in the cold but at the same time it's so boring in here. I'm not in the right mindset to do any work, I just want to be tucked up in bed at home with movies, dramas and games regressing into childhood state because I'm ill.

I slowly realise that as you get older and have more responsibilities and duties to yourself, you become more reluctant to take sick days for whatever reason because the cost of it will be too great. I wish I was a kid again so I can take sick days so easily because school has been doss. 

I am so tired. Ugh.

Was back at work today for a full shift (well technically it was yesterday since it's 4am here atm...), full shifts kill me. It wasn't even busy but I was exhausted, delivery was understaffed this morning so I helped out and then around 1pm when I came back from lunch somehow we discovered there were like 6 more crates of delivery and I was the only one in the dept. My god. Had to do some extreme multitasking to unpack the delivery and serve customers at the same time, I was a bit grumpy to some customers because of it - the shop was quiet but somehow I felt like I was the only one doing so much work on a Sunday afternoon. Tried to page for my manager but she wasn't responding... Typical. She managed to come help me out herself at the end though, this was around 3:30pm - can you believe I was unpacking delivery for 2 hours before someone came to help??

I like this manager, I rarely see her though because she's normally a weekday person but she also raises local stress levels because she does things so fast and hurriedly that I'm like "oh god oh god I need to get things done quicker". Really wasn't bothered today because it was a Sunday, I was in that slow lazy mood. Even managed to forget to cash up £100 at the end of the day. Whoops. Almost cut myself as well because I had to help kidswear cut off half term offer labels - see, I'm homeware but I'm also kidswear, why can't I just leave when my dept is all sorted? If they did that then people would be inclined to work harder to leave on time right? Sometimes I feel like some depts are lazy and know that other depts will send help to them if they're too slow. Makes everyone leave later than we want to. 

Going back to uni tomorrow, I'm just glad my lecture is at 6pm - no waking up early. I cannot wake up early anymore, even waking up at 12pm is a real struggle. I'll be so glad to have a sleep in tomorrow <3, no boyfriend waking me up, no jet lag disturbing me, just me and my nice warm bed.

Adventures in HK

Just thought I'd share some snaps from HK and pretty much what I got up to in the 5 days I was there for. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of HK, just because it's goddamn populated with way too many people for its own good. Shopping is great there if you like fashion boutiques, cheap clothes, skincare and Japanese homeware but sightseeing (in my opinion) is a bit crap - there is really not much to see in HK.

We stayed in an all-expenses-paid hotel because my Dad's friend booked us in as her VIPs, it was called Panda Hotel located in Tsuen Wan. The hotel was full of pandas it was kinda creepy, conveniently there's a shopping mall underneath it so it was really easy to get small things like facemasks and face scrubs. I saw this in the window of Panda Hotel which was probably the cutest thing ever.

Little pandas on a romantic dinner date awwwwhhh. Too cute.

The room I stayed in with my brother looked like this (well, the bed looked like this)... I actually took this picture to send to my boyfriend, I was showing him my hoard of cuddly toys that I bought in HK. I can't believe I bought so many, my bed actually has no space for them :<

So the main purpose of the trip was for my grandma's funeral. It was a really sad 2 days full of lots of crying, lots of monks, lots of incense, lots of praying and lots of folding before we finally said goodbye to grandma. I've never been to a funeral before but Chinese funerals are very different, in one way, they're extremely long. Traditionally, we were supposed to stay at the funeral parlour for 2 whole days, overnight included but apparently they banned the overnight thing at the parlour because people would drink and play mahjong and gamble throughout the nights. So for the first day we just headed there, saw the monks do their thing with the prayers and we sat folding gold and silver for grandma in the "afterlife". Folding gold and silver sounds a bit strange huh? But in Chinese tradition, they believe in reincarnation and the purpose of folding gold and silver with paper and burning it for grandma means that she can use it to bribe the people down there - the more she has of it, the more likely she will come back as a human and not an ant or spider or something bad like that. 

It was a really insightful experience to have attended a Chinese funeral, I was absolutely tired by the end of the 2 days because we had to wake up extremely early for the second day because it was the proper sending off, grandma was taken out, dressed and put into the coffin ready to be cremated. It was really really really sad, I cried when we all circled around grandma to say bye. It really broke my heart to see so many of my aunties and cousins crying. We all had a meal afterwards as a family and that was pretty much the end of the funeral. 

Rest in peace grandma, you will always be remembered. 

So for the rest of the trip, I spent it shopping, eating and eating some more...

Monday I spent it shopping with my brother for electronics. I find myself to be a huge electronics type of person now - I bought a handheld hoover today and couldn't stop showing it off to my boyfriend who was just like :| LOL. I bought a portable charger for my phone as well, these things are huge in HK, everyone has one and everyone seems to have a Galaxy Note as well. They love their huge screens. Managed to fix my boyfriend's S3 as well, the price was similar to getting it fixed here, darn digitisers are so expensive... 

I had this bowl of ramen on one of the days (I think it was Tuesday...)

Only in HK can you find this delicious crabmeat (real crabmeat, no frozen stick-type ones) and sweetcorn ramen <3. It was a bit overpriced (about £6) for HK standards. 

Had some yummy beef tripe noodles when I was out with my brother as well. My mum absolutely hates us having this but me, my brother and dad love it. Beef tripe is basically one of the 4 stomachs of a cow, it's not popular in the UK but really popular in Asia - probably the only ever organ that I actually eat and like to eat. This bowl of noodles was only 30 HKD which is like, £2. 

On Tuesday we went to Sai Kung which is famous for it's seafood. It's by the sea so it's a really nice area for tourism and of course, seafood. There's a famous seafood street where a line of restaurants serve up seafood of all sorts. I wish I took some pictures because there was some giant crabs on display - by giant I mean mahoosive, sizes you would never see here. Giant lobsters, giant eels, giant fish too. We took a boat to a nearby island as well, it was a nice experience because well, it's something I've never done in HK before. Here's some pictures of the island, it was really pretty, there were small beaches everywhere and rocks and huge mountains.

This was the view of the island shortly before we docked, this was taken from the boat. 

I took this standing on one of the small beaches, you can't really see because Google has downsized the image by there's huge rocks lining the rest of the beach towards the mountain and people like to climb over the rocks to reach the mountain. 

A clearer picture of the rocks towards the mountain. My brother actually went all the way to the mountain and climbed to the top. 

That's as much as sightseeing goes in my trip LOL, didn't really see any other sights because we had errands to run like fixing my boyfriend's phone, buying souvenirs, getting my bracelet adjusted etc. But it was a worthwhile trip, Wednesday was pretty much spent on family, went to visit my aunt and have a last meal with Dad's side of the family before me and my brother left the next day. It was damn cold on Wednesday too, as cold as UK probably. 

The weather was beautiful on Thursday which was the day we left and my Dad's birthday. 

Not a great picture because I took it on the bus to the airport on the fast road - but yeah you get what I mean, nice sunny day. 

In sum, 5 days is more than enough in HK for me LOL.

Flying Tomorrow!

Going HK tomorrow night so I will be MIA for 7 days.

I'm going to miss my bed, my house and my daily routine life.

I realised how much I really hate change today. It's human nature but at the same time humans have evolved to be able to adapt to change in environments in order for survival. It's just stressful to have to break away from my routine of going to uni during the week, going to work on the weekends, seeing my boyfriend whenever I can. Even for 7 days, it's stressful. I've had to make so many adjustments to my normal daily routine this week such as going to work for a full shift in the middle of my week, skipping lecture because I had to work, getting home at almost midnight, cooking myself some dinner at midnight, packing my suitcase early because I have uni tomorrow before my flight, preparing for my lecture tomorrow because I've had no time to, preparing for my group presentation on Monday (which I won't be there for) and now I'm finally here reflecting on just how busy my day has been.

Work took a huge chunk of my day out today, it wasn't even busy but we had to aim for perfection because apparently some Swedish people from H&M are coming to see our store tomorrow. My dept was perfect (all done by myself as usual) but because the other depts were slacking, we had to stay behind an extra 30 mins to help with their slow ass-ness. It pissed a lot of us off because we were all tired and just wanting to leave but people were holding us back.

Anyway, I'm going to call it a night today, sleeping nice and early (for my standards) at 4am compared to my recent 6-7am. Oh man, how fucked up is my sleep pattern - maybe I won't have such bad jet lag when I go to HK, who knows.

Have a wonderful week anyone who reads this =)

Those rare Monday evenings.

Well not really rare, more like first time.

So it's Monday evening, 10:30pm and I've managed to eat dinner before 10pm, be showered before midnight and now I'm tucked into bed chillaxing.

This must be the best Monday I've had in a long time.

That said though, tubes are going on strike AGAIN tomorrow for another 3 days. It wouldn't affect me as much if I didn't have to go to work but I happen to have work on Wednesday this week. I finally managed to come to some sort of arrangement with my manager (who has fucked off on holiday - he gives himself a holiday and rejects mine when I actually have a reason to take holiday... asshole), that I would work Wednesday so I don't have to work this weekend. I guess this is the only option or else I'd be having unauthorised absences at work... Awkward times for when I need to ask for a reference (not that the store manager gives particularly good references anyway... or so I've heard).

It'll take me around 1 hour and 30 mins compared to the normal 1 hour to get to work via buses. Luckily, I won't be commuting during rush hour so I'm hoping that the bus journey will be a nice, quiet and pleasant one haha.

Flying to HK in 3 days! Woohoo, a part of me is excited but another part of me is sad because I'm going to miss my stupid boyfriend, our first valentine together and first anniversary :( I'm glad he's so understanding though, I know if it was the other way around, I'd be so upset and selfish lolol. But that's the kinda girlfriend I am *shrugs*

Ah, day off tomorrow. I'm loving semester 2 (just barely)...

Breezing through my masters degree semi-failing modules.

Herp derp. Another ramble/complaining/moaning-about-life post.

A contradictory statement for the title of this post to be honest, I'm not really breezing through this masters degree.

It's too long to explain what I mean by semi-failing but it does mean that I'm struggling. Not that it's completely my fault though, I'm sick and tired of these lecturers that expect 100% independence. It's not that they're not allowed to help, it's more like they're too lazy to offer you any constructive help. I'm not failing to the extent where I have to fork out £1000 to retake a module though (well, not to my knowledge at the moment anyway... I hope to have at least scraped the minimum pass mark for my exams if anything).

It's not easy but it shouldn't be this hard either.

My project is in shambles at the moment. I'm back to square one because I "failed" my research proposal. Not that I didn't know my idea was not viable anyway, I just wanted to submit an idea even though I hadn't had time to think about a project properly. I honestly don't know why they decide to cram Research Methods into semester one, as if sem 1 isn't busy enough with 4 modules running already they felt the need to be like "oh let's make them think of their project idea now that's due in a year's time". As a result, what I thought was an idea, has fallen apart completely. However, I have a project supervisor, I just hope she's willing to give me the advice and the guidance that I need to actually formulate an idea. Right now, I have no project idea, no project and a project supervisor. Lovely.

Under a lot of pressure at the moment because of workplace issues - my new department manager is hugely incompetent and just plain crap at managing. I've told him about 4 times about my grandma's death and that I need to go to her funeral which is out of the country. First of all, he takes 2 weeks to even NOTICE my holiday approval form, I had to physically hand it to him or else he probably would have still not seen it. Secondly, he takes a whole week to look at it and end up telling me that he's unable to give me my holiday because many people have already taken holiday that week. Thirdly, when I spoke to him face-to-face to come to some sort of arrangement, he first suspects me of LYING about my grandma's death by asking me the exact date when she died and then giving me some odd look when I said I'm unsure but it was 2 weeks ago. I don't know the exact date but it doesn't automatically mean I'm lying. I'm going to a funeral, not jetting off to Barbados for a holiday. He's such a jerk.

So in the end, I told him I can work my 8 hours during the weekday instead, which he agreed to look at and get back to me by Monday or Tuesday (mind you, it's now Wednesday). At this point, I don't even care if he says no to me going, I'm going whether he thinks I'm lying or not and if he doesn't sort his shit out for the rota next week, the responsibility will ultimately fall on him, not me. If he doesn't swap my shift, he'll have no one to work for him for the weekend lolol. I'm just tired of these new managers coming along thinking they got this when they really don't. My recent new manager who got moved downstairs just cracks under pressure, I asked her where some trousers go when I was helping to close and she just looks at me as if the world was ending. Then she goes "I don't know" and she wanted to say "that's for you to find out" but she knew that it WASN'T my job to find out so she didn't finish her sentence. I don't work on this floor, you do. Incompetent manager example 2.

Retail managers these days. Really makes me consider quitting. I'd love to work my way into the head office but really, this store is going downhill with all these managers coming and going, moving departments etc.

My illness has subsided, I still get the occasional cough but I feel a lot better compared to last week. It's good to know that I actually am getter better or else that would be worrying. My (supposedly) eczema is not really going though, because I have the discoid variation, I have small round eczema patches all over my body. They're not annoying or itchy though, just unsightly. My legs have it bad, I'm so glad it's not summer. Currently, it looks as if I have multiple mosquito bites all over my body.

Recently, my family and some friends have commented about my weight. I've lost a lot of weight recently probably through illness and just general diet changes. I haven't actively gone out to lose weight but I just think because I'm busy 24/7 you don't notice the effects it has on your body until you weigh yourself a few months later. I'm eating properly, smaller portions maybe, but still decently - I think it's just because my activity levels have gone up, I'm seeing more weight loss happening. Speaking of that, I tucked into sushi, panini oozing with cheese and then some pizza today. It's been a while since I've had 3 meals in one day. It felt good. I'm happy with my weight right now but just disgusted at my collarbones. I have really protruding collarbones naturally that when I lose some weight, they stick out so much that I look like I've lost a little too much weight =/