After putting it off for a year or so, I finally went to extract an impacted wisdom tooth at a small clinic in Ghim Moh. They charged $150 for the operation.

For nearly an hour, I just lay there with a numb mouth wondering what the dentist was doing with what looked like a pointy device. From time to time he would take a plier and try to yank the tooth out. That was the painful part because of the pressure it exerted on the jaw. Other than that, the anaesthetic worked just fine and I didn't feel a thing.

Now it's hard to open my mouth much and I can still taste the blood. With any luck it'll heal soon and I can go back to eating properly.


On another note, I saw an article in today's newspaper about that 80 year old angsana tree in Braddell Road. To preserve the tree, the road splits up around it, merging again a few metres later. That seemed like a pretty silly thing to do. Why couldn't they have built their road somewhere else?

Now it seems like motorists aren't obeying the 40 km/h speed limit there, and some of them have written in complaining about how dangerous that tree is. LTA says it's safe as long as the speed limits are obeyed, but their studies show that the limit is not being obeyed and thus the tree is a hazard to motorists.

So guess what they're going to do? Instead of building the road a few metres to the left or right or cracking down on errant motorists we can't follow speed limit signs, they're going to chop down the 80 year old angsana tree, which can't be preserved due to its size.

Personally I feel that if someone can't follow a speed limit and crashes into the tree, it totally serves him right. Chopping down such a tree because of inconsiderate drivers who can't follow instructions seems to be the wrong solution. However, was it really impossible to have built the road somewhere else in the first place?

Also, I just got back from a holiday trip to Malaysia, will start blogging about that soon, so come back often.