Here a walking transparent elephant to motivate everyone who's reading this while struggling with studying for the upcoming examinations.
So I crashed NUS again to study. It was pretty much productive. Went on monday night, I started studying. Tuesday was spent at the humongous starbucks with oh-so-many plugs to conveniently charge my phone and ipod. Wednesday was special. I went to Changi Hospital for a surgery review, and after that I spent an hour or two with my best friend near the east. After meeting her, I went to Holland Village, to an ice cream cafe where Ed worked at and studied there till he ended his work. After that, we went for supper.
Went back to the NUS college pretty late. Had a round two of supper with Aaron, we ate in his suite and talked about life. Thursday was spent slacking and sleeping in the day. At night, I went for floorball with the usuals. After floorball, I got myself cleaned up and decided to be productive. So I crashed Angus's room to study till pretty late like 2+ in the morning. And here I am, at home.
Exams are in about 4 days' time and I don't know what to feel about it. Am heading to the airport to study with Carol. I just want exams to be over and done with, really.
Probably the saddest blog post I've done. Remember how I mentioned that I lost my dog? I'm just going to do a flashback on the 3 years I had with her, with as little photos as possible (I've had too much photos with her)
Sparky came into our lives in about April 2009. She was actually borned in 23 February 2009. But the owner felt that she needed her mom for the next two months for milk feeding and whatnot. We were excited, as first time dog owners.
This is Sparky (third from left), and her siblings. We thought it was cruel to "take" her away from her family. But that was the only way. The original owner of Sparky lived in a HDB flat and she was not allowed to have so many dogs in her home, thus she decided to let them go one by one.
When I first met her, I was overwhelmed with her cuteness (continue reading her pictures won't disappoint you I promise). Initially, I wanted her other sibling (first from the left) but I honestly had no regrets choosing Sparky instead. She grew up to be really lovely, cute, notorious and honest.
We used to live in Woodlands (Admiralty area to be exact) when we first got her. Back then she was really young, probably few months old. We left her in a cage because we thought that she would be better toilet trained that way. The cage had an opening at the top. She didn't like it there, she have always yearned to come out. My sisters and I, as first time owners didn't know that. Thinking back, whenever we took her out of the cage, she would be really happy, she would disturb us by running to us, stepping on our toes and running away.
One night, she attempted jumping out of her cage. After many failed attempts, she managed to. But she cried really loud and bad. It was with a heavy heart we walked over and stroked her, telling her it's alright. That was when we realised the reason she cried was not only because she has injured herself during the numerous attempts of getting out but because she had a hernia at her abdomen area. A hernia is a protrusion of an organ or flesh and it looks like a large lump. Something had to be done, I didn't want her to die. Not me, not anyone else. We went to the vet for help and the doctor told us that if we removed it, it was either she survived with more years ahead of her or she wouldn't make it through under the knife. We took the risk. The risk of not seeing her ever again.
But thank God, she made it through the surgery. But when she came back home, she was literally facing depression. I never knew dog could undergo depression. During that "depression" period, she would just lay on her pillows, and stare at people blankly. Refuse to eat anything, even if she was given her favourite snack. It really pained me to see her in that state. Nothing was more heartbreaking than to watch her bubbly Sparky downhill to a depressed, lifeless Sparky. But nonetheless, I'm glad she got out of it after a month or so.
She also have a phobia for her own kind, dogs. When she was little. We brought her to the grooming centre. She was about 1 years old or less then. And she, being the little friendly one started going round, trying to make friends with the dogs around. Two shitzus from the grooming centre were caged up. Sparky being sparky, went over with her tail wagging so high and tongue sticking out like a little girl who just had ice cream got scratched and bullied by the shitzus. Since then, she never liked dogs. Shitzus especially. She did, however had a shitzu friend though. This shitzu is called Trixie. She belongs to one of my friends. Sparky took about a week to be friends with this shitzu. T'was really a heartwarming scene watching them play with each other.
We then shifted into the Pasir Ris area. We thought that with a bigger home, Sparky would be happier because she had space to run around and play with us. We thought.
Initial months of staying in this house was horror for us and terror for Sparky. She would overturn the house by ransacking items when we went out for dinner. She would scratch the door when she's left alone and this led to a lot of scoldings. Each time we scolded her, we felt really hurt. Nonetheless, she became a better dog, she stopped scratching, but the ransacking never stopped. You can tell from the pictures, she became prettier and more photogenic as well.
This girl often runs into the glass door, and act like nothing happen or it wasn't painful while she limps a little towards the sofa and lay there. She didn't like people to see how weak she was. I remember, there was once she ate this chocolate cake that a guy got me. She ate about half of the cake. Dogs are not allowed to eat chocolates or grapes because they are poison to them. And we were so afraid she would die the next day. We gave her princess treatment and begged my mom to bring her to the vet immediately. We begged and we cried. She turned out to be fine a few days later. Sparky's been a really strong girl as long as I've known her.
After going through so much with her, my younger sister finally found her passion in dog's grooming and decided to take up a grooming diploma so that she'd be able to groom our princess by herself. She later lost interest in that. And that was when I took over. It was tough for me at first, especially the learning process. But slowly, I became the one cleaning her ears, trimming her hair, bathing her, toweling her and drying her. It was this that made me closer to her. She became my best friend at home. Whenever I was down, she would lay on my lap and stare at me with comfort eyes. She would hold up a paw on my hands, indicating to me that everything's alright.
Just like that, she would be able to comfort me.
It is actually really difficult to pen these emotions down on my blog because I am bad at articulating my feelings. But she really means a lot to me. Now that she's gone, I miss her barking at the door whenever I come home. Or giving me the come-and-play-with-me puppy eyes whenever I'm doing my work. Or even waking me up by coming up on my bed and snuggling against my arms at 2am while I was soundly asleep.
Since she was gone, every dinner time, I look forward to giving no one my pork meat after I've drank my chinese herbal soup. When I cut apples after dinner on Sunday, I left a piece or two aside, imagining her by my leg, sitting and waiting for me to pass the apple slices to her. But no, she's not there anymore. She's gone.
Mommy said I have to learn how to control my emotions and let go. But to be honest this is not only affecting me. It's affecting my entire family. Even my daddy, the strongest one in the family, feels affected. When we realised her lost, I ran around the pasir ris vicinity for 6 hrs, 7pm to 1am, skipping my dinner. And daddy, too. He drove around the area for hours. I had no idea where the adrenaline rush came from but I'm guessing it was from the fact that we were unable to accept her absence.
She means the world to me, so if you've read this blog post and have seen her around pasir ris, could you just give my dad a call at +65 9729 7221? Pretty please? She's out there somewhere, I know. I've been in search for her since I realised her absence. Please help me to reach out to as many people as possible. I'm not giving up if she's not back because I know that she needs me. And I need her too. Thank you so so much.
