Mood: Meh 
Weather: 28°C, Light Showers
Location:Alif Dhaal Atoll, Maldives
This hotel room is so darn cold that I have to wear a bathrobe as a coat. If we set the AC too high, it will feel humid. I slept at 2am this morning so I’m hoping to sleep a little bit earlier, hopefully right after I’m done with today’s journal entry.
I’ve been watching our apartment’s CCTV today, Thyl is starting to get hungry so she’s standing her ground with Thomas. She also keeps checking the feeders to see if they’ll come up with anything more. Thomas’ feeder is set to release kibbles 1 minute before Thyl’s feeder. Thomas’ one also releases a larger portion, and the way that feeder is, some of the kibbles get “stuck” in between the “mouth”. When Thomas’ feeder releases his kibbles, he eats for that 1 minute and the Thy’s feeder goes off so he tends to move on to that one. That’s when Thyl walks to Thomas’ feeder and starts to eat. It will take him 2-3 minutes to completely eat everything from Thyl’s feeder, and so Thyl has to eat as much as she can because Thomas then returns to his feeder to finish up. Most of the time, he will not dig into the kibbles that get’s stuck close to the mouth of his feeder because by then he’s had his fill. So Thyl will generally have those 2-3 minutes to eat, and then she gets some extras by sticking her paws into that feeder’s mouth until it loosens and releases the kibbles that were stuck. We put Whiskas in their feeders because Thyl is extremely picky, and if we put something healthier in there she will not want to eat it. The Whiskas is something none of the cats will reject, so this ensures she eats enough until I get back.
Woke up earlier enough today, didn’t do much until the lunch buffet. Walked around the island to familiarize ourselves with the area. Expected the weather to be bright and sunny for photographs but the weather continued to be cloudy and extremely windy. I took some pictures anyway.
The highlight for lunch was the cauliflower “chickn”, the taste and texture was pretty good but it was quite oily. Everything else on my plate was fruits, vegetables and something called “Arabic bread”.
After lunch we went to the dive centre to grab some flippers and booked a few dives. My sister is still sick but we’re scheduled for an orientation dive for tomorrow afternoon anyway. It will be a beach dive, I heard them say “15m”. They want to test our skills before we go for the boat dive. We’re also signed up for the whale shark snorkeling tomorrow morning. I’m really not one to schedule 2 things in one day, but I’m trying to get as many things done before we leave. My second cousin scheduled a bunch of things for us but I don’t have the energy nor the interest so I will be cancelling the “sunset cruise”, “turtle quest” and “dolphin quest”. Being in a boat full of strangers will sap out too much of my energy. Besides, I can’t have a packed day every single day. If we’re booking dives then I will need at least half the day to relax as well. Apart from select watersports, eating, doing nothing and sleeping, I can’t see myself doing anything more. I’m waiting for the weather to improve for me to book a jet ski session.
After lunch we went to the beach bar. It was extremely windy and cloudy but it was quite a nice experience. They have seats in the pool and my sister was trying to explain that to me when she said “let’s seat in the pool with our drinks” but I thought she wanted to order drinks and then sit in the pool – like that’s just bizarre – I only understood what she meant when we got there and I saw the seats in the pool by the bar. People think twins get each other all the time, but we actually don’t, lol.
I then wanted to try the fins and my waterproof camera case to prepare it for tomorrow’s snorkel session so I snorkeled in the water right downstairs from my water villa. The current was quite strong especially close to the infrastructures so I decided not to wander too far. I enabled the iPhone’s touch accessibility so that I will be able to turn the phone on and off whenever, and also being able to switch to camera mode using the case’s buttons. Yesterday when I was testing it I noticed that the phone would heat up pretty quickly if I kept it on throughout. Basically with the iPhone’s default setting, I would have to unlock the phone and put it on camera mode for it to work using the case. But now with the modified settings, it works seamlessly with the case. The only issue I’ve encountered is condensation. The phone heats up and the water is quite cold outside of the casing, so I’m not sure how to go about. This personal box was sent to Seychelles through Fedex and so the anti-fog desiccant was not allowed through Fedex because it was considered something that contains “chemicals”.
I’m thinking that I can rub liquid soap in the interior of the casing and then wipe it dry. If it works for masks to prevent fogging while diving, why wouldn’t it work for a casing? If I want to try this out I would have to wake up really early to test this because if I get the chance to see a whale shark in person (I’ve never actually seen one before), I don’t want to miss the chance of capturing it on camera.
We went to the gym where I used 2Kgs of dumbbells on each arm and did 10 reps. I then went to 2 different arm machines and the leg curl machine to do 10 reps x 3 at 10 Kgs. I’m trying to start slow and hopefully gain momentum with time. I’m thinking this week I’ll do stretches and then 1 gym session per day. Next week I’ll increase it to 2 gym sessions per day. Guess where we went after spending about an hour at the gym? Back to the buffet. We were just passing by and decided to have “fruits and vegetables” but then we ended up having dinner, I even drank some Coca Cola – eek!
It’s been an eventful day according to my definition of the term. Our employee contacted us early this morning to inform us that she had yet another doctor’s appointment. We were livid. We expected her to be given sick leave yet again, so my sister contacted our mutual friend to ask her if her daughter (our ex-employee) might be available to take up a temp job. Yes, we actually dropped our pride for a second there because it’s payday tomorrow and if our store is closed – yet again – we will potentially lose a significant amount. According to her mother, our ex-employee would be available but she also has a full time job, whatever that means. She was basically unavailable but I suppose her mother wanted any kind of additional opportunity for her daughter, and possibly to help us out as well. Fortunately our employee will not be taking sick leave, so we’ll be open tomorrow. It’s a public holiday on the 1st of May so I suppose she’ll have some time to rest then. I don’t really know what’s up, she’s complaining of abdominal pain that seems to be relentless. The last time I spoke with her about this, I told her to go to the hospital but she keeps going to different clinics. Doctors in Seychelles have poor diagnostic skills IMO, they will do one of 2 things:
1. they will send you home with Panadol + 2 days sick leave, or
2. they will send you home with every single medication known to mankind + 2 days sick leave
If you’re the lucky one they’ll send you home with omeprazole and give you 2 days sick leave.
What does this tell you? 1. they don’t know how to proceed, 2. they don’t care enough, 3. they underestimate the potential severity of your condition, 4. they play around with medication without fully understanding side effects and adverse reactions it may have on the patient.
Those who will actually provide a diagnosis will do it blindly, they will guess. They will not obtain evidence to support their diagnosis. They simply jump to conclusions when they diagnose a patient, depending on the symptoms that the patient has shared with them. They don’t even ask enough questions, do they even ask the right questions? The fact that my employee has now returned to a doctor for the 3rd time in a span of 2 weeks is an example of how weird this whole thing is. She is either messing with us, or the doctors are clueless. At this rate, her best bet is to self-diagnose her condition by first observing the infographic of the 9 quadrants of the abdomen, identify the quadrant in which her pain is located and start from there.