Visited by Asthma

It is absurd for a 5 ft 10 in and 85 kg "Rambo" man like yours sincerely to struggle for breath at 4 or 5 am in the morning. But that is my condition now. When your life hangs on a breath which you have to inhale, then the rest of the world is deemed unimportant. I refused to believe that I have Asthma. I visited several GPs for a quick fix and hoping against hope that the condition would somehow disappear. But looks like it is stubbornly staying on.

No choice. I visited the Government General Hospital for the first time in my 32 years of working life and with only 8 days of leave on MCs. There was no award or citation for such efficiency in the government education service. So, you out there who are teachers in government schools, do take your sick leave and gracefully rest at home. Don't try to be a super teacher. If you struggle to go to work like what yours sincerely stupidly did in the name of being an honourable teacher, for all you know, you will be given relief classes of your colleagues who so conveniently fake sickness and take leave.

See my inhalers in the picture. They contain my life! . And my life hangs on these medical equipment. Thank God, my former employer is supplying me with them foc.

Six months down the road

Six months down the road, yours sincerely is still bombarded with shocking statements : What! You have retired?" "Are you doing anything?" "What are you doing to pass time?" "To pass time" I have to say that time is never enough from the day I called it quit. Never a second, a minute or a day passed when I could be accused of wasting time. And time is getting more and more precious by the day.

Never spend half your life trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. One thing I discovered truthfully, when you retire, you switch boss, from the one who hired you to the one who married you. Some say that a retired husband is the wife's full-time job. Others say that when a man retires, his wife gets twice the husband but only half the income. There is another guy who says that being retired is twice tired. First tired not working, then tired of not working. There is another chap who says that retirement kills more people than hard work ever did.

Six months down the road, yours sincerely has to say that there is no turning back for me. I enjoy every minute of my retired life. The trouble of retirement is that you never get a day off!!!
I would say that retirement in itself is the best gift. No gold watch could ever top it. I enjoy waking up in the morning not having to go to work! You enjoy not doing anything and not getting caught at it. Ha! Ha! ha!

Anyway, I do think that retiring at 56 is ridiculous, when at 56 I still have pimples. But then I do not want to give all my youth and also all my not so youthful years to work, and finally retire with grey hairs, old teeth, stones in the kidney, extra glucose and pressure in the blood, gas in the stomach and knee pains. Retire when you are still tip top or a little bit tipped from the top but not fully toppled over. Good retirement is when you quit working before your heart does and begin working on your living.

Allow me to end with Alexander Pope's golden verses :-

Learn to live well, or
fairly make your will
You've played, and loved, and
ate, and drunk your fill;
walk sober off; before a sprightier age
comes tittering on, and
shores you from the stage.

I like my son Albertus' quote ; "This is the business we choose"
" Life is the sum of your choices" - Albert Camus