Wednesday, June 21, 2006

trip or work

i can't believe how long i haven't blogged.

yesterday i accidentally smashed my thumb with the shower door. it was damn painful, until now i still can't press anything hard using my thumb. this made my work today inevitably slow and troublesome. i couldn't pipette solution, i couldn't close tube lids, i couldn't write properly. even when i'm typing, i have to use the index finger to do the job of that of the thumb's.

due to the long period of standing in the lab each day, my back began to protest. years ago i injured my back by lifting a box full of heavy books when helping my friend moving. i remember in a physics lecture not long before that incident, we were trying to calculate the force exerted on the spine if lifting a heavy box by lowering the upper body without squating down. the number was huge. yet i still made that stupid mistake. so i went to see some doctors. and two of them warned me of the possibility of developing slip disc if i don't take care of my back anymore. the second accident followed weeks after i injured my back, when i flew back to my hometown from singapore that year. i slipped from the upper steps in the stairs in my home, and my lower spine was fractured. it was impossible to make a plaster cast for my spine, so i had to wait for it to heal in a "natual" way, which took me three months. meanwhile i couldn't ride a bike, couldn't sleep on my back, couldn't sit long. the most difficult thing for me was that i couldn't sleep on my back. because the lower part of the spine (near the hip) was fractured, those few spine bones were arched. if i sleep face-up that means i put the whole lot weight of my body on that fracture, which gave me great pains. ok, enough old stories. so i decided to sit as much as i can to alleviate the pain.

july 1st is the canada day. we will be having a long weekend. washington and i plan to go for a 3-day trip organised by university of ottawa. then i recieved his letter just now telling me that the trip isn't starting on july 1st, yet one day ahead. this news made me worried a lot. it's rather bad to skip one day's work for my own enjoyment, besides i couldn't find any excuse to convince my prof to give me one day off. he's paying me to stay, and i shouldn't get paid for nothing. but there are quite a lot of places to visit for this trip, i'm very looking forward to it. sigh... what shall i do...

2 comments:

jeremy said...

You should take five minute breaks every hour or so to walk around and stretch. That's what I do in the pharmacy, where we stand 8 hours a day. It really helps :-)

I think you should go on the trip...I mean, how often do you get to do that?

I don't quite know your circumstances, but if you tell your prof that he might understand. Usually if I do something like that here, they might agree, but won't pay me for the day I was supposed to be there since I didn't give them any notice.

YayADuCK said...

thanks. i'm trying to sit as long/often as possible to ease the strain on my back. i'm getting better these days.

i've decided to go for the trip. i've explained to my prof and promised to work overtime/on weekends to make up for the working hours i'll be missing. i think that's the best deal for both me and my prof. since i'm living on campus, going to school takes me about 10 min walking, unlike those commuters. so i don't really mind going on weekends.