So, I wake up on Tuesday last week with a huge pain at the back of my throat. Went to doctor, he said it's not sore throat, it's tonsillitis, and there's a huge ulcer on my left tonsil. Thanks to Roald Dahl I had always thought that tonsillitis = cut out your tonsils. However when he was young they did not have something known as antibiotics. So doctor gives me a couple of pills, problem solved, tonsils start to recover.

And then I go for lunch on Sunday and discover little red spots all over my body. Can't be chicken pox, I've had that already. So I decide to sleep it off and see if it goes away. It doesn't. I wake up on Monday and little red spots have multiplied. There are now 4 terrible ulcers on my upper and lower lips as well. Argh time to go to the doctor again. This time, doctor says I have Rubella. And our government only gives Rubella vaccines to girls in high school. More antibiotics, more painkillers, and this time he even prescribes anti-inflammatory lozenges (some cool version of Strepsils) for the ulcers.

I should be fine by this weekend, and I'm going back to KL on Friday, which means I can attend the MPYO camp (and pay RM30 for a cab just to get back to KL for my exams next week) and play for the concert. But then again, I have not touched my clarinet for 2-3 weeks, have been playing a lot of sax lately. How? Die la.

Quote Paquito D'Rivera:
"The clarinet is a hard instrument. It's easy for it to make horrible sounds. To play right, you have to concentrate the whole time. The saxophone however is the most beautiful instrument invented, 'un instrumento agradecido', a thankful instrument. Leave it for some weeks, then pick it up again, and it will sound fine. But with the clarinet, if you put it down and pick it up, the noise it makes is atrocious: ARAGHHHHH. Maybe this is because the clarinet is a female instrument: you never just know what's wrong with it."

God help us clarinettists (especially those with rubella, tonsillitis and ulcers on their lips).