Chet’s Chatter

This may be true

Posted on 2 September 2010 @ 19:57 in Personal, The Working Life

A cousin likes to forward emails which most of the time turn out to be recycled stuff from many years ago and which along the way, the names of places, etc., have been changed.

But from something the cousin sent today, another cousin responded, and this other cousin then added me to her mailing list and I received a PowerPoint presentation which had this on one of the slides:

“The only reason that anyone would ever hate you, is because they want to be just like you.”

Wow …

Can that be true?

I think back to those years I spent at my last place of employment. So that was why she put me down? Cuz she wanted to be like me? No, actually it was cuz she saw me as a threat. Unfortunately, she was in a position to neutralise that perceived threat. By putting me down.

The darn thing was I let her. I finally woke up one day and stopped letting her. I said “I resign”. Or rather, I submitted my resignation letter. And then, months later, realised the only reason I didn’t resign, the reason I put up with the “putting down” was cuz it was paying my medical bills but then it was also making me ill.

In fact, I had a lupus flare about six weeks before I put in my resignation letter, which showed on my skin.

A year or so later, I realised I’ve not had a flare since I left the corporate world.

So I did the right thing to resign. So what if I have to pay my own medical bills now? I’m enjoying far better health than when I was working cuz my medical bills were being paid by someone else. And I stopped allowing myself to be “put down”.

But the fact that it came to mind when I read that PPT slide shows that it still bugs me that I wasted about 10 years of my life …

*speechless*

The most amazing rescue story ever

Posted on 24 August 2010 @ 20:49 in Stress Busters

This is probably the most amazing rescue story to come out of the 2008 earthquake that devastated China’s Sichuan province. Amazing because it’s not about a human rescuing an animal, and because it didn’t take place after the earthquake, but before.

I was chatting and swapping giant panda care stories with Zhang Xin, the keeper from Bifengxia who is helping to care for Feng Yi and Mei Xin in Guilin. When I mentioned I had helped care for Gong Zhu during my 2008 volunteer trip, he perked up and said he had a personal story about her.

On 15 April 2008, Zhang was extracting milk from Gong Zhu. That year, Wolong had chosen Gong Zhu for an experiment; while all the other cubs from the 2007 batch had been weaned from their mothers, her twins were staying with her for 18 months, the same length of time cubs in the wild would stay with their mothers.

Something caught Gong Zhu’s eye and startled her. She reacted by clamping her mouth on Zhang’s right leg. The bites required more than 10 stitches each and he had to be hospitalised.

He was still in hospital when the earthquake happened on 12 May. Without hesitation, he packed and left the hospital, even tho he had not fully recovered, and was in fact still limping. He headed straight for the Wolong Panda Centre. At the entrance, he got to work, helping to cover dead bodies and moving them to one side, as well as helping the injured.

It was only later that some of his colleagues told him if he weren’t in hospital, he might’ve died. At the time he was hospitalised, he was helping to care for Mao Mao, who later perished in the earthquake. On the day of the earthquake, if Zhang hadn’t been in hospital, he might’ve been working in the building at the time of the earthquake. So he thinks Gong Zhu might’ve rescued him from that building and saved his life. And like most animal lovers who believe animals have a sixth sense about environment related disasters, he believes Gong Zhu might’ve had a sixth sense about the earthquake that didn’t happen until almost a month later.

Zhang still has the scars on his leg, and laughed when I told him they are Gong Zhu’s love bites on him.

A mess of scars, including four made by Gong Zhu’s teeth

space

The deepest scar of all

Giant Panda Cub Births

Posted on 24 August 2010 @ 18:35 in News, Stress Busters

Two new additions to the 2010 batch.

To Yang Yang at Vienna Zoo, a single cub on 23 August, approximately 100g, sex still unknown. Yang Yang has great timing – her first cub, Fu Long, was born exactly 3 years ago on the same date.

To Gong Zhu at Bifengxia Panda Base, a single cub on 24 August, weight and sex unknown.