dead by forty

Saw the cholesterol specialist today, and I'll be starting my medication right away. He estimates that with my current levels of LDL and HDL, it's probable that I'll get my first heart attack before I turn 40, if I don't go on medication. That would totally suck.

The Practice is cool, all these crazy legal technicalities... makes you feel like just throwing out law and make lawyers break privilege if they know anything incriminating about their clients. Recently there was this episode when this pregnant woman, her baby due very soon, on trial for murdering her husband. Her story was that her husband was abusive and almost killed her baby (her pregnancy had just begun at that time), and so she took a gun and shot him to defend the baby.

There were Roe vs. Wade strands weaving through it, the issue being whether the baby could be considered a human life or whatever you want to call it, whether she was justified in defending her baby and killing a full-grown man. The neighbor testified to the husband being abusive and stuff like that, that he heard them quarrelling quite often, that kind of thing. In the end the lawyers won using the argument that a foetus is not a "life" only in the office of a doctor performing an abortion.

The jury ruled not guilty, but just before the verdict, she was in contractions, and was rushed to the hospital. So her lawyers went to the hospital to bring her the good news, and... Ok, she is white, her husband was white, the neighbor is black, and the baby is black. Yesterday was the last episode. I think Boston Public is still showing, I think it's on Star World (cable). Not sure what time, maybe 8+ or so on a weekday.

Anyway, about my cholesterol, the doctor thinks I'm probably heterozygous with a gene that causes high cholesterol, and if I were homozygous I would probably have a heart attack in my teens. So if I pass on my genes, there's like a 25% chance that my kid is heterozygous like me, assuming of course that I pass on my genes in the traditional manner, and that my lovey doesn't have this condition.

Did an "apt-get upgrade" of my Debian distro last night. Should be able to configure to use a new kernel tonight. Probably taking the easy way out for my first try at least, using Debian packages and 'apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.7'. Just thinking of what to say. I think Jasper wanted me to say something, but I'm confused. He either decided that Clarissa is "the one", or it might have been the other way round, that he's decided that Flame Tree is "the one".

The nurses were very friendly to me today. When I arrived, I showed by 11-B (that's my NS IC, for those who don't know) and checked that the SAF would pick up the tab. Didn't have to pay today. Later, one nurse noticed the doggie on my bag, and asked if I brought that bag to NS. I said yah, that I work at MINDEF, so I actually don't even need to wear uniform. I think she said she got a doggie soft toy or something for her son, who's about 1/2 a year into his NS, and he didn't want to bring it with him.

Then she inquired about stuff like where I did uni, that kind of thing, I told them that I disrupted, that kind of thing, teaching scholarship, teach for 5 years, etc. Another nurse said she's worried that after her son finish NS he won't want to study anymore, though now he still say he wants to go uni.