上火

I feel this picture most accurately depicts ying & yang. Ying is associated with the moon, cold & traditionally women while yang is the sun, heat & men. There's a bit of ying in the yang & a bit of yang in the ying. Together, they represent the balance of the body. Well, I was educated with the knowledge of western medicine but brought up with the knowledge of chinese medicine. There're some things I don't believe. For example, the heaty cough & the cold cough, supposedly represented by yellow phlegm & green phlegm respectively. I still believe what I was taught, that URTI is brought about by a virus & can be infected secondarily by bacteria. But what I do believe is that when your body is out of balance, it makes you susceptible to falling sick.

From young, I know I have a yang body constituency. I can take lots of "cooling" stuff without ever falling sick. I tolerate cold much better than anybody else I know. Supposedly, people with ying constituency frequently suffers from cold hands & feet & do poorly in cold weather. But people with yang body constituency are more susceptible to getting hypertension.

Since last evening, I began to develop a pounding headache. My mouth & eyes were constantly dry & I guzzled at least 2L of water today (I can hardly finish a 500 ml bottle of water on a normal day). I hated taking medicine & prefer the natural way so I didn't take anything for my headache. I slept quite a fair bit throughout the day too. These are just symptoms but I know I 上火了 mostly due to the way I feel. I can feel that I'm on the mend. But ask anyone with a weak body constituency like my mom & they'll tell you falling sick is unavoidably imminent.

Regardless, I spent 1.5 hours outside raking the ground so I can sow grass seeds. It had been a hot day & by the time I went out at 6.30 pm, the entire lawn was crispy. Note the crunchy sound as I stepped on it. So contrary to what my landlords says, watering only on reticulation days, even if it is for 30 mins is not enough. Raking the soil took quite a lot of effort & in some areas, the soil comes off in an entire piece, evident of beetle infestation. So I had to resort to stabbing these areas to loosen the soil instead.

By the time I was done racking the front & back, sowing the seeds & watering the lawn, it was already 8 pm. I swear if I'm paid by my hourly rates, I'll be super rich since I only have time to work on the lawn on weekends & holidays & penalty rates apply. The pulpy flesh directly opposite my knuckles on my right hand was swollen & red from the work. Haha. 没有做过苦工的人就是这样的啦。Hopefully my effort will pay off & the grass will grow. 

I'm just making an entry of what I'm doing for the lawn, just in case, like my friend who had to go to court, I'll have evidence proving that the state of the lawn is not due to my neglect & that I'll be given a fair trial. Not that I hope it'll come to that. Just preparing for the worst.