Death Note 2: The Last Name

The sequel to the 1st Death Note movie brings the game between Light and L to a dramatic end as well as introducing the oh-so-pretty Misamisa to the plot! Oh wait, i'm getting ahead of myself.

The 1st movie ends with Light worming his way into the Kira Investigation Team and meeting L, who continues to suspect Light being Kira.

Misa Amane, lovable and ditzy personality (think the Paris Hilton type, who models, does TV shows, sings, act etc) almost dies at the hands of a demented stalker-admirer, but another Reaper sacrifices himself to extend her life (something which Reapers are forbidden to do). Thus, she gets her hands on that Reaper's Death Note, and her main motivation is to be Kira's lover (she admires Kira for a dark reason).

Oh, and did i mention that Misa is cute?

Light and Misa eventually DO get together, and Light hatches a brilliant plan to utilize her Shinigami Eyes (she traded half of her remaining life to get the powers of a pair of Shinigami Eyes, which allows her to merely look at a person to obtain his or her name, which the Death Note needs in order to kill) in order to bring down L. It's so flawless and clever that you can't help but go wow. Of course, L is no dummy, and off we go in another thrilling cat-and-mouse game between them which ends up with one of them dead (yes, that is what that's meant by The Last Name).

While the 1st Death Note movie is faithful to its material (Death Note started as a manga), Death Note 2 condenses the rest of the series (which kind of degenerated into lots of confusing events) into one neat package. The ending does take some thinking to understand (i took 3 viewings before i finally 'got it'!), but it does tie the entire plot up nicely.

You can pretty much count the movies together as one epic (like how the 3 Lord of the Rings movies tell one complete story), and boy, it is one pretty engaging story.

Are You Happy Now?

Where did Michelle Branch fade to???

I liked this song, on her album, Hotel Paper. And arguing with your shadowy evil self definitely is cool.

School No More

Ok, this is it. I've decided that school is not something which i can do. It's not a snap decision that i made, but it's something which slowly shaped and i finally opened my mind to it.

Ok, 1st things 1st. Today (it's midnight as i type this on my cellphone) is my promotional exams, my General Paper. If i fail it, my entire year's grade is gone together with it. Thing is, even if i do turn up and pass that paper, the question remains about the rest of my 2nd year education at ACJC. It's not fair if i simply turn up for my exams and not attend school.

I simply don't envision myself doing school in my current state where practically every day is a grand conflict with the parents (usually it's with mom) and with the eating disorder haunting my footsteps. By sheer force of will (like if i'm restricting and forcing myself not to binge) i can force myself to school for a day... and then cave, just like how forcing myself to NOT binge always end up at. It's just not a viable long term plan.

If i don't school, the next option is to serve my National Service, which i have to serve anyway (all Singaporean males have to do it). Perhaps it's a better choice compared to school, since it is a major change which may shake the eating disorder off it's fat ass. The problems i see is that it may just be a spot of wishful thinking, as well as that i wouldn't be able to continue seeing the SGH treatment team when i'm in NS (i'm not buttkissing, but the honest truth is that they're the best team i've found in Singapore). But bottom line: i have to do my NS and there's no way around it.

The matter of education after that is another worry i have. Dad said that i can pursue a 1 year preparatory course for a university or go to a polytechnic (overseas education is a possibility but i don't really relish the bill nor the guilt i'm saddled with by 'using' the parents). What makes me uneasy is the unconventional approach to it. Most people do their polytechnic or JC/preparatory courses BEFORE NS, and the roundabout way i'm doing it makes me... uncomfortable.

Edit: it's now morning and i guess there's no more turning back. Bye bye, ACJC (and no i'm not being dour or whatever. I'm just kind of numb at the moment. Maybe i'd be better in an hour. Who knows? Perhaps even a workout might do me wonders. At least breakfast was a nice, normal guy-ish one that was neither a binge nor a restriction. Oh, and i had 2 packets of tau suan (sweet mung bean porridge) for breakfast, and just too exhausted to even be able to feel the guilt welling up in me.

Giving Myself Up

I know that i'm not doing well. Heck, obviously something is wrong if i'm stuck at home either bingeing, eating really restrictively and exercising like a crazy rat (no offense to Spike the exercising hamster!) on the days that i'm eating restrictively. And being so depressed that i can spend the entire day cooped up in my room and barely saying a single thing.

N Chick and KC are totally exasperated when i don't pick up their calls or reply their messages. I just seem to have fallen off the face of earth and back into the eating disorder's embrace once more, with life not seeming to work out any better. The prospect of controlling my intake and calories is just too tempting, and off i go shooting down the rabbithole after discharge.

Dad called the ward to see if i could return. Dr Lee recommends an admission too. Deep down, i know that the best thing that's for Ryan is to stay in hospital, but Rex resists and tempts me with 'just trying 1 more day, my way, wouldn't hurt'.

I decided to 'give myself up and surrender', put the guns down, and step into the ward again. I feel bad, it's kind of like, i tell myself that i'm not so sick, there's plenty of skinny people who're skeletal, ready to drop dead and subsisting on celery who needs the ward more than me. I don't deserve all the help when it's just a matter of applying willpower. Ok, that's the guilt talking, but still, i DO feel overwhelmingly guilty and ashamed of not being able to measure up to everybody's expectations.

I'd try my best to update every day (there's lots of posts i saved as drafts but never published!), but things are still up in the air. Still in a tizzy from packing and stuff. I hope you guys stay well!

Hidden Secrets

Nothing much to say today
The same pain that makes me ache
People refusing to accept my say
It's not like they can dictate my mind anyway.

On the surface, of rebellion, it tinge
But it's not of willfulness i swing
I've learnt to not show the true me
Because it would hurt your 心.

Hidden it for too long and too well
Never intending to reveal till i've moved out of the house
Your expectations i find too hard to measure up, i truthfully tell
Instead of making you cry, i cover up my personal hell.

Too many secrets i have in my heart
Don't ask, all it can do is tear you apart
Let me choose my own paths and route
Your way might not suit what i want.

Tempeh Rocks!

A brand new discovery that i made during the latest hospital stay: tempeh.

I can't believe that i NEVER had it before, EVER, my entire life. Yep, even BEFORE i am eating disordered. I didn't even knew it existed, until one supervised lunch session when another patient said that she hated tempeh. Intrigued, and being the usual rebel that i am, Ryanryan decided to spring for it (incidentally, it's found at Muslim mixed rice stores, and i prefer the 'pure' version tossed with chill as opposed to the one stirfried with longbeans). And it's so good, i got it practically every day after that whenever we went to the houseman canteen at SGH (and the aunties there recognized me as Tempeh Boy!).

For a supervised dinner, i packed it as a side, and passed it around the table. The verdict?

Dr Siew: Pretty yummy!

G-Boy: I can't eat outside food.

Terminatrix: It's pretty ok.

Q-Chick: It's appetite jogging!

S-Girl: It wasn't as bad as i remembered it to be. Actually, it's not bad at all!

Hup Seng Cream Crackers

I really, really hate these things. And i really, really love them. Blame Rex; ever since i discovered bingeing, i've also discovered that it's damn nice to binge on these!

Anyway, since i was a kid, our family always had these crackers dunked in hot Milo. I don't know if it's a popular thing to do with these crackers, but it sure tastes good! And my younger sister loves it so much, her main beef with me is when i finish the crackers in a binge and leaves none for her.

Having them dunked in Milo needs skill one, ok! Dip them for too long, and the cracker disintegrates into the hot stuff. Dip them for too short a time, and it doesn't absorb the liquid well enough. I like mine dunked for 4 'beats', but most people's preferences varies.

I used to have about 20 or so crackers at a go, as a kid. Now? Only if i'm bingeing do i go anywhere near these crackers, because of the heartstopping count! For some reason, Oreos appeal to me more in terms of bang for caloric buck.

Hup Seng Cream Crackers
(per 4 pieces/31g serving)
160 calories, 8g fat (4g saturated, 0g trans), 19g carbohydrate (1g sugar), 2 g protein

Nothing In This World

The blondest music star ever? Introducing... Paris Hilton!

And the music video of Nothing In This World is pretty cool. And who would have thought that Ms Hilton actually looked less skanky as a teacher...

Supplement Dilution

One weird thing i did: dilute my supplements (when i was an anorexic) with LOADS and LOADS of water. And it seems like i'm not the only one who does it!

You see, supplements (Ensure, Resource, Prosure etc) are supposed to be a (almost) painless way of adding calories to your intake. Just down it and go. Easy peasy.

Thing is, when you're eating disordered, you try to avoid calories like the plague. And if you have no choice but to ingest the calories, you find ways to make yourself pay for 'commiting the sin', as well as making each calorie count.

I realize that this is very hard for non-eating disordered individuals to wrap their minds around. But look at it from the eating disordered person's viewpoint when they are faced with the prospect of 300 (Ensure Plus) or 475 (Resource 2.0) calories. Since i have no choice but to take it, i sure as hell am going to MAKE SURE it's so painful that i'd make myself HATE supplements (and the hidden agenda of never taking them again as soon as i'm out of the ward, even if i'm supposed to!).

It's quite a weird thing. Normal people actually DO enjoy Ensure Plus (i know my younger brother liked it!). But it's so deeply ingrained in me that it's something 'to make me gain weight' that i have a sort of revulsion and fear towards it.

Also, the supplement doesn't FEEL like the calories it contains. Ok, you need to delve into calorie density now. Simply put, calorie density is how many calories per gram there is in a food. And anorexics have become so used to eating low calorie density foods (fruits, vegetables etc) that getting the supplement's worth of calories from the food would involve consuming quite a large amount of said foods.

For a perspective on it, an apple averages 70 calories. A packet of Ensure Plus (200ml, or a cup's worth of it) is 300 calories, or almost 5 apples. But it definitely feels less filling than eating 5 apples.

Unfortunately, when you're eating disordered, you tend to want to 'get the most bang for your caloric buck'. So, in the attempt to make the 300 calories FEEL like 300 calories, i added SO MUCH WATER that Intense Gal (another patient) could hear me sloshing when i walked past her after supplement time!

Oh sure, i've heard people (ok, confession, i did it too!) trotting out the excuse that 'the supplement is too thick to drink like that!' But, lots of other people with raised caloric needs or something (endurance athletes, cancer patients etc) drink their supplements straight, without loads of dilution! And looking back, i (or more precisely, the eating disorder) used that as an excuse.

I guess that this post wouldn't really make sense to rational minds (i found it really hard to explain why i did that, in fact). That's why it's called a disorder, folks!

Appointment Fears

I can't help breaking out in cold sweat as i plopped my ass on the seat outside Dr Lee's office, one recent appointment. Too many bad memories of the place!

You see, ages and ages ago... Oh wait, i can't believe it, it's just slightly more than a year ago when it happened! Anyway, yeah, about a year ago was literally the last time i saw her at the outpatient clinics. And it ended up with me kicking and screaming, fighting tooth and nail to get away from the place while she referred me to IMH.

With a good reason (though, at that time, and even up till recently, i never agreed with it). I'm hovering around 35kg (though i played tricks and got my weight up to 42kg while at the outpatient clinics!), heart rate severely low and (according to the doctors) at death's door. And refusing treatment of any kind; determined to stay sick and even die while hugging on to the eating disorder.

Nobody knew what do do with this crazed boy. Who keeps running away from the psychiatric ward. And refusing to comply while at home. Continuing to exercise compulsively. And, just like all the nuts which are too hard to crack (heh heh, pun!), i got packed off to IMH (Institute of Mental Health).

It still is quite a trauma, though i've kind of left the memories of that time buried in the recesses of my head, not wanting to dig up the old emotions and fears. You see, at that time, i kept absconding from hospital, and the parents were at their wit's ends over what to do with the rapidly deteriorating me. They promised me that they wouldn't put me into hospitals if i went to my appointments with the doctors. I believed them, went to that fateful appointment, and got sedated and referred to IMH. It's still a huge struggle in my heart to actually forgive and forget.

Sure, i know that it was for my own good. Dad often likes describing it as wrestling a sleeping person out of a building which is on fire. Still, it still hurt, to have such a ginormous knife plunged thru your back; it's not something which you can just get over with and move on, without scars. To this day, i still avoid the room into which i was shoved into by dad, bawling my eyes out and screaming my lungs to bits, while a nurse shoved a needle into my arm and pumped a sedative into my bloodstream.

Thank god i'm no longer medically compromised, plus i can quite sanely say that i'm much saner now. Still, old fears die hard. And a faint echo of the memory plays when i see the place.

Chilled To The Bone

There are times when i honestly miss being anorexic. Sometimes, it's for nostalgic reasons. Sometimes for being treated as a sick person, with everyone pandering to your wishes. And sometimes, for purely practical reasons like this one!

It sucks to sweat! It's one of those shitty things in life, like shitting. Inconvenient. Annoying. A pain in the ass. I hate feeling my shirt stick to my back, i hate feeling the sweat run down my legs when i'm shifting in the tropical heat at the bus stop. I hate having to slather the antiperspirant on or end up with wet blotches. And that's when i sigh at the memory of being an anorexic.

You see, at low body weights, the body shuts down various functions in order to keep you alive and running on the calorie-free junk you throw into the system. One of the sideline businesses it closes is sweating. And boy, you don't sweat at all. You can stand right under the hottest blaze in the desert and not break into any sweat.

Don't laugh, but i can even go a day without showering and be none the worse for wear. No BO (body odor, nitwit!), no stain, no nothing! If you put clothes on a corpse, you wouldn't need to wash them. Because, at that time, i was quite literally a walking corpse with skin stretched over bones.

Oh, of course, it's not a nice sort of cool feeling from being bone-thin. Quite the opposite. This sort of cold ain't the enjoyable sort of nice cold which have you cuddling up to your blanket. This sort of cold chills to the bone when a wind blows. Your fingers turn blue when you stay under the draft of airconditioning for too long. You feel your ears when you're in a chilled room, hoping that they wouldn't turn numb.

I barely survived my 1st round of promotional exams at ACJC, in fact! The normal people are complaining about how cold the exam hall gets, and everyone are bundled into pullovers and sweaters. I wasn't even able to say ANYTHING thru my chattering teeth.

Oh well, the grass is FOREVER greener on the other side. I think i'd keep my current body (hey, though it ain't the best, at least it has the decency to respond to gym training!), though i still miss being anorexic, sometimes.

Homesick In Ward 46A

Confession time, people! How many of you guys felt REALLY homesick and wanted to get home, BAD, while in the ward???

Ok, i got it pretty bad during my 1st admission as well. Anything could spark it off. Like my favourite soup (lotus root and pork ribs) coming up for dinner. A call from my younger brother. Heck, anything remotely reminding me of home can spark off a torrent of tears.

Thing is, a large part of being homesick is also due to the eating disorder as well. You see, i missed being able to slink off to the gym anytime in order to exercise. I missed being able to customize my food and cut the fats and carbs out of it. I missed having unlimited fruits and not having any oil in my food. Or, more precisely, the eating disorder made me miss them (and i can testify that greasy food DOES taste better!).

While the actual things i miss (blasting music, playing Magic cards, catching up on my reading, studying etc... well, ok, maybe not the last one) are all easily solved in the ward (with the sole exception of internet access; Wireless@SG hasn't been implemented at that time, but now the ward has wireless access to the internet so you can't say you'd get bored in there!).

So the next time you feel like you NEED to be out of the ward, the question is: is it you, or is it your eating disorder?

Come Clean

Believe it or not, the 1st time i heard this song, it was a horribly wet and rainy day and i'm shivering in the frigid air-conditioning of the bus! Talk about irony.

I loved Come Clean, by Hilary Duff, for like, since forever. In a weird way, it brings back a smile to my face. My pal WeiMing used to wiggle his eyebrows and suggest naughty stuff when i'm bopping to that song when plugged into my MP3 player.

Oh wait, WeiMing, stay away from Hilary Duff, she's too innocent and perfect to be defiled!

Ravager Affinity

I was an avid player during the Mirrodin block era (it was back in 2004), but the entire format got warped by this darned deck. Basically, at that time, the entire Magic scene became either 'you play Ravager Affinity, or play against it'.

The deck abuses the interaction between sacrificing of artifacts and the Disciple of the Vault effect. The namesake card, Arcbound Ravager, was the most efficient sacrifice outlet around. Damn, Atog was in the same set, but he was barely used except in budget versions of Ravager Affinity.

The Disciple dude looks innocuous at 1st glance. Hey, it's just a reverse Leonin Elder (which in turn is based on Soul Warden), ain't it? But just play him in Ravager Affinity (multiple copies of him is downright evil), and see what happens.

Cheap card drawing via affinity for artifacts? You got it.

Free 2/2? You got it.

Not good enough? 4/4s for sale too!

If that's not enough, have some burn for good measure.

The entire backbone of the deck relied on having a ton of artifacts around (the more artifacts you control, the cheaper the spells you cast). If you can't pummel your opponent senseless with sheer numbers, then throw all of them into Arcbound Ravager and make your opponent lose a scadload of life with Disciple of the Vault. What made the deck degenerate (and ultimately got banned themselves) were...

Looks innocent. Plays broken. They basically reduced the cost of affinity for artifact spells by 2 (once in the cost, the other when they tap for mana). Sure, they're vulnerable to artifact destruction (hello, Shatter!), but they are what made Ravager Affinity go over the top.

Give the deck a whirl, and you'd soon see how it wins and you'd definitely yell 'unfair!'. That is, if you're playing against it.

Death Note

One of the movies that remains etched in my brain is Death Note. If you haven't watched it yet, then you better get the DVD of it or something. Because it's just one of the greatest stories ever.

Basic premise: what will you do if you have a notebook which has the power to kill? That's what the protagonist (or perhaps, anti-hero) of the movie, Light Yagami, has to grapple with when he gets his Death Note. A law student whose father is the chief in the Japan police force, he has always been frustrated with the lack of justice meted out by the law against criminals who deserve to be punished, yet gets away with it. With the Reaper Ryuk dropping his Death Note into the mortal realm and it being picked up by Light, now here's his chance to ensure that justice is never perverted.

Light tried the Death Note out one night, and wakes the next day to discover the serial murderer who got away with a crime (and whose name he wrote in the Death Note) had died. And with that begins his descent into vigilante justice. The public termed the force behind the killings Kira, and though some are against the brutal enforcement of justice, others applaud Kira for singlehandedly bringing the crime rate down.

The police soon takes notice. And a mysterious L, an internationally renown and reclusive detective, offers his service to the police force. Communicating with them via his assistant, Watari, he deduces that Kira is based in Japan and is a student (the killings take place at times other than university lesson hours). He demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice human lives in the search for Kira, such as allowing a murderer's identity to be known over the air (in the guise of an anti-Kira activist) in order to narrow down the time taken for Kira to kill (Light fell for the bait and offed that dude).

Luckily (or perhaps not, depending on your point of view), Light is smart enough to hack into police records, and discover that behind the scenes, L is working to apprehend him. And thus begins a cat-and-mouse game with deadly consequences as 2 bright minds take each other on.

The plot is really clever and has lots of twists and turns, and lots of times during the flick, you probably would go 'WOAH' by how neatly and surprisingly the loose ends are tied up as well as the near improbable yet clever breakthrus Light and L has against each other. It takes a master storyteller to craft this epic and to sustain it without collapsing on itself.

It's out on DVD in Singapore (and probably in other regions as well) now. Go watch it!

Here (In Your Arms)

I first heard this song from Junjie's blog. And HELP, it's stuck in my head. I can't get it out, and call it part of an OCD quirk or something, but when i start humming it, i can't stop until i hum finish the entire thing.

So you have been warned! Don't blame me if it gets stuck!

Nescafe Mocha

I rediscovered my love for thick, milky and sweet coffees while in treatment. Honestly, i haven't dared to touch them ever since 2005, when i watched my calories like a hawk. But, somehow, the count doesn't seem to faze me now.

Anyway, i LOVED Nescafe canned coffees (they were practically the 1st coffee i drank; and they're the ones responsible for hooking me onto using coffee as my caffeine fix!) since 16. Tried the flavors (like regular, dark, etc), but mocha is the best one of them all. It's like taking milk coffee and making it all the more thick and milky, and finishing it off with a heaping scoop of chocolate. Yum!

Too bad the nurses sometimes don't allow coffee into the ward (on the grounds that it's a triggering food; anorexics have been known to abuse it to raise their metabolism). Blah if you ask me, because the minimal increase would be offset by the caloric content of regular sugared and milked coffee!

Thank god that dad comes everyday. Oh dear, that's such a shallow reason for looking forward to his visit!

Nescafe Mocha
(per 240ml serving)
140cal, 4.6g protein, 2.6g fat, 24.9g carbohydrate (16.8g sugar)

Appearance Assumptions

Self-Discovery Helpsheet: 10 Appearance Assumptions

1) Physically attractive people have it all.
2) The 1st thing that people will notice about me is what's wrong with my appearance.
3) One's outward physical appearance is a sign of the inner person.
4) If i could look just as i wish, my life would be much happier.
5) If people knew how i REALLY look, they would like me less.
6) By controlling my appearance, i can control my social and emotional life.
7) My appearance is responsible for much of what has happened to me in my life.
8) I should always do whatever i can to look my best.
9) The media's messages make it impossible for me to be satisfied with my appearance.
10) The only way i could ever like my looks would be to change them.

-The Body Image Workbook

Notice something? They are all untruths. And what's worse is that, unconsciously, all (ok, most) of us have internalized that as truths which guides our actions.

A large part of changing would be to be aware of what's screwy in our heads (or how do you even acknowledge the need to change!). Change isn't as simple as 'merely snapping out of it' either. The important bit is to change the wrong self thoughts with new ones that are more correct (not to mention that they'd help in creating a better body image!).

To #1: Physically Attractive People Have It All, my new inner voice says:
They may have physical attractiveness, but they don't have it all (like how Paris Hilton don't have modesty or brains!). And some people don't look attractive, but they have almost it all. 'Having it all' is a subjective thing anyway. Only god has it all.

To #2: The 1st Thing That People Will Notice About Me is What's Wrong With My Appearance, my new inner voice says:
Sure, that's one of the 1st things they notice. But they notice my infectious laughing and internal blondness as well. Plus, they're too busy worrying about THEIR own body problems too!

To #3: One's Outward Physical Appearance Is a Sign of the Inner Person, my new inner voice says:
Sundar (my personal trainer) is SUPER BUFF but he's a gentle giant. Just like buff people ain't wife beaters, fat people (me being the only person i put in this category, in my head) ain't all the negative things i attribute to them (or more precisely, to me).

To #4: If I Could Look Just As I Wish, My Life Would Be Much Happier, my new inner voice says:
I went from a super high to super low weight, gained and lost and gained and lost the abs on my tummy, had my butt shrunk to nonexistence and inflated to ginormousness, but i never found happiness anyway.

To #5: If People Knew How I REALLY Look, They Would Like Me Less, my new inner voice says:
I never stopped liking someone, or even liking them less, when i discovered they had something wonky/grew a pimple/had bad breath. Oh sure, i'd tell them they have bad breath, but i don't NOT like them just because they ain't perfect. So by extension, they wouldn't like me less too!

To #6: By Controlling My Appearance, I Can Control My Social and Emotional Life, my new inner voice says:
Oh sure, i make myself feel better... for just a moment. I fix my hair, feel good, then worry about my butt! Only by changing my negative body image can i really feel better and regain control over the runaway negative emotions.

To #7: My Appearance Is Responsible for Much of What Has Happened to Me in My Life, my new inner voice says:
Sure, it may had affected SOME things like being teased for being fat, but lots of stuff that happened in life are not related to appearance. People remember me as that ditzy guy who's funny (i hope). Anyway, important people like Mother Theresa looked nowhere like supermodels!

To #8: I Should Always Do Whatever I Can To Look My Best, my new inner voice says:
To look my best is a subjective, perfectionistic way of thinking which ensures that i will never be satisfied! And i don't NOT LIKE somebody just because they don't look their best (the grungy out-of-bed look rocks, by the way), it's the way they are on the inside that makes me dislike them.

To #9: The Media's Messages Make It Impossible for Me to Be Satisfied With My Appearance, my new inner voice says:
The messages make it DIFFICULT, but not IMPOSSIBLE. What i believe and do is entirely up to me!

To #10: The Only Way I Could Ever Like My Looks Would Be to Change Them, my new inner voice says:
I felt happy but only for a while after i changed the ya i look. What's really broken is my old inner voice.

You might come up with better statements to challenge the assumptions. And i'm no infallible person, and getting that new inner voice in place takes alot of practice. But i believe it will be worth it.

I for one am looking forward to a day i can roll out of bed and not get anxiety attacks over facing people just because i feel fat. And celebrating the way i look instead of hating myself for it.

Nobody's Home

One of my favourite songs ever from Avril Lavigne. The music video is pretty touching (in my opinion) too!

Call it morbid, but that is pretty much the state of my family. Hello, hello, nobody's home at the moment. And there's no soul left in it anymore.

The 60kg Goal

Discovered something weird on my old blog. Goal: be 60kg. I was befuddled for a moment, them realized that i have written it as one of my goals.

Hey, it really was a suprise discovery. Intellectually, i know that it was me who WROTE that down. But emotionally, it just wasn't me. Or perhaps, it's me, but a different me, under a different set of principles and mindset.

I don't want to sound preachy or whatever, but the truth is, i can't FATHOM why an arbitrary number is so important to me. Theoretically, i know that weight was a REALLY important thing for Ryan the eating disordered person, but somehow, it just doesn't feel so important to Ryan the recovering person. It's a fucking NUMBER, nothing more, nothing less.

I can sure imagine the old and current mes engaging in bitchslapping over the importance of weight in their lifes. I'm happy (and a tiny bit of being proud of myself) to say that i can go for months without knowing my weight. Sure, i might feel fat at times, scrutinize myself in the mirror, pinch my tummy (you need one to hold your abs up, you know!) and stuff, but i no longer want to submit myself to being governed by what a number says (and letting it dictate whether the day is a good or bad day).

Looking good is still one of my goals in life. But it's nowhere as important as how i remember i NEEDED to be 60kg. The 60kg used to be a 'do, or die trying' thing for me. The looking good for me bit is still important, but it's one of the things i wouldn't mind dropping in favor of more important and less ephemeral stuff (ok, don't eyeball me, i know i'm supposed to be studying my Physics now!).

Death By Noodles

Noodles are a tough for me, in terms of challenging Rex.

It's a safe food for lots of eating disordered people (though i fear it just about as bad as white rice anyway). And by taking your safe food day in and out, it just reinforces the eating disorder. I'm in no position to preach or be hypocritical or whatever, but if taking noodles feel good, one big question is: does having the noodles satisfy the eating disorder, or does it satisfy me?

For me, the problem comes up when you order noodles from a store. You'd have lots of customization options like the choice of noodles, soup or dry, choice of toppings, etc. And when you are faced with so many decisions, it's easier for the eating disorder to step in and make the choices for you instead. 'No sauce' becomes the default, and it's easy to sneak in a 'less noodles' request as well.

And, for some weird reason, i (or rather, the eating disorder) feels safer when i watch how my food is prepared (and you can see what exactly goes into it). It's something i (or, specifically, the part of me which wants to be recovered) rather not know. Counting the drops of sauce or whatnot just makes the disorder stronger. And buying pre-cooked food, with the element of surprise, usually just keeps Rex off balance.

Funny observation: oil and sauce free food tastes horrid. I had somehow convinced my tastebuds during the year of anorexia that i don't like greasy foods. And only now have i realized how much i am missing out. Everything just tastes better stirfried; you don't even have to drown stuff in grease or sauces to draw the flavor of the thing out.

Out of Hospital And Into the Fire

Things haven't been going very well at home. You see, there's ALOT of feuding with mom, which translated into lots of symptoms with the eating disorder, and into more feuding and avoidance and feuding.

Add to the whole mix the fact that Dr Lee has been nudging me to live life out of hospital, and that financial worries are crunching (after dad's quitting of his job), and that Dr Lee has been wanting me to return to school (and i don't mean to portray her as being pushy and demanding)... Which fuels the insidious slide backwards into the comfortable embrace of Rex if only, for just a moment, i can shut the world out and close my ears and eyes and pretend that reality doesn't exist.

Ok, i know that i'm ranting. I have so DAMNED much in my head that i want to freak, scream out loud, and do SOMETHING, anything.

You know something? Perhaps doing my NS (National Service; enlistment is compulsory) ain't all that fucking depressing after all. I get to escape the house, get a monthly allowance, and generally am cut myself free of the parents after finishing it. I'm holding out hope of being able to move out and generally live by myself (though the realities of housekeeping *gleaned from Dr Siew is HARD). Perhaps do university with my own means (partly out of not wanting to add to the financial woes, partly as part of wanting to distant myself as far as possible from the parents). And just be able to not be bound by 'family ties' and 'parent-set morals' and all that stuff.

Call it all a load of wishful thinking. Maybe, after i wake up with a clearer mind, i might think that this post is all deranged and crazy. I hope that dawn would bring some new solution to the tangled mess i'm in.

Domain

Ahh, fond memories of staying back after school (way back in Nan Hua Secondary School) with my chums, and playing Magic. One of my card flopping pals, Kelvin, ran a Domain ( a deck which played all 5 basic lands to maximize the effectiveness of some cards) deck in the days of Invasion, and all of us HATED it when he managed to lock the board down.

The main culprit? The darned Collective Restraint locked the board down when it hit. Most of the time, you can afford only to send one creature over on the attack (who got so much mana to pay?!). And then, something else steps in the way to block your lonely attacker. And with multiple copies of it in play, it just becomes silly.

Interesting sidenote: Phelddagrif is an anagram of Garfield PhD (in reference to Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: the Gathering). Anyway, the purple hippo would step in the way of whatever attacking creature you send, and pump itself to ungodly proportions. Since those little hippo tokens wouldn't matter, anyway, with Collective Restraint holding them at bay (who wants to pay mana to send a puny 1/1 into the purple hippo???).

Of course, it's no mean feat trying to get your set of basic lands into play. Luckily, Harrow was in Invasion, which allowed you to play a minimal of basic lands you didn't need (you can just pluck them out at will with Harrow, and not need to depend on the luck of the draw to draw into them).

A particularly devastating and unfair feeling (when played in Domain decks) card is this. It's basically an Armageddon for everyone but the Domain player (who would stay high and dry with his 5 basic lands of different types intact).

Of course, the deck played countermagic as well (much to all our annoyance). Try paying for this, in addition to the stupid Collective Restraint! Playing a 5 color deck also allowed you to play all the Invasion multi-color counterspells (see Absorb and Undermine). Damn annoying can!

Card drawing, perhaps? It gets ungodly with all 5 basic land types in play!

This helped smooth out your land draws, though Harrow is usually a better choice. But against land destruction (i used to play one red deck with scads of Stone Rain effects), this rocked in the Domain deck).

Stupid 'remove from game' effects! Legacy Weapon is nasty when it gets online, and what makes it worse is that it's practically invulnerable to destruction (it gets shuffled back into the library if destroyed). What Kelvin would do at the endgame, with scads of mana lying around, is to pick off your lands one by one. Evil!

We despaired over beating his deck... Until Apocalypse (the last expansion in Invasion block) gave us this! Hehehe.

Sympathy Barfing

I am a sympathetic throw upper.

Ok, got that out of the way. Phew. So, always remember: don't throw up in front of me. Because i get the urge to throw up, myself, when someone else does.

It's a childhood thing. Well, one event that stuck out in my head is when my younger brother(who was still a little, roaring toddler at that time) leaned over the edge of his feeding chair, and emptied out a disgusting mixture of milk and masticated porridge-y sludge. Me (i'm about 11 then) promptly leaned to the side and felt my dinner coming up as well.

Probably, it's a good idea for me to not go drinking, i guess. If somebody hurls, i'm gonna follow suit.

I don't really know what triggers it, but i know for a sure thing that the reflex comes on stronger when i'm anorexic (and at a lower weight). Maybe it's because of the low-grade nausea i carry around from malnutrition (i get motion sick just at the thought of a rumbling bus ride). Just the SMELL of puke, and i taste the bile and chewed food at the back of my throat

The Dreaded Scales

I don't know when will i ever be ready to face the weighing scale again. You see, whichever direction the number swings, compared to my last weigh-in, i'm never happy with it.

If the number is higher than before, i'd freak and feel super-duper fat (never mind that fat is not a true emotion). Which would swing me into a binge from the hopelessness that fills my head, or into severe exercise and restriction to try to squeeze the weight down again.

And if it goes down? Rex would crow, and say that Ryanryan has been a Good Boy. All i need to do is to step up and follow what he says. Believe it or not, after all this years, losing weight still holds a sick appeal over my mind. It's something i can't fix, a little quirk or hiccup in my programming.

And not knowing my weight, with its associated up or downs, truly is liberating. I made the choice NOT to know my weight. Seriously, how debilating can it be, not knowing how much you weigh, right down to the 0.1kg??? There's no cosmic law that says that you're a worser person if you gain a few fucking GRAMS.

If knowing your weight only makes your Rex stronger (like how it would spark off mine), then NOT know it. It's one of the things which ignorance TRULY is bliss.

Ratatouille

Ok, i had to google the movie name up. And it's pronounced Rat-A-Too-Ee!

Nicole's dad's company booked an entire cinema hall at Golden Village to screen the movie (some company event), and Nicole convinced me to drag my lazy butt out of the house to go watch it with her. And it turned out to be a really nice show!

I wouldn't spoiler it for you, but basically, it's a rat who loves cooking, and a boy who can't cook, and they bump into each other. From there on, you can basically see where the whole show is heading.

The movie is pretty heartwarming, and it leaves you with the fuzzy sort of feeling after you leave the cinema. It's the kind of show you curl up to with your partner on a rainy day, and feel all cozy after that. So grab the DVD when it's out; you wouldn't regret it (though you probably would if you plopped the cinema money down!).

The TangYuan OT

Florence (the occupational therapist, remember!) asked all of us what we wanted to do for the next cooking session. And after mucking around with some ideas (mooncake, anyone?), we decided to do tangyuans (glutinous rice balls). The best bit? We get to go to the new and unopened LIFE center (which will be where we do the eating disorders program at in the future!).

Everything smelling nice and new!

Damn, we have a kitchen (and attached dining room too!). Way cool.

Enough of the LIFE center (i'm sure Dr Lee will have a website or something with all the pictures of the place in the future!); today, it's tangyuans on the menu. Someone brought red bean paste and crushed peanuts along to be the filling for the chewy balls. And we're planning to make ginger soup as well to serve the tangyuan in.

Florence googled and printed a recipe off the internet, just in case.

We had to go to the houseman canteen to beg for a few slices of ginger to make the ginger soup with! Luckily, the auntie was nice enough to give us a huge bag (or maybe, Florence did her act cute routine and melted the uncle's heart!). Too bad for a lack of pandan leaves. At least we have the candied wintermelon to make up for it!

Ginger soup is more rock sugar than ginger! 4 big chunks (and half a bag of candied wintermelon) went in, compared to the measly 2 slices of ginger can!

While the soup was bubbling happily along, we made the glutinous rice balls. Ryanryan gave eyepower while the others kneaded the water into the flour (don't ask me what kind or how much; i never liked kneading it!).

There's a batch with red tinted flour as well. But we added the food coloring at the wrong time, so the end result was a nice swirly look for the balls.

There's a red bean filling, which turned out to be simple to put in (both the flour and the red bean paste are sticky and comes in clumps). Just a simple matter of wrapping the flour around the paste before it dries out and sticks to your hand.

The peanut powder ones are damn hard to do! The peanut is all powdery and well, you just can't wrap the flour around it properly. Only one chick managed to do it right, for a grand total of once!

And here's a failed peanut one. Hey, mistake are the mother of successes or something, ain't they???

Then it's dumped into the pot of boiling water. You can't boil the balls in the ginger soup because it'd make the soup all floury and milky. No wonder i messed it up the other time at home when i tried boiling the balls in peanut paste!

Ta da! It's all done! Together with a strip of candied wintermelon (which tastes way nicer after boiling).

The red bean paste ones are much nicer than the peanut ones (we forgot to put the sugar in the peanut powder!). They're really smooth and tastes like, well, red bean (in the YUMMY way). I reckon i had 3 of these balls (in addition to the peanut and plain flavors!).

Another way of eating: rolling the balls in peanut! Which tastes damn good too.

The TAF Club Factor

I'm sure many of us have known about TAF (Trim and Fit) club, the infamous program in school which conscripted overweight students into exercise. Here's some info on the program (which has the dubious honor of being pointed to as one of the culprits in the rise of eating disorders in Singapore).

Ryanryan had his name down on the TAF club membership list ever since Primary 1. And technically, never graduated from it (thank god that in secondary school, mine wasn't too strict about the TAF club activities). It's embarrassing (if you flip TAF around, you get the ironic FAT acronym) to be put into a freaking weight-loss grouping, can! Though i laughed most of the fat teasing off, i remembered being hurt inside, even way back as a wee Primary 1 (6 year old) kid.

I wouldn't say that TAF club is directly responsible for making me eating disordered, but it sure added to the stigma against fat people. It's not so nice to laugh at specific fat people, but it's more acceptable to laugh at the TAF club stereotypical chub. Throw a person with a history of being fat and the correct personality together, spark it off with an insensitive comment, and BAM, you've got your eating disordered individual (and hopefully, a ward 46a patient).

It's humiliating to miss your recess and break periods in order to do exercises with the other overweight people (though to their credit, some physical education/PE teachers hold fun TAF club sessions of catching, volleyball etc). It's humiliating to be called out for buying fried/unhealthy foods in canteen. It's humiliating to have to stay back after school when the fit people run off home to play. It's humiliating to both be in the TAF club and fail the NAPFA test (most overweight people can't run a great timing, can!). It's humiliating to have your weight taken every half a year at PE lessons and having your BMI (body mass index) calculated out by your class monitor (OH MY GOD YOU GOT A BMI OF 31!).

Other eating disordered patients i asked have got a fat childhood, and by extension, TAF club attendance, as well. Perhaps being in the TAF club does not CAUSE an eating disorder, but it definitely adds to the potential of having one later on in life.

One alternative to TAF Club: make the exercise component optional, and change the choice of food available in the canteen to healthier choices (less fat-laden foods, lots of fruits etc). Have lots of exercise equipment lying around as well as encouraging people to do sports.

A way to get overweight individuals to join in without seeming to pick on them would be having every class having a day in which EVERYONE has to join in the games organized every recess/break period. Which doesn't sound discriminatory (and nobody would get to laugh at the legion of overweight people jogging around school while everyone else is nibbling on their Hello Panda biscuits).

The Nutritionist Factor

I've decided: i'm not interested in nutrition!

One year ago, i aspired to become a dietician. Coincidentally, one year ago, i was really sick. And somehow, one (Bad) Thing about being ill with an eating disorder would be that you have an inordinate amount of interest in food counts. Calories. Fat/carbohydrate grams. You know, the stuff which dieticians HAVE to count, but we are the only people who LOVE to count.

It's weird. I figure that since i have fun counting all my nutrient ratios and whatnots, wouldn't being employed to do that be a perfectly good idea??? Indulge in my disorder AND get paid to do it. Heck, the money is incidental to the fun of counting. If i have fun counting my own intake, i'd have more fun counting other people's intakes!

But that was a year ago. I'm not fully like, ME yet (and i'm DEFINITELY still ill), but i know that dietetics and nutrition is just not for me. Maybe it's from cold turkeying from the counting when i'm in the ward, which made calorie counting unfun (you can't eat less for dinner even if you ate alot of lunch) and there's just no point to (part of the hospitalization cost goes to paying a dietician to help you count!). Or that realizing that i'm only interested in the calorie bit of nutrition (all the B vitamins and antioxidants and whatnot flies over my head).

You can say that i'm pretty much still undecided about what i would want to be. Being a doctor would be crazily hard. Being a psychologist sounds cool. Being a social worker seems like a high-stress job. Being a physiotherapist seems boring, with mainly rehab work with old people. Oops, i'm going thru the entire treatment team.

Honestly, i have NO idea about what to do, after giving up the dream to be a dietician (ok, it wasn't exactly giving up, more like it was just an aspect of the eating disorder). I guess i'd decide when the time comes. Heck, university is still 3 years away, at the least!

ED Pals/Competitors

Having other eating disordered people as your good pals are a double-edged sword kinda thing.

You see, it's nearly impossible to go thru a hospitalization without making good friends in the ward. It's akin to doing your National Service/going to summer camp etc, kind of a bonding experience in which you experience the highest of highs and lowest of lows together with a bunch of other people in the same boat. And just by having them by your side makes both parties bonded in a way, with a shared (intense) experience.

And, as a friend, you are bound by the paradox of wanting them to recover (which would eliminate a common factor which contributes to the friendship in the 1st place) and wanting to spend time with them (and perpetuate the duration of the eating disorder as both parties may serve to trigger the other, leading to a downward spiral).

It's not that friendships with people in the ward, with the same eating disorder, is a Bad Thing. I have no idea how i would have managed to pull thru some of my darkest and most depressing periods of hospitalization (and institutionalization!) without them. The problem sets in when the eating disorder is entwined together with the friendship.

Simple premise: you tend to do what your friends do. Which would be a good thing if they are 'normal' (whatever that means; i meant that in a tongue in cheek way!). And a Bad Thing if they are wonky (and being eating disordered definitely qualifies as being wacky). And that's when having a common disorder and being friends would become a problem, with both parties keeping each other entrenched.

It's easy for therapists to say: don't stay in contact with the people you meet in treatment. The reality: the people in treatment become close and emotionally connected to each other. And how are you supposed to tell them: i don't wanna be your friend anymore because of my 'selfish' reason of wanting to recover???