Plagued by Cough

There have been a lot of things done on 15 Jun 2005. I could say it was a busy day. I could not dare to say it was a day of achievement though.

In the morning, my superior requested for some amendments to the presentation slides which I would be presenting in the late morning. I must be thankful that I had the skills to learn how to make those amendments within such short notice. Yes, I am thankful that I know how to change a pie chart to a bar chart within no more than 5 short steps. If not, I would have spend ages trying to come out with at least six bar charts from the scratch. Anyway, making the amendments was not a great issue, thank goodness because I had the know-how to much extent.

I did the presentation in the late morning. I think my cough has been so bad that my voice went very bad towards the end of the presentation. I started out with my voice loud and clear, and by the end of the presentation, it was coarse and somewhat feeble. I was trying hard not to cough during the presentation, for sheer good manners. But now, when one is sick, good manners are hard to maintain, and need not be. Anyway, the presentation should have went fine for at least I managed to complete it without anyone throwing rotten eggs at me. Neither did anyone sleep through my presentation.

Afterall I had a counselling session with a client. Then after the session, I went on to follow-up on several phone calls awaiting for me to return call.

I took some time to observe a children's day-camp which was held at our centre. Those children are extremely creative, I saw their works and I was very impressed. I also got to observe the social work intern (whom I was supervising) conducting an activity wih the children. I think she had done well, so here's some deserving praises for her put on record. (Not that I think she would read my blog. I don't usually give away my blog address to anyone. I expect people to find it out by themselves.)

I took time-off from work at the later part of the afternoon. A pity that double bass sectionals with the double bass tutor was cancelled at the last minute. Anyway, the good side is that I could take a more leisure time to travel to the university for the orchestra rehearsal.

We played Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto composed by Chen Gang and He Zhan-hao. It is quite an interesting piece to play. The orchestra was practically sight-reading it. Anyway, we went through the entire concerto, and I could not believe that we did. Certain passages were really fast and not easy to play as an ensemble. I think we did fine considering that we were sight-reading this work.

If you like to listen to us play this violin concerto, you may like to know that we will be playing this for our concert at the Singapore Botanic Gardens sometime in early September this year. free admission. Furthermore, you will be treated to music and the beauty of nature at that concert. Stay tune to this blog for more details. I will post the details when I get hold of them.

Trying to distract my attention by playing on the double bass had not seem to help stop the cough. I was coughing even during the rehearsal, and at one point, I was hyper-ventilating and had to excuse myself from the rehearsal room. My conductor said it could be because the air in the rehearsal room was bad. It probably was. I must admit I have sensitive nose. Sigh, at this rate of my coughing, I fear I may not live beyond my thirties. I am being pessimitic, I think. I could only hope for good health to come, slowly but surely.

Anyway, it was fun to play Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. We played the fourth movement today, and that was exciting. I guess I needed an outlet to express that emotional pain I was experiencing?

Somehow, it felt like that this world has its dark side, and its pains. Nothing has made me sad today, but somehow, there had been this invisible key that had opened me to get in touch with some of the pains that life has presented. If you call it growing up pains, let it be.

I am also feeling discomfort from being plagued by cough. How I wish it would soon go away. Don't come again another day even.