While i don't think i'm sick again, i've been feeling a bit low-energy recently. i suppose sleep quality is a contributing factor...i've been getting up in the middle of the night to use the toilet every night for at least the past 4-5 nights. not sure what the reason could be, but my guess is that i shouldn't take my vitamin B supplement a few hours before sleeping since it's supposed to help with energy-yielding metabolism (according to the text on the bottle). going to shift it to the mornings to see if that helps. another reason could be because i haven't hit the gym in almost a month. partially due to COVID, mostly due to laziness.

it's september! this time last year, i'd just moved into marine parade and was slowly getting back on my feet. i still remember operating on a somewhat "survival" mindset, not wanting to do anything but the bare minimum needed to keep myself going. how things have changed! i'm now comfortable, happy, and generally in a much better place.

unfortunately, i think there are still some vestiges of last year hanging about. i submitted 2 cases to my mentor recently, and they came back with more comments and suggestions for revisions than usual. maybe because i feel like i should be producing work of a higher standard, it didn't feel good to see that i made some mistakes which are probably not as forgivable now. well, i guess as long as it doesn't happen too often.

remember what i said about singapore becoming a powder keg? so recently, there was news about how a drinks stall owner in a coffee shop threw a customer's water bottle on the ground because the customer ate there but had their own water instead of buying drinks from his stall. they only got into a verbal argument, and the thing was posted online, as usual these days. it makes me think that i'm lacking in personal cultivation, because if someone had deliberately thrown my water bottle, there would be damage to at least their property, if not their physical selves. i'm still baffled by the stupidity shown by some people. i'm also grateful that i'm not a big fan of nasi lemak, and live far enough from the incident area that i wouldn't go unless my friends decided to have a gathering there.

some of the guildmates are planning a trip to china, and i indicated interest to join them. the plan is to visit chengdu, which i hear is the LGBT capital of china. there are some other places as well, but i think that'll be the highlight for me. also i don't have enough time to join them for the full 2 weeks, so i'll travel with them for the first week, then fly back on my own. not being very experienced with china, i'm content to follow along and see the sights with no expectations. on a related note, i'm kind of interested to travel to the town in xiamen that my paternal grandparents were from. or maybe it's a city now, i actually don't know. should do that while my workload is still manageable and i'm not too old.

tomorrow brings a call with my mentor to discuss one of the 2 cases i mentioned earlier. she's now also mentoring one of the newbies, for a total of 4 people. i should do what i can to make her life easier. still waiting to confirm my points on the KPI tracker, which has been delayed to the end of this week. there are also 2 upcoming office events - a team bonding and a D&D, both scheduled sometime in october. outside of work, i'm due to meet my friend for dinner on sunday. we're going to carnivore! it'll only be my second time, and probably the last since the only remaining branch is closing at the end of the month. i also want to go back to the gym, probably tomorrow or thursday. might schedule a gay bar visit on friday if i'm feeling up to it. i think i've got some thoughts about the whole gay experience here in singapore, but you've probably heard most of them in some shape or form in previous posts. not sure if i have any new material to value-add to that yet. we'll see. maybe i'll do a whole post about it closer to year-end, as i get more reflective.

-random thought of the day: Focus on cases!-

Dolly Parton passed away this past week. the news broke late enough on tuesday night or early enough on wednesday morning (local time) for me to wake up to it. not the best way to start the day, i assure you! i remember my first thought being, 'oh, hell' after my brain registered it. for some reason, i've been affected by this more than i imagined. considering i'm not a big listener of her music - i only recognize the beginning of '9 to 5', and the version of 'i will always love you' i know best is the whitney houston one. so i don't understand why i'm feeling this sense of loss. i guess it's because her philanthropy and personality shone brighter than her already prodigious talent as a musician. it's amazing that despite her musical success, most of the stories i'm seeing are about what an amazing person she was. i've been watching stuff on instagram about her imagination library, her quick-witted quips, and her ability to laugh at herself ("it takes a lot of money to look this cheap"). makes me think i need to be more like her...don't care too much about what others think or say about me, and just focus on being the best person i can be. no doubt that it's easier said than done, especially with interactions over the internet. but i figure i should at least try.

it seems famous people have been dropping like flies in the past week; there were a bunch more celebrities who passed away, even the king of norway! august truly is cursed. ok, that might be my bias from last year coming through. personally, i'm happy that august is almost over. i'm also thankful that it was an ok month, perhaps even bordering on positive. shows me that i can rise above a bad situation.

one thing that made the last week good was the 2 days of IP week. was nice to dress up a bit, spend some time away from the office, and socialize/catch up with people whom i don't see too often. my secondary school senior, for one, who's now head of IP for a big china company. i also found out that one of my juniors who was hired 6 months after me is my junior from secondary school as well. he's like, 9 years younger or something, so we never met before joining the same company. is that why i felt a bit more drawn to him? well...he does like japan too, so maybe it's that we have more interests in common. i also made some new contacts in the IP world, including attorneys and lawyers of varying experience levels. most interestingly, we (ex-employees of the accursed IP firm) caught up with each other. it's happened for 2 out of 2 years so far that i've been at IP week, and it's actually quite nice to see them again! we jokingly call it trauma bonding or group therapy, but i think there's an element of truth behind those names. something a former colleague said stuck with me - we don't know anyone who left the accursed IP firm and is worse-off now. i heard stories from people who joined and left in more recent years, and it seems that the same problems/issues are persisting. i was told that my old boss also made an appearance at IP week, but i didn't see her. no loss to me. word is that she mellowed out a bit in recent years. too late, as far as i'm concerned.

met crochet guy this past week as well. kind of told him that his sales style wasn't working very well with me, and he says that other people have also given him feedback on his communication. i kind of think he's on the spectrum a bit, but then again so are most people - myself included. he also shared that he's having some difficulty with his KPI for appraisal, which i would expect to be linked to the communication issue. unfortunately, i don't have any advice for him. and given that i'm not very sales-y or a very people person, i don't know how useful/correct my advice would be anyway. i did tell him something which i thought would help, and that's to talk to scary JC friend. she seems to be flourishing in her real estate career, which i'm completely unsurprised by. hopefully she'll be able to give him more relevant advice. i wonder if that conversation changed the dynamic between crochet guy and myself? guess i'll find out in the coming weeks/months.

tuition today was tiring. i suggested extra catch-up sessions for the 2 guys after regular class, and we did the first of 2 sessions today. i'm really hoping that it helps them to be clearer on the fundamentals. the plus side is that the weaker one seemed to have an "aha" moment. with luck, that will keep his interest and motivate him to study more. like the situation with crochet guy, only time will tell.

this coming week is the start of september! quarter 3 is coming to an end. i'm interested to see my points on the KPI tracker that's supposed to be released on tuesday. which reminds me - i should submit a case on monday just to make sure it gets counted in my august numbers. i don't think i have very many social engagements this month, the main 2 are dinner with one of the chemistry guys next sunday, and the annual old boys' mid-autumn festival dinner on the 25th. work-wise, it's more of the usual. i'm presenting on a case in my division meeting, which is on monday too. might take some time to look through the slides again tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Didn't go to the gay bar this month!-

Bad-quality sleep last night meant i was quite low-energy today. still, i managed to make it through the alumni gathering, tuition, and even a short pit stop at the office(!). before all of that, i'll just recap dinner yesterday.

we ate at this place called omu nomu, which promotes itself as a sake and raw bar. they offer cooked food too, so it's kind of misleading. but i'm not complaining at a greater variety of food! it was good in general, but super pricey...about $90 per person before the $40 voucher! i think the best dish for me was the foie gras skewers. surprisingly for a sake place, the sake was a bit of a letdown. thankfully i was there more for the food, so i didn't leave disappointed. in a surprising change, scary JC friend didn't drink all that much either. the lacklustre first cup of sake didn't give her confidence to order more, i guess.

i basically hit the sack after coming home (before midnight), and ended waking up at 4+ am. thought i heard some hammering noises. considering it's the 7th lunar month now, my imagination went wild for a bit. i used to be way more afraid of any potential paranormal things, but moving to japan pretty much cured me of that. my reasoning was that if i don't bother whatever's out there, whatever's out there won't bother me too. and considering that nothing happened despite the ulu-ness of japan (you could probably hide a body in the mountains and forests), i think it's less likely to happen in urban singapore. side note: can't remember who told me this or where i read it from, but i remember the message being "cemeteries/graveyards aren't scary because the people in there are someone's loved ones". the noises at all odd hours here (mainly vehicle noises) do make me miss the silence of nighttime rural japan, though.

not going to make a habit of it at this time, but i went back to the office today. the reason was that i forgot to send a case out yesterday. normally, that wouldn't be big enough of a deal to make me return to the office on a weekend. but as part of the changes to our workflow, we're also changing the format of our reports a little. so all reports with the old template have to be sent out either by or before next monday - i forgot which. if you know my luck, you wouldn't be surprised that the report i forgot to send out yesterday is still using the old template. "by monday" wouldn't be a problem, but "before monday" would mean having to create a separate file with the new template and copy/pasting everything over, which is more hassle than it's worth. so i decided to quickly pop in after tuition to send the report out, saving myself some potential trouble on monday. while sending the report out, i was happy to find out that one of the features that we strongly requested for (relating to version numbering) was resolved. credit where it's due, they're quite prompt in addressing issues that we raise. i just wish the product was launched with these issues being nonexistent in the first place!

got a bit of a meditation/reflection to do about the idea of popularity/desirable-ness and seeking approval. i've probably said it before, but i think this focus on outer appearance isn't healthy. like, the thing i wrote about a couple of posts ago, about gay guys judging by appearance even for non-M-18 stuff. i guess you might call it sour grapes, because my body type isn't in high demand. the thing that makes me a bit sad is that people who do not fit the ideal physical appearance are somehow seen as "lesser" in the community. whatever i've done or whatever interesting experiences i've had in my life so far don't matter, because people don't care enough to find out. and yes, i know the model answer is that i shouldn't waste my time, effort, and feelings on such people. sometimes i forget, so it's good to remind myself.

another thing i kind of realized is that our reality is what we perceive. because of that, marketing oneself is important. some people are quite savvy, like they show themselves hooking up left and right, yet say that they are selective and don't accept money. my guess is they do this to increase the perceived scarcity, to make themselves look more desirable. reminder to myself: people typically only show their best sides on social media. it's easy to forget that their lives are not always as perfect as they portray on screen.

while i'm not in mentally harmful territory at the moment, i think i should nip this in the bud and proactively reduce or even stop consumption of M-18 social media. might be better for me to channel my time and energy into more productive pursuits, such as exercise, home improvement, or even real-life encounters. it's easier said than done, though. there's the whole dopamine thing, plus the inertia associated with doing things that are good for you, but which don't feel that way. scary JC friend mentioned some time back that she sees me as a very "comfort zone" person, like i wouldn't change something if it didn't need changing. considering the status of unpacking, i can't exactly say she's wrong. but still! i think i should take steps to shake things up. can't expect different results while doing the same thing, right?

-random thought of the day: Throw out or give away more things!-

Almost 3 weeks since the new file management platform launched, and things are getting better. i was able to send out cases, for one! i sent out like 5 or 6 cases, which means my points should jump. i'll only find out at the start of september, so here's hoping for good news.

had a couple of weird dreams over the past couple of days. first was that i moved back to my JET house. the enclave where it's located is on flat land in real life, but the houses there were more luxurious (with bedrooms that looked like hotel rooms), and on terraces built into the hillside in my dream. they looked so pretty! i also dreamt that one of my colleagues and his family consisting of a wife and kids would be moving in with me, and i gave them a tour of the surrounding area. weird thing is i barely talk to that colleague! dream #2 was even weirder. i was at a hot guy's place...we might have been dating? i was in his bed, more specifically. i remember that we had to get ready to go somewhere, and i was travelling down the CTE tunnel. the annoying thing is, i don't remember what his face looks like! i'm pretty sure he's someone i know in real life, or at least have talked to. maybe someone i meet will jog my memory.

sickness update too. i tested negative on monday morning, but i'm still coughing a little. brain function is about 85%, which was good enough for me to tackle a challenging case yesterday and today. if i finish this case, i'll just need to finish 2 more by september, which is plenty of time. should ask for more cases soon, but perhaps after IP week.

crochet guy has been asking to meet over the past week. normally i'd be happy to have him over or even meet him outside, but there are some things that made me have mixed feelings about it recently. see, usually i'm the one to initiate meeting up with him. but since i indicated my interest to buy insurance for him, he's been quite persistent in wanting to meet up with me. i guess it's because he wants to close the deal. and that makes me have second thoughts, because it seems like he's only taking initiative to meet me because there's a potential financial incentive. i really think his communication needs improvement. that's why i'll probably only get a smaller policy with him, and let him prove himself before i decide to trust him with more money.

my social calendar is going to be kind of full for the next few days. dinner with scary JC friend and her boyfriend tomorrow, to use the voucher that we won at the sake festival. usual routine on saturday, and IP week for 2 days next week. i think i should have enough social battery to get through it all.

-random thought of the day: Planning a few other restaurant visits!-

Taking my usual state as 100%, i'd say that i'm at around 65-70% now. there's still some residual lethargy even after lying in bed all day. i really want to get back into the swing of things! mentally, i don't quite feel like i'm ready to tackle a difficult case head-on yet, so i guess i'll spend tomorrow doing more admin-y stuff and get my mentor's advice on how to approach a case which i started looking at early last week. i have an idea, but i'm not sure if it's correct/allowable.

as you may have guessed, nothing much happened since the last update. i saw the doctor on thursday, and he gave me 2 days' MC for a total of 4 days away from the office. 5, if you include the wednesday that i took MC-less MC for. i've basically been either rotting in bed or in front of the computer. the lethargy is so bad that i fell asleep in front of the computer several times! i also skipped the alumni thing and tuition yesterday, which i feel a little bit bad for. at the same time, i know that it's the right decision, because i'd (1) not enjoy myself, and (2) be a health hazard for people i come into contact with.

due to having too much free time and literally nothing to do besides sleep, i've been thinking about some things. just general life and future stuff, nothing super depressing or worry-inducing. it kind of goes back to the idea of ikigai, but in a more wholistic sense, instead of just the work aspect. i guess i need to think a bit more about what my purpose in life is supposed to be. while i find my work to be meaningful, interesting, and fun, i also don't want to be one-dimensional and have work as the only interesting thing going on in my life. i guess i should start by exploring some hobbies. and yes, i know i've been saying that for the longest time already. need something to overcome the inertia, i guess. maybe more time once tuition ends?

i've also been browsing the internet/social media a lot in this period of downtime. there were a few stories that caught my eye, including a guy who got into a physical altercation with an old man after the old man patted his (the guy's) child on the head. it made me think that singapore is increasingly becoming a powder keg, and the fuse is shortening. if not for the threat/risk of being exposed on social media or reported to the police, i'm sure that large-scale fights would have broken out by now. in my opinion, it's because the country is overcrowded. but the people in charge don't seem to care, and appear to be pursuing economic growth at all costs.

on reddit, there's a subreddit about dating in singapore. i read a thread there posted by (presumably) a girl, whose date asked her to guess which school he was from. one of the comments said that the guy peaked in secondary school. that's a phrase i haven't heard in a long time! it got me thinking about this idea of "peaking" at some point in life. ideally, you'd want your achievement/time graph to be continually rising, so that you'd always be hitting new peaks. and i suppose the secret to that is always having something to work towards, so that you're always getting better in some way. but some people are perfectly content to relive their glory days in secondary school. JC, NS, university, or some other earlier stage in life. i mean, there's no harm in it, but i suppose it gets tiring listening to the same few stories over and over again. hope i'm not that way about japan!

related thought: a lot of what i was told was important while growing up (e.g. which school someone went to, academic or sports achievements) are actually not that big of a deal! like, i know people who went to name-brand "elite" schools doing so-called ordinary jobs like insurance or civil servant. on the other hand, there were people from neighbourhood schools who performed better than me in grad school. i guess i was influenced by my elders telling me about how i should aim for raffles, become wildly successful, and earn buckets of money. you might see it as sour grapes because i actually wasn't able to, but i'm happy i didn't. although my time in secondary school wasn't the greatest, that led to JC (which was actually great), then to uni, and so on. of course, i do entertain the occasional thought of 'what if i'd made it to raffles?' i kind of like to think that due to the (rumoured) less homophobic environment there, i might have come out earlier and maybe even found a partner...or at least started dating. maybe i might have been pushed harder in academics too, and become a (medical) doctor or lawyer or something. i know that i can't change the past, but it's fun to imagine!

last thought for now...the weather sucks. don't know if it's just an august thing that the weather is so hot, or because it's also the lunar 7th month and the heat is made worse by people burning offerings. probably both. i'm getting heat rash in my elbows and on my back! that's one more plus of returning to the office, i guess...free air-con!

-random thought of the day: Recover faster!-

Update: it's COVID. i could still taste fine up till earlier this evening, then drinking the pig organ soup i ordered via grab felt like i was just drinking hot water. did a rapid test, and the "test" line developed super strongly. looks like my rest is getting extended! i was a little worried initially, but then i considered that it's just before mid-august now. even if it takes me a week plus to recover, i'll still be well in time for IP week, and i have the whole month of september to submit my cases and make sure i hit the promotion target.

i realize that COVID is one of the worst illnesses for me, in terms of how it affects my quality of life. when i'm sick, all i want is some comfort from either a person (preferably a cute guy, but i'm not picky) or food. considering i'm living alone now, comfort from food is easier to obtain. and COVID takes that away from me too. actually on that topic, i think the only real disadvantage of living alone (for me, at least) is that there's nobody to take care of me when i'm sick. but if i think of it as maybe a week or two's worth of suffering per year, i'm happy to have the place to myself for the remaining 50 weeks. not a bad tradeoff at all!

the new plan is to go see the doctor tomorrow for an MC. i tried booking an appointment at eunos polyclinic, but they were full. so, it's back to marine parade i go. i'm tempted to bring my fairprice vouchers along to do some grocery shopping, but then i should also bear my condition in mind. that, and it's a longer commute home. i do think i want to wander around the marine parade area a little, just for fresh air and nostalgia...masked up, of course!

One way i know i'm sick is that i have zero desire to look at my cases. usually, i look forward to clearing them...even the hard ones! but now, thinking of my cases (even those which are ready to send out) just makes me feel bleh. hope i'm well enough to appear in the office tomorrow, or else i'll finally go see the doctor.

the long weekend was great! i had several social engagements, even meeting russian ex-postdoc twice in 2 days. we were originally only set to meet for dinner on monday, but she then invited me to a lunch that she was having with my professor and another of my seniors. so that resulted in me taking grab to and from NUS during my lunch break yesterday, racking up $40 in fees, which was more expensive than the lunch itself! but it's worth it. i would be happy to spend that amount or more to meet my professor any time the chance arises.

during our first meeting (dinner on monday), russian ex-postdoc was telling us about some of the challenges she's facing as a professor now. i guess this is kind of evidence that singapore is more westernized among the asian countries, because despite her spending 5 years in singapore, she's having trouble with east asian high-context systems and things. doesn't help that a significant proportion of her students are foreign too, so she doesn't have anyone to guide her in that regard. i'm not sure what i can do to help her, save maybe joining her as a lab manager or something like that to navigate the system. but that would require a really drastic change in my circumstances, and it would definitely not be my first choice of path to take. but based on what i know about her attitude and working style from our time together in the lab, i believe she'll get through it!

lunch on tuesday was a bit of an eye-opener. ever since his promotion to full professor, my professor has been taking on more administrative roles and duties, leaving him less time for research. yet, i was amazed that he was still up to date on developments in the scientific world, even able to discuss some of the latest technology in instrumentation with my senior, who's working in a scientific instruments company! we asked him how he's managed to survive so long in academia, and his answer was that academia is his dream job. apparently, he's wanted to be a scientist since young, and he doesn't take his job for granted. i could learn from that more! not that i'm taking my current job for granted, but i realize that it's kind of a "do something you love and you'll never work a day of your life" type of thing. does that apply to me now? honestly, i would say yes. in spite of all the logistical/technological issues of the previous few weeks, or the occasional hard application where i have no idea where the invention lies, i still enjoy my core job. i would enjoy it more if the issues were gone/resolved quickly, but i guess i can hope.

sidetrack to say that the conversation reinforced what i already knew - i wouldn't make it/wouldn't have made it in academia. experimental science excited me up till i was in undergrad, but the long hours and limited success in the lab during my grad school years killed that excitement. i guess if i had been really passionate about it, i would have taken it as a challenge, and risen up more readily. i don't regret the grad school experience, though...not even having to change supervisors. looking back on it as a whole, i realize that the first lab trained me to be comfortable with organic structures, while the second lab helped me to understand medicinal chemistry stuff a bit better, so i'm not that lost among the enzymes, receptors, agonists, antagonists, cancer cells, etc. things happen for a reason!

another takeaway i got from the lunch is how university education (at least for NUS) is changing. my senior was saying that a lot of interns from NUS were sorely lacking in scientific thinking and lab skills, to the point where the company preferred to take poly student interns! my professor then told us about how the educational model is evolving from the traditional "T" shape (narrower base, but highly specialized in one area) to "pi" (more specialized in 2 areas), and to the present "comb" structure (broad base with shallower exposure in each area). i guess that's the multidisciplinary thing that's all the rage these days. it makes good generalists, but they won't be suitable for jobs that require a higher level of knowledge. guess i'm safe(r) for the time being! it does make me worry though, because i think that current students in general are not developing higher-order thinking skills. lucky i'm going to stop tuition next year, i don't think i want to deal with that.

having all these social engagements naturally didn't help with the sickness or my recovery. my sinuses were feeling scratchy on monday already, and i had an early night with the fan only, no air-con. that's usually my first line of defense - sweat the sickness out. i definitely had a fever that night, because i remember feeling really hot. thankfully, the fever broke by yesterday morning, and i was well enough to make some progress on a case and go out for the aforementioned lunch. it kind of got worse at night again (no fever, thankfully) and that leads to how i'm feeling today. i realize that while some of my colleagues can power through cases when sick, i'm still not quite at the experience or skill levels to do so. me working while sick usually results in mistakes and bad assessments, which will annoy my mentor and slow the case-clearing rate down. so, it's just pure rest today. with luck, i'll be back and raring to go tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Being sick sucks.-

National day celebration in the office tomorrow, plus the bosses declared a half day. my work week is effectively over! it was short, but with a fair few things happening. you know all about the file management system not working (there's a rant bursting to escape, but i'll spare you all the agony for now), and new issues are coming up with each passing day. my mentor has asked us (the people whose work she's checking) to submit cases over teams to her. it's kind of our usual practice anyway, so the only difference is that i'm not officially submitting cases through the system. we managed to clear 6 cases in 2 weeks, which is awesome. if my maths is right, i'm literally one case away from the promotion target. while it's comforting to know at the back of my mind, i'm still going to maintain my current pace. still have the year-end target to meet, after all.

gym guy came over yesterday. the M18 stuff is great and all, but i appreciate the connection more. he was just complaining about how his flat application was taking forever, and HDB got back to him today! see, complaining never fails. we had dinner together before we each went for gym (we're members of different gyms). i did a shorter workout as a carousell buyer wanted to buy one of the pens i put up for sale. considering the price i bought it at, i'm down about $40...which i think is ok for the 8-ish years i owned it. it followed me to japan, where i used it to write comments and messages to the kids. but i don't use it that often, and figured it's time to let it go. by amazing coincidence, the guy who messaged me about it on carousell only lives 2 blocks away from me! he says he might be interested in more of my pens, so here's hoping he helps me declutter.

what am i going to do with tomorrow's half day off? the obvious answer would be "come home and unpack/declutter more", but i kind of want to do something out of the ordinary. like, go somewhere or have a good meal. for no reason in particular, except that i have the time and means to do so now. where would i go, though? maybe i should go for TCM, to get my left shoulder looked at. i noticed yesterday during overhead presses that my left arm pressed the weight up to a noticeably lower height than my right. think it's a range of motion issue. or perhaps i should wait till my accident insurance plan starts before seeing the TCM. having crochet guy as my agent is another topic i want to talk about, but not tonight. when i feel less sleepy, i guess!

-random thought of the day: 3.5 day weekend!-

Short day today, thank goodness. considering that the other 3 chemistry guys and i polished off 3.25 bottles of wine last night, i'm surprised that i haven't crashed already. it was nice to see them again; we last met probably more than a year ago, when i introduced the ex to them. the 4 of us spent about 6 hours eating, drinking, talking, and laughing...just what a good get-together should be! i also caught them up on my adventures since starting to live on my own (aka. guys i've brought back), and was caught up about developments in their lives too. hearing about how the 2 married ones have to navigate married life and kids (especially primary 1 registration), i'm even more convinced that not having kids is the way to go for me. that's not to say that they made the wrong decision or anything...it's just that different people make different choices, and one is not more "correct" than another in this case.

one thing i'm grateful for with this bunch of friends is that i don't have to be too wary of what i say, because i know they won't judge me. in fact, they were asking me about some M18 details about the aforementioned guys out of genuine curiosity, and shared some of their past experiences too. the conversation got a bit spicy, but a different kind of spice than with scary JC friend since these guys don't like guys. but i do appreciate that we're comfortable enough around each other to share what i'd consider to be fairly intimate information.

two ideas we touched on left a deeper impression on me. background info for the first thing: back when we were in undergrad, one of them tried to counsel another one of the chemistry guys, who is gay. unfortunately, the gay guy is also christian, and the self-doubt and self-loathing from these 2 conflicting aspects of his life (plus some other family-related stuff, i'm told) led to him being quite depressed at that time. my friend gave him rather harsh advice, which was essentially "you can either be gay or christian, but not both". looking back, my friend said that he dealt with it poorly, and it was not the best advice to give someone in that mental state. but he also said that that was what he thought was right at that time, and he didn't have any regrets. i think that's something that i have to learn...to believe that i did the best i could at any given point, and not to let hindsight colour my view of my decision at that time. of course hindsight can be used to find learning points, or to figure out what i could have done better, but i shouldn't blame myself in hindsight. anyway, things seem to have improved significantly for the gay guy...his social media posts for the past few years have hinted at him being in a committed long-term relationship. i'm nothing but happy for him, really. although the slightly mean part of me wonders what kind of guy the boyfriend is, to be able to put up with him? from my interactions with the guy, i've always found him to be a good guy at heart, but not the easiest to get along with.

second idea was about responsibility. as we were talking about how some people in our social circles who are the same age as us had already gone through divorce, the thought that it's lucky that the divorced people hadn't had kids before the divorce came up. we all agreed that the kids were innocent collateral damage in a divorce, and i was really heartened to see that the marriages of my married friends (who have kids) seem to be still going strong. i must admit that i'm a little awestruck at just how much they do, which is also a measure of how much attention/care kids need. many people have told me that if i have a kid, sacrificing for them will come naturally to me and i'll be capable of devoting my life to them. present me thinks that while i might be capable of it, i might not be doing it willingly or wholeheartedly. all things considered, the kid-less path is still safer for me in the end.

we ended past midnight, and i went to sleep almost immediately after they left. i recall having some weird dreams, possibly due to the alcohol. can't say for sure what they were exactly about, but i do remember one being pretty emotional. woke up with my alarm but lazed in bed a bit too long, resulting in being a bit later than usual for work, where the new file management system just launched. i suppose it would be asking too much for the launch to go perfectly. although to be fair, it wasn't a blazing trainwreck either. the platform itself was accessible, but several key functions (such as submitting cases!) were not working. my mentor also asked me for a chat, to revise the assessment of one of last week's tricky cases. so it seems we're back to being more in line with my initial assessment, although she added a few things which i missed out earlier. it should go out tomorrow or whenever the new system is working as intended, ideally no later than the end of this week. she also suggested that i present this case at our next division meeting. i'm ok to do it, but i hope that the meeting won't be held so soon. best would be september, so that it's after IP week and i can make sure my KPI points are in order first.

speaking of which, we had a site visit for IP week in the afternoon. that meant i got to leave the office after lunch-ish. it only takes 20 minutes from paya lebar to MBS by the circle line. that's so convenient! it'll probably take a bit longer from home since there are more stops between ubi and bayfront stations on the downtown line, plus the walk from home to the station. even then, i estimate my total commute to be maybe 40 minutes, tops. it'll mean having to leave the house earlier though, both because the commute is longer and the reporting time is earlier vs. a typical office day. but that's towards the end of the month, so no use thinking too much about it now.

in the nearer future, this week looks quite relaxed. working from home tomorrow and wednesday, where i hope i can prepare another 1-2 cases (or 3 if i'm really lucky) for submission. will probably plan a gym trip on one of those days. full day in the office on thursday, then national day celebration and half day off on friday. still haven't decided what i want to do with the bonus half day. also reminder to self that next monday is a holiday, where i'm meeting scary JC friend and mentor figure for lunch. kind of want to reconnect with another of the chemistry guys who we don't see that often. guess i'll casually drop him a message, to see if he's free.

-random thought of the day: Feeling a bit sleepy now.-

Promising start to the day, but it soon became decidedly less positive. to be fair, it wasn't BAD-bad, just like, got up of the wrong side of bed/uncle murphy things. i woke up early and instead of lazing in bed, got up to shower and get ready to leave the house. ok, having to pee was probably the thing that got me out of bed, but it still counts and i'm taking that win! as i was taking my earphones out of the case while walking to the bus stop, i somehow nudged the ear tip of the left earphone against my finger, and it fell off. spent a couple of minutes looking around, but couldn't locate it. the ground was cement grey, so you'd think a black ear tip would show up quite obviously! but it didn't, so i figured that it had rolled into the (water-filled) drain or into the grass. that meant no music for me today.

thankfully, the alumni gathering was fun as usual, but maybe a little bit more subdued. could have been because of my mood after losing the ear tip too, so it's hard to say objectively. an old boy told scary JC friend and i that what we thought were mosquito bites from dinner on wednesday, were actually sandfly bites. no wonder they're so itchy! thanks to the malaysia OCIP experience during JC, i don't have a good opinion of sandflies at all. hopefully they'll stop itching after i take some zyrtec.

week 2 of tuition at the new place, and i'm kind of getting used to it. my friend gave me a smaller room this time, which means my voice echoes a bit more. unfortunately, the laws of physics don't discriminate, so the 2 new guys' voices also echoed while they were talking among themselves. i realize that i've been very lucky with the kids i've gotten so far...up till these 2 newest additions, at least. the 3 i started with were good, the 2 who joined at the start of this year caught up fast. these latest 2 however...i feel like a bit of friction might be developing. see, they give me the impression that they don't care too much about their learning...kind of the like they don't know something and they're not too bothered to find out, even while i'm explaining it. i mean, it's not acceptable to be this far into sec 3 and not know the 3 common acids! well...they joined late, so it's not my primary responsibility to catch them up. i still have to consider my existing 3 kids. luckily today was more on revision, so i could leave them alone more and focus on the new 2. the 3 even helped me think of questions! shows that their conceptual knowledge is solid enough, i guess.

yes, i know the other side of "if they were that good, they wouldn't need tuition". honestly, my current kids came in at about that level too, maybe a little better. now, they're asking me to buy them drinks if they score above 80% on their tests. i'd like to think i was at least partially responsible for that change in mindset! i also agreed, but set the bar at 85%. i have to remember that i'm not solely responsible for these kids' grades. i'm doing my part, and they have to do theirs as well. might need to give the 2 newest ones a toned-down version of the "you are responsible for your own learning" talk, for me to think about until the next session.

if only that had been the worst part of my day! i took the bus home again, and an hour's journey turned into 90 minutes because of increased traffic due to NDP rehearsal. i wasn't aware of it! but i guess i should have known/guessed, considering the actual event is like only a week away. the extra 30 minutes were spent in a huge jam in the bugis area. i've never seen so many buses all lined up together on the road before! no idea why it was crowded there, since the event seems to be at the national stadium. to think i was contemplating taking the train while waiting for the bus, but decided not to in the end! guess i missed the sign that someone was trying to give me. well, at least i could sit down all the way, and fellow passengers were MOSTLY well-behaved. small blessings!

the past week was kind of average. 2 cases came back with minor revisions, and 1 required a re-draft. i was also stuck for a couple of days on one case, due to there being no clear guidelines on how a particular disease is defined. decided to put that aside for now (going to ask my mentor on monday) and move on to another case, which turned out to be a slam-dunk, in that the invention is already pretty well-known. i'm going to complete it on monday (hopefully), which will accelerate my points a bit! speaking of monday, i've got a trip to MBS for a walk-through of the IP week venue. the rest of the week looks fairly routine other than that, and a national day celebration on friday. the company decided to give us a spontaneous half-day, which i appreciate. question is, what am i going to do with that half-day? i feel like i should make more out of it, like exploring somewhere, or doing something interesting. maybe i'll drop in on my aunt, if she's free.

as part of putting myself out there, i've been messaging people. i must not be understanding some part of this game correctly, because although people say they're looking for friends, one of the first things they do is ask for pictures. 2 things about that put me off. first, some people are rude about it. their first reply to my message (which i typed in complete sentences) is just "pic?". like...don't you have basic decency and/or conversational ability? it seems that the wide availability of apps these days means that there are a basically infinite number of people to talk to, and people are ok being this rude because the next person will come along. secondly, people judge by appearances. some people refuse to carry on the conversation without exchanging pictures, which i guess is well within their rights. some people ask you to send a picture first, then don't send one back, or just block you if they think you're not attractive enough, which i suppose is not wrong legally, but which i find morally/ethically repulsive. go libra equality/reciprocation trait! i'm at the point where i'm just trying my luck with online conversation, and not having too high expectations. i mean, even my expectation of receiving a response that shows a matching degree of effort is hardly met. i think i have better luck with meeting in person, which is why i suppose there will always be a need for physical venues. somehow, people tend not to be so nasty in person, i think because they can more clearly see/feel the consequences of their actions. also, i find it appropriate that the people who display lousy behaviour are also the ones whining about how they're so lonely, why doesn't anyone want to be their friend, etc. i just want to tell them to stand in the corner and do some reflection and repentance!

to wrap up this post, i'll talk about dinner on wednesday. a few of us got invited to seletar country club by one of the old boys. it was a passing conversation at the alumni gathering some time back, and it materialized that day. previously, another group of us was also invited for lunch at the british club by another old boy. it got me thinking if country club membership is something i want to chase. at present, the answer is "no", because it's not feasible, both economically and logistically. membership fees tend to be high, and the clubhouses tend to be out of the way. it's nice having friends/contacts who are members, though! made me think of my secondary school classmate, whose parents were (still are?) members at SICC. he invited us there, and it was pretty nice! anyway. dinner was in an alfresco area, which led to a few of us getting sandfly bites. was the dinner worth the resulting discomfort? let's see...steak, satay, fish head hotpot, pizza, chicken wings, char kway teow and possibly more vs. several days of itching...i'm undecided. the bites are itching like mad. with luck, the zyrtec will take effect soon.

-random thought of the day: Chemistry guys coming over tomorrow!-

Mega eventful weekend! sunday more so than saturday, but i'll cover both days anyway.

had my first tuition class at the new place. it's much further than harbourfront, but the bright side is that i have a direct bus there. takes 50 minutes though, so there's that. going home is a little easier too; i have a bus that stops a short-ish (3 minutes' walk) from home, instead of taking the MRT and walking 8-ish minutes. best part is that there are usually seats available on the bus! so i guess i'll take that silver lining.

the place itself is not bad, quite well-located and visible. perhaps too visible; i had to use a room with a huge window that let people outside look into my class. things are still in the midst of being set up, so the room i'm scheduled to use hadn't been prepared yet. thank goodness that it's temporary, i should have a less visible room next week. downside is that there are no smart whiteboards (or even dumb whiteboards, for that matter), so i had to borrow my friend's laptop and writing tablet device. totally not my thing, so i offered to get a whiteboard for the centre at my own expense. people may ask why i spent my own money, but i'm thinking of it as a centre-warming present. besides, i think my personal relationship with this friend is worth it. not to mention the money's coming out of whatever he's paying me, anyway! hopefully the whiteboard arrives in time for next week's class...i really don't want to use the writing tablet thing again.

yesterday was really fun! it started with lunch with scary JC friend and her boyfriend at beauty in a pot. for once, we didn't over-order. i ate till i was about 65% full, and filled up on soup to about 85%. the boyfriend had a viewing, so he went off while the two of us went for the sake festival/yosakoi event. for context, yosakoi translates to "come over tonight" in the tosa (kochi) dialect, and it's the name of a dance and dance festival that originated in kochi. there's a whole story involving a monk, a courtesan or some form of lady of the night, a hairpin, and a bridge which has been dubbed one of japan's most disappointing tourist sites. the current bridge is not even at the original site! but back to the point. if not for the yosakoi segment, i probably wouldn't have gone. while it was not at the scale of the actual thing in kochi, the energy was high and i had fun. it was so nostalgic seeing the bright costumes and lively dances again! the organizer/emcee is a local lady who hasn't been on JET, but has visited kochi every summer for the past 4 years for the actual festival. shocking to think we were in kochi at the same time, without knowing about each other! i guess that answers my question of "which singaporean in their right mind would voluntarily visit kochi?".

the sake was nice too. i was pleasantly surprised by the huge variety that was available, and that there's a local brewery here. my 2 top hits were one that tasted like pulut hitam (black glutinous rice), and one unfiltered one that tasted like lychee. the creaminess and rice bits reminded me of eating lychee, too! unfortunately, it seems that they didn't have bottles for sale. scary JC friend also got invited on stage to play a drinking game, which she won. i think she would rather have lost, because the losers drink while the winners don't. we also won a lucky draw ($40 worth of food vouchers, covering out ticket cost). don't know if there's some confirmation bias going on or whatever, but it seems like i'm more lucky when i go out with her. like, more good things seem to happen to me.

we then went to the gay bar, where the theme was "kinky karaoke" - for every song you request, you have to take off one article of clothing. as close as i am to scary JC friend, i don't quite think i'm ready to undress in front of her! so i just relaxed and sang along to other people's songs. i think i've been out drinking with her so rarely that i don't remember how social she can be. she was chatting to guys left and right, and she even danced with cute bartender a bit! she probably made more friends in a night than i did in the past 6 months. just to give you an idea of how things went, she asked a guy about the curry he was having (to be fair it smelled REALLY good), and he ended up giving her a taste. we were talking about it - outgoingness, not curry - on the way there, and i told her that i don't think i could force myself to be as sociable as her. she mentioned that it's easier for her since she's a girl and is thus perceived as less intimidating, so people tend to let their guard down around her. i guess that's what's called using your natural advantage.

also at various points throughout the night, people were asking how she came to know about the place, and that led to a quick recap of our friendship. i know it sounds quite needy and like, caring too much about others' opinions, but i was so happy/touched to hear her tell the other guys what she thought of me. not going to post the whole thing here, but the phrase "he's my favourite person" was used. man, i need to live up to that more...especially when i'm feeling unmotivated or just worn out. i hardly think it needs to be said, but the feeling is mutual. somehow, she doesn't drain my social battery. like, i never get tired of being in the same space as her...not even for the 6 consecutive days we lived together in japan. granted, 6 days isn't long enough to be a true test, but i don't foresee any major issues if we had to extend the duration.

scary JC friend left before me (boyfriend came to pick her up, how lucky!), and i did have a bit of fun time with some of the guys there. there was a pretty attractive guy, but he's emotionally unavailable. rather than feeling like i'd missed a chance, i genuinely hoped he'd be able to sort out his issues. i also realize that i'm becoming less inclined to want a partner now. that was another thing we talked about earlier in the day. she was telling me that she didn't understand the concept of open relationships...like, might as well stay single, right? while i kind of see where she's coming from, i do think that having a partner, even if only for the non-sexy things (finance, health, etc.), would be kind of nice. ideally both sexy and non-sexy elements would be present, but there's this whole discourse about different people having different sex drives, how that can lead to unhappiness/resentment, and an open relationship is the only way to solve that issue. guess sex is something gay guys are less willing to compromise on!

i reached home at 12+ last night, and only slept for 6-ish hours. felt ok in the office today up till lunch, but crashed for a bit in the afternoon. thankfully, today's cases are quite simple. i have 2 of them about the same compound, so it's like buy one get one free. with luck i'll be able to finish them tomorrow, which will put we well ahead of the promotion target. but that doesn't mean i have time for laurel-resting...not if i want to improve my odds for operation "promote with C+". but i shouldn't be fixated on work, which is why i'm having dinner with some of the old boys on wednesday. further into the future, i'm buying mentor figure and scary JC friend lunch (bonus is coming in this month!), and my favourite russian postdoc is coming to visit. i didn't know she comes over every year or so, and missed her last year. it'll be nice to see her in person again after 4 years!

-random thought of the day: Lucky tomorrow is work from home.-

We're preparing to migrate to a new file management system, so this week was one of the rare weeks where i didn't submit any cases. not officially, at least; my mentor told us to email her the cases we had ready and she'd check them on the shared drive. but it means that my points are frozen for however long the migration takes, so i have a stable number to look at for planning.

if we take my points from the last quarter of last year and combine them with my total so far this year, i'm about 8 points shy of the promotion target. completing my current case load will put me slightly ahead of the target, so that's what i'm aiming for. it also means i have to complete 11 cases in 10 weeks. considering i'm averaging just under 2 cases per week now, it seems really doable. yet, i felt a stab of anxiety as the number came up after my calculations earlier today in the office. i guess i should also remind myself of how much i've improved vs. when i just started doing cases. so far this year, i took just over 6 months to earn the same number of points i earned in 9 months last year, which seems to equate to a 50-ish percent increase in speed! pretty happy about that. just going to maintain the momentum.

i was talking to a few seniors yesterday, and they mentioned that promotion takes a while to confirm. come to think of it, promotions are usually announced at the start of a new quarter. and considering that they need some time to determine my suitability for promotion, there's a chance it'll be effective from 1 january next year. if that's indeed the case, i might just get the C+ appraisal grade for this year after all! again, no use living too far into the future. it'll take care of itself.

went to the gym yesterday, and i'm really close to deadlifting my body weight. should be able to do it by the end of august. my shoulders and hamstrings are also feeling sore as a result. during post-lunch chat (aka. slacking) today, my colleague (who boxes and does other stuff) said that she likes feeling sore, because it's a tangible indicator that she put in effort when she trains. different way of looking at it i guess, because i absolutely hate that feeling. i think i'd like it more if i stopped feeling sore faster/sooner, but my aging body doesn't seem to want to cooperate in that regard.

tomorrow will be the first day of tuition at the new place for me. maybe for everyone else too, considering the announcement just went out this afternoon. not looking forward to the commute, but i'll at least give it a try. good thing is that there's still a direct bus (well, multiple direct buses), so hopefully i can just sit down and zone out until the destination. seems like it's a bit of a walk from the bus stop too, and the way isn't sheltered. will need to remember to bring an umbrella, in case of rain. i suppose the worst case is i could grab there...but it's going to eat into my earnings. tradeoffs! i guess in the worst case scenario, i can remind myself that i only have another 1 year and 3 months left until my main commitment is fulfilled, which is like...65 weeks? minus a few here and there for public holidays and centre closures and whatnot, and i'm left with maybe 60. i think i can handle that. it'll give me an excuse to explore the area too!

-random thought of the day: Things are so much easier to let go of when framed as "respecting others' decisions".-

Just got off a video call with my successor (who's now back in the US), and boy did she spill the tea. it seems like she wasn't happy in the town, even at the time when i met her in person there! she was telling me about how random people in town would approach her to start a conversation, touch her hair without asking(!), to the point where i don't think she ever felt comfortable there. and her experience in the schools didn't help, either. the usual issues with the way english is taught, plus some intercultural differences both in the schools and town hall (she said people - adults - were talking behind her back), made her time there tough. i'm grateful i went in as an asian with decent japanese language ability, so i was able to fly under the radar. plus, i guess being a guy means that i'm less likely to be randomly stopped on the street for conversation? or it might just be my face helping to ward strangers/potential conversation partners off.

knowing how good the town (including colleagues, teachers, and kids) can be, i do find it a little painful/wasted that she didn't have as awesome an experience as i did (bar the last part with the prefecture). i also wish she'd told me about all that when we met! while i might not have been able to flip tables in the town hall on her behalf, i could have had discreet words or casual chats with certain people, or relied on the goodwill i'd built up to pull some other strings...especially since i was there in person! but yes, no use crying over spilled milk. i guess rural japan still has a long way to go when it comes to dealing with "actual" foreign-looking foreigners. so in a funny way, i guess my placement worked out despite the impression that they try to assign difficult/challenging placements!

not that i know enough to accurately ascribe blame for how things went down, but it seems to me that how things turned out was a bit on my successor, but mostly on the town and the system. i do wonder if the situation could have been salvaged, not necessarily with my help/intervention. like, would things have been different if my successor had voiced out her concerns more to the town hall (or to me!) and perhaps tried harder to assimilate (mentally, i mean; physically would be impossible), or if the town hall had recognized that her japanese language level was insufficient for daily life and offered her more support, checked in on her more, etc.? also not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but i think that i'm one of the better JETs that the town has had in terms of independence and tackling non-work-related aspects of JET life...and i hope the town hall staff realize that now.

still, she seems to be at peace with her decision to leave, so i guess that's good. she told me that she wants to continue in the education industry back in the states, and asked me to be a reference for her. i agreed, and i figure that i'll just tell any potential employers what i know about the job and her performance in the schools. she seemed well-liked enough by the kids, based on what i saw of their interaction, and that gives me a bit more confidence to give her a positive recommendation. besides, it wouldn't be nice to spoil her rice bowl.

nothing really new on my end, i got a whole bunch of cases which should last me the next 2 months at least. getting them all done by that time will probably mean i'll hit the promotion target. crochet guy came over to discuss my insurance coverage and...more. think i might need to up my critical illness cover, and maybe get an accident plan too. that's going to cost another few thousand a year, i think. within my means, but i'll probably feel the pinch. have to think about it more.

forgot to mention it when i first published this post...my third aunt recently informed me that the tampines place sold! i think it was within the past few weeks to a month? like i told them, my 4-month timeline to buy a flat is already accelerated. they ended up taking 6-7 months to finalize the sale. was there really a need for my second aunt to set my move-out date from marine parade for me, and cause friction in the process? irrational/emotional human reaction, i guess. well, whatever it is, i'm happy that the sale went through; that's one less thing for my third aunt to stress about.

-random thought of the day: Focus on work!-

Harbourfront centre is closing down, and today was my last tuition class there. they were actively dismantling the venue, to the point where some workers came and removed the door of the classroom i was in midway through my class! and don't even get me started on trying to make myself audible over the sounds of drilling and hammering. but we made it through somehow; in fact, time seemed to pass faster today. didn't feel like 2 hours at all.

the new venue is at anchorpoint, which is opposite ikea alexandra. it's also a 50% longer commute for me. worse is that it's less accessible, so the commute is going to be even less fun. i was mentioning this to scary JC friend, and she said that it might be a sign that my time giving tuition is coming to an end. well...i've felt something similar. as you might remember from previous posts, my plan is to see this class of kids to O-levels (around november next year), then end off there. i'm actually considering if ending it this year is possible, since my work KPI is due to increase next year. at this point, i don't think there's a need to, because i think juggling both tuition and higher KPI is still within my capacity.

the donki at harbourfront centre is due to cease operations tomorrow, so they've been having a sale for the past month or so. i brought a bigger bag down in preparation to buy stuff, but it seems that anything that i'd be interested was either sold out, or not discounted. well...helps me save money, i guess. besides, i got some stuff 2 or 3 weeks ago, so it's all good. maybe out of impulse or temporary vanity, i bought a pack of face masks with some rice extract/compound. it's supposed to tighten pores, which i might need. yes, i recognize it's a non-essential beauty/vanity thing and i'm not going to go crazy obsessive about it. i also got instant dashi and a bottle of shampoo, in preparation for when my current one runs out.

also wanted to talk about 2 customer service fails that i experienced recently. well, more like one customer service fail and one scam attempt fail. for the customer service fail, i went to speak to the manager of the gym to get invoices to claim some money from my company for gym membership. it isn't much, but every little but helps! so, the manager asked for my number to identify me, and proceeded to pronounce my name wrongly. it irks me a little, but i understand that most people's brains will skip when seeing that combination of letters. so i'll gently correct them the first time. the manager than proceeded to get my name wrong again within the span of a minute. like...really!? it's one thing if we interact once a year and you forget. but within a minute just shows me she wasn't mentally engaged. well, at least i got what i needed, so it's fine i suppose.

scam attempt fail is more interesting. while walking to tuition, my wireless earphones automatically accepted a call. the caller was someone claiming to be from NTUC insurance, telling me that i'd signed up for a policy related to unionpay and today was the last day to cancel. he also said if i didn't cancel, i'd be locked in to pay $750 per month over 2 years, or $18 000 in total. when i questioned him about things like my full name, and email address, he got close but not 100% correct. then when i asked him how the money would be deducted, he said "this is only a call centre, i don't have the details". he then gave me a number to call, ending in "fourple one". took me more than a second to figure out he meant that the last 4 digits were 1111. i think he knew i was suspicious, because i didn't confirm anything other than the fact that i didn't sign up for this policy and wanted it cancelled. he ended the call with "since you don't understand what i'm saying, call the hotline. remember, you MUST cancel today, or you'll be charged the full sum".

the universe helped me out a little, because when i called the number (just in case and to find out more), i got a recording saying that the number was not in use. i then googled NTUC insurance's number, which was different yet very similar to the number he gave me. it also ended in 1111, so i can see how people would assume the number given by the scammer is legitimate. calling the actual number, i got a recording saying that NTUC insurance was closed on weekends. so much for all the urgency about having to do it by today! guess the idiot didn't check the calendar.

i am mildly annoyed that i didn't call him out there and then, and that i almost thought it was legitimate. for one, i should have known that NTUC would probably not hire anyone who thinks "fourple" is an actual word. the second indicator is the way he spoke. professional customer service staff wouldn't sound so unpolished. third, i was pretty sure i have never used unionpay. yet, i not-smartly asked him how this could have happened. he said it could be something i bought online, or i clicked something on social media. sounds believable, actually! i'm thankful that i didn't panic and lose my rationality.

by the way, it seems odd that the scammer is "helpfully" trying to get you to cancel an insurance policy that you never applied for, right? here's how the scam works, which i found out from a reddit thread. the script was similar, even the figures of "$750 per month for 24 months, meaning $18 0000 total"! the scammers are expecting you to want to cancel, because who would risk paying an additional $750 a month? then when you tell them you want to cancel, they'll ask you to go down to their office immediately, which most people won't be able to do. those who do go down will have wasted time and money on the commute, so i guess the scammers take it as a petty victory. anyway, most people will opt to cancel via online or over the phone. the scammer then gives them a number to call, or transfers them to the "cancellations department" (actually another scammer). then, the victim will be asked to transfer money as a cancellation or processing fee, which is where the money is lost. quite interesting, that the scammers are going with the logic, then pulling the scam at the last step. guess they're evolving too. luckily my brain was still sharp enough to smell a rat!

while reflecting on my interactions with guys, i realized that for all the guys i've met this year, i would consider none of them as a suitable partner. bear in mind, this is my personal preference. i'm not saying they they are bad partners...just that i think we're better as friends at most. that got me thinking more about my criteria in looking for a partner. not going to do a super detailed analysis now, but i would rank the broad aspects according to: (1) personality/character, (2) looks and other physical attributes, (3) wealth, education, and status. sometimes, i think i might change the positions of (2) and (3). i guess there is a grey area or a certain tolerance...like, a below average-looking rich guy might win out over a hot poor guy. actually, i suppose that (1) is essential, but (2) and (3) are optional. can i accept someone who has an awesome personality who's a perfect fit for me, but doesn't have looks or money? maybe. but then, i would think that a guy who's good enough for me would possess a level of ability that would make him somewhat successful...or at least not total rubbish. here i should pause to remind myself that as i'm assessing others, others are also assessing me similarly. well...i guess it is what it is, and i'll have to see where life takes me in that regard.

-random thought of the day: More social appointments coming up!-

Either the thing about our bodies remembering anniversaries of traumatic events (or as SRC might say, "the body remembers the score") is true, or how today went is just a freak coincidence. given the lack of data points to ascertain reproducibility, i'm going to believe the latter for now. let's hope it stays that way, and that i didn't horribly jinx myself.

by all accounts, today was a great day! i helped my biologist batchmate search for some chemical structures, had lunch with gym guy, got some good news from my lead, and cleared 3 cases of varying difficulty with my mentor. yet, i started feeling down halfway through my gym workout. i guess it's a mix of thinking too much, both in the work and personal spheres.

for work, i suddenly started worrying that i wouldn't be able to hit the september promotion target. not sure why, since i appear to be on track. and the difficulty of the most recent bunch of files my lead assigned seems to be on par with previous cases. so, why am i suddenly worrying? doesn't make sense. i think i'll have to check my point balance and calculate/project how many cases i'll have to complete per week until september. that should ground me.

in the personal realm, i just feel a bit out of sorts. could it be from gym guy telling me about his thailand encounters? i don't think so - i'm very clear that he's not a relationship prospect, so i don't think it's jealousy. perhaps it might be related to my recent lack of interest in looking for guys. could be that i've been overdoing it the past couple of months (or arguably, the past half a year!), but i do think i want to focus more on non-M-18 connections until end-september, at least.

on to the good news - my lead told me that the exchange trip with japan was confirmed! it's set for the first quarter of next year, meaning that if i play my cards right, i might be able to extend my stay in japan by taking leave right after the exchange. then scary JC friend and mentor figure can just fly over to join me. still a long-ish way into the future, so no point planning too much now. perhaps this unknowingly added to my pressure to hit the promotion target in september. feels kind of like a trade - i get enough points to be promoted, my lead gives me this opportunity. or i suppose the more "normal" way to look at it is like what he said - the opportunity will be an added reward for meeting the promotion target.

while talking to my lead, i also casually brought up the prospect of getting company sponsorship for the graduate diploma in IP. actually, i asked him about the master's course, because the difference between the master's and the diploma is only 2 more elective modules. i'd previously thought that i'd be happy enough with the graduate diploma - also because taking fewer modules would be easier to juggle with my workload. but then, i read on the website yesterday that due to my job, i'm granted exemption from one elective module, meaning that the difference between the master's and graduate diploma is just one module for me. that shifts the balance quite significantly, and makes going for the master's way more worthwhile! my lead also informed me that there are requirements for sponsorship, namely having served 2 years in the company, and a C+ performance grade for the most recent appraisal. not too worried about time in service, because that will happen naturally. plus i already planned to ask to go for the course in 2028. that means i need a C+ for 2027...or does it? considering the application window, i may actually need a C+ this year. whatever the case, my lead mentioned that C+ corresponds to exceeding the KPI target by about 10-25%. with the increased KPI target after promotion, i don't know how successful i'll be. but that's for future me to worry about.

don't exactly feel better now, so i'm hoping a good night's sleep will reset my brain. also, finding out my point total for sure tomorrow should help put my mind at ease, at least a bit.

-random thought of the day: Weird mood today.-