Okay, public service announcement time!

No, seriously, you want to hear this because it could save your life. Or maybe that of your loved ones.

I’ll make it very easy for you and just give you the most crucial facts.

Fact #1

Cervical cancer kills one woman every two minutes, worldwide.

Yes, this is a female issue. But if you’re male, you should know this, too, because you want to protect your loved ones, don’t you?

Fact #2

In Singapore, more than one woman dies of cervical cancer every 5 days.

Fact #3

Females as young as 15 and as old as 80 can get cervical cancer.

Fact #4

Death by cervical cancer CAN be prevented.

There are two ways to do that:

1. Go for a PAP smear once every three years.
2. Get a cervical cancer vaccination (you can ask your GP about it).

Even if you don’t get a vaccination, a PAP smear can help. If cancerous cells are detected early enough, a life can be saved. Although you really don’t want to get it in the first place. Cancer treatment is NOT fun.

But let’s do something even better. Let’s reduce our risks of cervical cancer by reducing our risk factors.

Risk Factors of Cervical Cancer

1. Becoming sexually active at a young age.
2. Having unprotected sex with multiple partners.
3. History of other sexually transmitted diseases.
4. Having sex with a partner whose sexual history you don’t know.
5. Smoking. Women smokers are 10 times more likely to develop cervical cancer.

Now that you know the crucial facts, I’m sure you want to know more details.

What’s cervical cancer exactly? How does it grow? What does it look like? What are the symptoms and effects?

All your questions will be answered at the Power Over Cervical Cancer website.

Don’t procrastinate! You can protect yourself and your loved ones starting now.

This flu bug that’s been going around is vicious. It’s been more than a week, I’ve finished all my medication dutifully, and I’m still not well!

Still sniffling, still coughing, still “fla-gamy”.

STILL NO VOICE.

Laryngitis is very inconvenient, seeing as how I’ve signed up for so many activities this month. Which leads me to believe that it’s a health hazard just stepping out the house.

I was much healthier when I stayed home for weeks at a stretch playing EQ2, wasn’t I? If I’d continued staying home, I wouldn’t have caught the flu bug, would I?

On the bright side, I’m excited about filling up my days with classes.

Last week, Wen and I became certified sport climbers. (Yes, while I was sick, cos I had already paid for the course, no choice.) We now have the knowledge to use all the required safety equipment when climbing. We did this course so we can belay each other when we go climbing instead of having to hire a belayer.

LOL at Wen’s bright orange overalls (standard issue from the school for people who turn up without suitable attire).

So, I learnt the painful way at the course that it’s very important to tie long hair up when belaying to prevent hair from getting stuck in the belay device.

It’s quite fun, though. I prefer belaying to climbing now because I still haven’t conquered my fear of heights.

I’ve also started on a couple of dance classes (Jazz and Hip Hop) and my hamstrings are screaming in fury now after the gruelling stretching session they were put through on Monday.

I suppose this will come in handy when I start on my wushu classes (waiting for after I recover to start).

I’ve also joined a Dungeons & Dragons group. Yes, the pen and paper kind, although when I walked into my first session in our DM’s kitchen, I thought I had walked into a lan party. Everyone was using laptops with excel sheets spread out, and the DM read adventures off his MacBook.

I’ll get a picture the next time, cos Fluffy Prime wants to be in the picture, too.

I’ve kinda stopped playing EverQuest II. Just need some changes in my life.

I’m most likely starting Japanese classes later this month.

And still looking for a singing teacher. (I kinda still haven’t made up my mind whether to sing pop or classical.)

Also getting private lessons on photography. Planning to get a DSLR, well, eventually.

Something will give along the way. I don’t suppose I could keep up with a zillion classes for long. I just feel the need to start on everything I’m interested in. Because if I have to pick and choose, I will never start on anything.

I’ve always had this greed in me to do everything, to learn everything all at once. I can never be satisfied with sticking to one thing.

But I really, really need my voice back now.

Tired of sounding like a wookiee.

I just had a revelation. Actually, I had this revelation a long time ago but let’s not be pedantic over chronology. It came to me one day as I was sitting at my computer, blurry-eyed from lack of sleep.

The message came to me in a sort of vision-ish way, if you would indulge my theatrics for a moment. It said to me in a wispy, ethereal voice as I grinned stupidly at my monitor: “Playing games through the night is so fun.”

That, of course, wasn’t the whole of the message – I haven’t completely bonkered out on my games yet.

The next part of the message came while I was sticking the pointy end into a nasty goblin: “Think how much money you’ve saved staying home gaming.”

There’s the crux of the message. When I find a worthy game, for instance, EverQuest II, I’d rather play it than go shopping. Or clubbing. Or eat a buffet or buy a private jet, and so on.

I have saved hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a month by choosing EQ2 over any number of popular entertainment choices. My bank statements accounting for those months during which I was not subscribed to EQ2 are solid proof.

Here’s a survey: If you had a kid, would you rather he be attached to an online game at home where you can watch him, or would you rather he go out and “get a life”, where he could potentially drink/smoke/spend all your money away?

Okay, I kind of lied about the revelation part. There wasn’t really a wispy, ethereal voice. It was all me. Sorry.

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This column was probably first published in Stuff Magazine, June 2010.

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By the way, World Cup at Star Blog this week.

Find out our thoughts on this mad phenomenon and share yours!

The only image of me attempting to kick a toy soccer ball.

I woke up at 12pm today, which is a decent time for me at this stage of my life.

I had planned to blog and then spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning my room in preparation of recovering from my EverQuest II addiction.

Yes, one can plan to kick an addiction. But in the process of kicking it, you need to have other things to do, hence the preparation.

For example, you can buy yourself some pretty gym clothes so you can haul ass to the gym without giving off the impression that your last visit was in 1980.

My room had gotten really disgusting while I was spending all my free time gaming. I need a clean room to indulge in my other hobbies.

Well, so, things didn’t happen quite as planned today. I ended up spending four hours searching for laptop bags online. I wish someone would start designing pretty laptop bags. I have half a mind to start designing them myself but I can’t draw.

You don’t want someone who draws like this to be designing your laptop bags, do you?

In between shopping, one can also get distracted by hundreds of little things requiring attention. For instance, cooking in Cafe World, crafting in EverQuest 2, and leafing through newspapers.

I was alerted today that my name had appeared in Digital Life under “Top Searches”.

Unfortunately, the top search wasn’t me. Haha. It was Jipaban. I was simply named as being in association with it.

But I’m glad that Jipaban is getting the hype it deserves. It’s an awesome site! :)

Anyway, plodding along, I finally found a laptop bag for my Alienware and a laptop sleeve for my MacBook. Both aren’t even close to what I want but they are functional and cute enough to use for now.

It’s a brand called Cool Bananas from GearZap.com. The MacBook sleeve is reversible so you can use the black or red according to your mood!

GearZap is a UK site that doesn’t ship outside of Europe so I had to go search around for a shipping service to use, which took up even more time. I decided to use Borderlinx since I’m a Citibank card holder.

So, it’s 4 pm when I’m done and I have 15 minutes to blog before getting off my chair to prepare for an event I have to attend tonight.

Of course, a moderately decent blog takes more than 15 minutes to write, so I’ll end up rushing and probably forgetting to bring something or other.

I think I’d better stop writing now.

I shall leave you with a link to my Star Blog post this week.

Why Singapore women are so desirable.

I’ll bet you have a zillion things to say about this. Hopefully good.

Chat tonight 9 pm at Star Blog?

Okay, here’s the missing post which I accidentally deleted the other day. Reader Dallas found it on Google cache for me, lol.

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So strange.

I was walking out of my housing compound to get to the main road to get a cab. As I walked past the guard house, a car was also at the same time driving out.

The passenger at the back seat rolled his window down and started waving and gesturing to me. He was on his mobile phone at the same time.

There was no one else around me he could be gesturing to but I also didn’t recognise him, so I just ignored him.

Then he started shouting (cos we were some distance away), “Go where?”

I turned back to look at him. He started gesturing “where” and said, “Where you going ah?” as if he knew me. At this time, he still had a mobile phone stuck to his ear.

Of course, I looked at him puzzedly then looked away again and the car eventually drove off.

Why got people so weird one.

Oh, then I got in a cab and said “Kinta Road” and the cabbie kept saying “Sinta Road”, despite my repeated enunciating to make sure he got the right road.

Story of my day.

Blogging on my iPhone cos I’m out today for meetings and didn’t bring Fluffy cos I can’t find her power cable amidst the mess in my room.

And can’t bring my MacBook out cos I don’t have a case for it. LOL.

Speaking of which, I’m still undecided on which laptop bag to get. Some help?