Just caught and killed a rat!

No pictures as we already threw the body into the river near our house. I went to the kitchen and heard something in the cupboard. Looked into it and saw a rat staring at me. It saw me too and bolted. Not the first time. I've chased out one before and I guess its the same one. So I quickly closed the cabinet and called for help.

Thanks to my poor Thai... My mother and father-in-law thought it was a snake. :P So they were a bit scared at first. Until they saw it then they realised it just a rat. (They very used to it liao) I used a rattan stick to chase the rat while my father-in-law used a cast iron tongs for holding charcoal to catch the little bugger.

Its a bloody quick little bugger. It jumped from the cupboard when we opened it to the cabinets below the sink. There were lots of pots and pans in the cabinets so we proceed to remove them and tried to move them to the living room. Then it bolted again and ran into our living room. We gave chase and closed all the doors. As it has no where else to run, it hid behind our the gap behind our tableware cabinet in the living room. Bloody smart bugger. Anyway with some probing we managed to chase it out. Father in law gave the stunning blow and it knocked it out cold. We then use the pincer and carried it out of the house before I gave the killing blow with my rattan stick.

Quite an interesting experience and I'm still in my adrenaline rush.. Never get to do this sort of things in Singapore... hehe

Back to School!

As mentioned in my previous post. I am currently attending the CCNA-Express course. Suppose to have one more colleague (to make a total of 3) but he was recalled back for "service" as one of colleague who was suppose to cover us had some personal issues.

Anyway its more of a refresher course for me as I already took my CCNA way back in 2000. It expired in 2003 but I never bothered to get it renewed so my current company throw me into the course again.

Things have indeed changed as last time we only did RIPv2 and touched a bit on OSPF... nowadays its all on OSPF and EIGRP.. duh...

Fundamentals were unchanged though. All those OSI layers and TCP/IP stack, subnetting, bits and bytes. My other colleague who is my team mate and in the same course is having a tough time absorbing all these information. I have to keep remind her that I once took a semester during my University on all these basic networking stuff thus I could comprehend. If not, 5 days crash course on CCNA is really a bit tough for the uninitiated.

Lab is also a breeze for both of us as we deal with routhers and switches every day in our work but learning new commands for my colleague is a bit daunting for her to as she is not used to CLI (console line interface).

So far we are 3 days into the course and 2 more days before the whole thing finish. Frankly, I kind of enjoy the course (not because its easy) mainly is to get the feeling of being in a classroom again and facing a lecturer. The whole experience is quite stimulating and I do hope I get more chances to go for such courses.

And speaking of certification. I did not plan to re-certify initially(sure can pass one lah :P) as I think I won't be in this line for long. Still, maybe I would just take it and see if I can clear CCNP next year... See how lah... :P

Kena (Got myself) Scanned.

I had an MRI appointment for my gallstones as the doctors are still baffled by my condition. The bile level is so abnormal in my blood and I do not have a blocked bile duct (scoped twice and found nothing) so they send me for an MRI to get a "clearer" picture. Think the full name of MRI is Magnetic Resonance Imaging(please correct me if I am wrong). Its an interesting experience as I did CT before and they say its similar but I find it a bit different though.

First of all, the machine is huge and loud. The room is also more like a vault. I was asked to put on robes and administered an IV needle for the contrast agent. I was then strapped onto the bed and the radiologist gave me a cap to wear and a set of headphones to listen to her instructions (not music hor). The doctor needs to scan my whole abdominal area. So the scan took some time. About 45 mins. I think I nearly fell asleep during the process if not of all those whizzing noises the machines make. It really sounds like those flatbed scanners every time it scans my body. Then there is the part when they will inject the contrast agent into your body and you feel something flowing into your arms to the whole body. Very weird feelings. Or they will ask you to hold your breadth for 20 secs.

Anyway, hope nothing seriously wrong with me. Will be seeing the doctor on the 22nd and the schedule ops date is on the 27.