"Pick your battles wisely". that quote occurred to me earlier on the drive home, and i think it's quite relevant to a certain aspect in my life. before that though, i have an update on the favourite SJI boy situation.

so i talked to him. he says that he's perfectly fine, and that i haven't done anything to annoy him or anything like that. based on this, everything should be fine, right? in theory, yes. but based on his tone and choice of words, something is wrong. the biggest hint came from his reply, which went something like, "i'm ok, if you think there's something wrong, i'm fine with it" (i can't remember the exact phrasing). in normal english, that actually sounds not-that-harmful. but add a singlish twist, and the meaning becomes more like, "if you have a problem with me, there's nothing i can do about it". that worries me, because it shows how far the distance has become, and it makes me feel that he doesn't trust me like before. as much as i hate to think this way, i think he may have been externally influenced, or my character judgement was way far off. what he wants to believe is out of my control, so just have to hope that he has as much sense/intelligence as i think he does. well, i'll respond to this in my newton's third law way...as much as it sucks having to do so. funny how some people that you (i) care about don't seem to reciprocate that much. but well, i figure it's karma. after all, i'm guilty of doing that too. well, i guess we'll see how things go for the next few weeks/months. if he suddenly reverts to his old self close to nationals, that should be the biggest danger sign for me.

now for the battles thing. you should be familiar with the old saying right? "know yourself, know your enemy, and you'll be undefeated for hundreds of battles." something like that. so here's the thing. remember the thing i wanted to do on my birthday, but ended up not doing due to being unable to muster up the courage? i'm thinking of it as a battle now. conditions for victory and defeat are quite clear to me, but i won't post them here (yet). my blog isn't ready for it. so, what happens now is that i'm picking battles with people which i have greater chances of winning over. then when my confidence gets the boost it needs, i may try the tougher battles. for now, i've already won about 8 battles, and have about 10 more to go. all in good time.

i wonder if being upset weakens your immune system. somehow, i remember reading that your mental and physical well-beings are linked, and each exerts influence on each other. guess that's true, because my nose suddenly became blocked after the talk. maybe if i convince myself that there's nothing i can do, my nose will unblock itself.

-random thought of the day: Damned emotions.-

Have i been busy enough to not blog for 10 days? actually, i don't really recall what i've been busy with. i haven't really made THAT significant progress in lab work, and the modules are more or less manageable. good news is that i finished my materials presentation yesterday, so i'm just left with a written report and 2 final exams on the module end. interesting story about the report, which is for organometallics. i remember the lecturer saying 4 pages, so i went ahead and wrote a 4-page report as normal. after checking his written instructions for confirmation about the deadline, i noticed that the report was supposed to be 4 pages, double spaced. so i suddenly had twice as many pages as i needed. finally managed to get it to 4 pages after a lot of backspacing, deleting, rephrasing, the occasional frustrated scream, and a small cheat (moving my references to the cover page). figure i'll let it rot for a while before the deadline, then do final editing before submission.

lab work-wise, i've synthesized another 2 catalysts...and that's about it. the downside of my compounds is that they contain sulphur (still used to the british spelling), which makes them smell horrible. but if this work gets me a paper, i won't complain (too much). thankfully, the syntheses are easy; taking 3 steps at most for now. if all goes well, i'll be able to test my 2 catalysts tomorrow. incidentally, i'm just wondering. which do you think is better - to make a few catalysts, test them, make a few more, test again, or make like 10 catalysts and test them in one shot? i'm more inclined to the first method, because more checking means finding a hit sooner...like say, if catalyst #3 gave ridiculously good results, i'd know sooner from method 1 than method 2. the flipside is that you'll only know for sure which one is the "jackpot" catalyst after synthesizing and testing every single catalyst. i guess it's more of a personal preference thing.

other interesting happenings include my friend's wedding, and receiving a professor. the wedding was nice. actually, i don't think "nice" does it justice. it was well-planned, well-executed, and not too extravagant/flashy, which i think was quite sensible and appropriate for the couple's current stage in life (my friend hasn't been working for that long, while his wife is a new-ish teacher). nevertheless, it wasn't a cheap affair, and still had that sense of occasion which is befitting for (arguably) the most important day of one's life. unlike my cousin's wedding, i didn't feel any tears coming at all, which convinces me that it was the music last time. food-wise, it was standard wedding dinner stuff, so there isn't much to say. the one improvement i'd suggest is to do away with the rapidly-moving strobe lights while the first course was being served. made my eyes hurt more than anything, and didn't allow me to watch/appreciate the serving routine.

did drink a bit (2 glasses of wine), and as a result, had to wait until the alcohol was back to undetectable levels before driving back. the waiting was done over dessert at macdonalds. i must say, the matcha mcflurry is pretty good. one unfortunate side-effect of attending the wedding is that it somewhat reminded me that i don't have someone like that. not that i want to get married, but i would kind of like someone to care for and to be cared for by in return...someone who knows me well enough to read my mind, and whose mind i can read easily too. but that's just my emo showing. it'll pass soon, i think.

receiving a professor was interesting. my professor had lab class yesterday, so he asked me to go to the airport to pick his guest up. it's a little intimidating, actually, to be there alone and knowing that you're scheduled to be alone with a foreign professor whom you've never met before, at least for the time it takes to drive back to school (about half an hour at a reasonable speed). thankfully, this professor was really nice, which put me at ease somewhat. things went mostly smoothly, though i did panic when he didn't show up even after 20 minutes from his flight arrival time. the worst-case scenario i pictured was that he had come out of immigration, but didn't see me, assumed i wasn't coming, and took a taxi to NUS himself. thankfully, he was just a little held up at customs, and everything was fine from there. on the way back to NUS, he was telling me how in taiwan (where he's from), having graduate students pick up visiting professors is the norm, whereas it's the exception here. but having said that, i really would not mind if my professor asked me to do something similar again in the future. at least it gave me a reason to take a nice long drive, with the petrol fully paid for.

seems like i will miss all saturday CJC/SJI training sessions due to group meeting. training is from 10:00am to 1:00pm, but usually ends a little early. group meeting starts at 10:30am. the presenter speaks for about 20 to 30 minutes, followed by another 30 to 40 minutes of questions and discussion (it's usually longer). that means group meeting will finish at 11:20am earliest. by the time i drive down to CJC, it's 12:00pm or later. getting changed for less than an hour of training isn't worth it to me. well, at least i can (usually) make wednesday training sessions. the main reason i still go down for saturday training is because of the lunch plans afterwards...though recently, the number of people going have been decreasing, and the senior-to-junior ratio is skewed. wonder why.

also this past week, favourite SJI boy is still kind of...hostile? not really hostile...the best analogy i can think of on the spur of the moment is that he's behaving like an irritated cat. and guess who's not a cat person? seriously though, i'm still trying to justify his sudden change. since he has approached me with significant problems/issues in the past, i would like to think that there is a certain level of trust between us, which theoretically means that he shouldn't be lying to me, which in turn means that there is really nothing wrong with any aspect of his life. it's SOMEWHAT believable, because he interacts normally with his friends. that's the bugger that makes rationalizing this sudden mood swing a whole lot more difficult, actually. considering that it persisted after the first training session, i don't think it's to do with his rustiness. i saw him train this past saturday, and his form is more or less there again. that also makes me wonder if he did ever lose his form in the first place, but that's not important now.

what is important is that i find the underlying cause for this sudden change. after a lot of thought, i've narrowed it down to these few possibilities (in no particular order): puberty/teenage hormones, he wants to create distance, there is an issue sufficiently secret/serious that he can't tell me about it. if it was the first and/or third reasons, i'd be ok with it, and give him the space he needs, no questions asked. but in the off chance that reason #2 is right, i would really like to find out why. has he been hearing stuff about me? have i done/am i doing something he doesn't approve of/agree with? because the way i see it, you don't just wake up one morning and decide to stay away from someone without a good reason. i don't know, but i really hope there isn't any misunderstanding. of course, the last reason i can possibly think of is that he thinks i've outlived my usefulness, and thus, wants to move on with his life. of all the reasons i've listed, i think this is that one with the lowest probability. on a personal note, i'm also hoping and praying that whatever the reason is, it won't be this one...because if he does think that way, then my character judgement skills (which i quite pride myself on, by the way,) have failed me big-time. i've decided to have a little chat with him tomorrow after training. despite his reassurance that everything is ok, and no matter how much i want to believe him, some alarm bells are still going off in my head. and being an INFP, i do trust my instincts. well, we'll see what our talk turns up.

i saw a notice at my lift which says that my carpark will be converted from coupon-based to EPS-based, which means there'll soon be a barrier that deducts money from your cashcard as you leave. the reasons they gave was that it would help ease congestion and motorists would only pay for the time they parked. i admit that the latter point is valid, since coupons go by half-hour or one-hour blocks, and you can't save your remaining time for another parking session. but as for the first point, it's currently 2:04am. i think that by this time, all the cars that park in this carpark would have parked for the night already. wow that was a pretty confusing sentence. anyway, the carpark is only 80% full at best, even at this late/early hour. so the congestion thing doesn't really hold water here. actually, they omitted what i feel is the most important reason, which is that they wanted to prevent people from parking without a coupon! although the carpark uncles and aunties are fairly diligent, some people do get away with coupon-less parking. with this automated system, no such luck any more. at least i have season, so i'm not affected at all. it may even work in my favour if temporary visitors go elsewhere to find (by-left) free parking. i may get a lot that is close to the lift more consistently!

guess that's it for now. other than talking to favourite SJI boy, i also have to NMR my 2 catalysts. with any luck, everything will go smoothly, and i can move on to the next stage in both aspects.

-random thought of the day: Murphy's law of carwashing states that it will probably rain within 24 hours of you washing your car.-

Lots of (mostly good!) things have happened in the close-to one week i haven't blogged. believe me, i wanted to, but i've been having late days, and the internet has been screwing up at night. i haven't been able to load facebook or youtube for the past 3 nights at least. don't know whether it's linked to the singtel fire, but it's really getting on my nerves. think i should call the singtel people up. incidentally, does anyone know where to find singtel's assurance of quality, or if they even have one? i briefly went through their website, but didn't find anything.

reading some stuff online, as well as the residual cool weather from the ridiculously heavy rain this afternoon, have put me in a rather reflective/contemplative mood. before that though, i think i'll talk about the stuff that's happened this week, starting with the guild house trip on monday. most of the chem kids went, even those who had already graduated. previous guild house trips were generally successful, and i don't think this one was an exception. it was nice to meet with the working people, seeing as we don't get the change to eat together regularly any more. somehow, i can foresee us meeting up even when we're all out of NUS. but that's looking a bit too far ahead for now. unfortunately, one thing did kind of dampen the mood though, and that was the substandard level of service at the guild house that night. admittedly, it might have been because we went late (around 9:00pm). don't think that that was the main reason, though. the service staff took 15 minutes to tell us that something we ordered was no longer available, and they forgot our order twice. looking back, it was probably not that big a deal. but i was hungry that night, and you know what they say about hungry men being angry men. we then decided to go to the 24-hour macdonalds at kallang for drinks afterwards. thankfully, it was near the SJF, so i managed to get there without getting lost along the way. we talked for a bit more, then went home since it was close to 2:00am. previously, it would have been unthinkable to do something like this without a car. love having my own transport.

even though the following day was hari raya haji, i still went back to school for a bit. i realize that i like working on sundays and public holidays. it's the quiet, i guess. that, and the fact that there's fewer people in the lab, which means more space and not so much queueing for common equipment (eg. rotavaps). don't get me wrong, i like having the seniors around to laugh and joke with (and ask questions if i get stuck). but being introverted, i do need my quiet time, which is why i treasure my sundays of being almost-alone in lab. maybe i should take off-in-lieu sometime during the week...though it would be messy at best to explain to my professor.

went back for CJC training on wednesday. coincidentally, the coach was sick and didn't come, so i ended up giving them a few judo-related exercises, in addition to the physical training that they had planned. understandably, they were all quite rusty after not having trained for about 2 months. today was SJI's first training in about 5 weeks, and i understand similar symptoms of rust manifested. i'll have a bit more to say about this later. for now, i'll say that i see potential in a fair few of the kids. one of them asked me if they'd be ready for nationals next year. i told them yes, provided they trained with 100% dedication.i kind of conveniently left out the fact that they'd have to be ready by hook or by crook. at this point, i'm not sure of any of the current SJI sec 4s are planning on coming to CJC, but in the event that they aren't, we'll only have 2 senior belts next year. not good odds no matter how i look at it. but then again, i probably shouldn't judge an athlete by his/her belt colour. i've known yellow/orange belts to pull victories out of thin air against more experienced opponents. fair enough, it doesn't happen often, but it happens...which is good enough i guess.

some previous versions of my blog template had a little bio-data section. that was 2 years (or more) ago, so i won't blame you if you didn't know that it was my birthday this past thursday. i turned 25, which means i'm optimistically 1/4 (or less) of the way through life. given that the average life expectancy of a singaporean male is around 80 (rounded off), a more realistic estimate of my progress through life would be 5/16. take off 5 years for chemical inhalation, emo, stress, and whatever, and that leaves me with 2/3 of life left to go. but let's stop this train of thought. it can easily take a turn for the depressing. anyway, i was very grateful and surprised for the 30 or so birthday greetings that i got on facebook, and from the chem kids on whatsapp. presents-wise, 2 of the chem kids gave me a batman t-shirt, which i quite like. haven't tried it on yet, though. didn't get anything else, which is fine. i'd previously griped about the lack of presents, but i figured that since i got the car, i have to honour my words from a 2010 (or so) post where i said that if i got a car, i would be perfectly fine with not getting presents for the next 5 years. so, while i'm fully prepared not to receive anything for the next 5 birthdays and christmases, you all are most welcome to surprise me with a little something here and there.

with this birthday, i guess i'm officially in my mid-20s. can't stay young forever, after all. there are some things which i promised myself that i'd do on my birthday, but due to a lack of time and/or courage, i didn't get them done. feeling quite upset with myself as a result. then again, i guess there isn't much difference between doing it on my birthday versus any other day. so why do i have to wait for my birthday to do it? i don't! but yet, it's scary. maybe that's why i'm putting it off. well...i've heard the sooner i settle things like these, the sooner i'll be happy. have to put that to the test i guess.

one of the reflective thoughts i've had is about carding...you know, the whole national athlete thing. i talked to my friend on thursday during NUS training, and he opined that it seemed like a huge hassle. i had to agree. he also asked me why i bothered with the whole carding thing in the first place. after some thought, i guess i have 2 major reasons. first is to hopefully make things easier when i take grading next year. next is so that any overseas trips will be partially funded by SSC. are those really good enough reasons? i don't know. i'm starting to think that it might not be worth all the trouble. especially the club thing. i like NUS judo well enough, but i wonder if training on thursday nights is such a good idea, especially when training tends to finish quite late.

the other thing that i felt quite put off by was favourite SJI boy today. having not seen him for about a month, i'd wanted to get updates on how he's been doing and all that. think i caught him at a bad time, because he was rather...short with his replies. he did tell me that he topped his class, which is a good thing. upon some CSI, i think i found out the reason why he was so...not really upset...more like standoffish(?) despite insisting that he was fine. tiring physical training aside, it seems that he expected his skill level to be exactly where it was when he stopped training. now i may be wrong here, but i don't think even an olympic-level athlete can maintain his/her performance after not training for a month. i'd believe that they can go back to their previous performance levels faster than regular athletes, but to not deprove at all after a period of inactivity is quite unbelievable. maybe i'll have a chat with him on wednesday, when he's more relaxed and more likely to be receptive to whatever i have to say. at the same time, i know that i shouldn't take it personally. after all, i've had days where i didn't want to talk to anyone at all, no matter how good their intentions. so, understanding is key here. besides, i trust my initial assessment of him.

tomorrow's sunday, which means i'm going into lab for a bit. hopefully i can do 1 or 2 column(s) and proceed to the next step of catalyst synthesis. if that reaction failed, i guess i'll just set up a couple of new reactions. and i have to pay my phone bill and renew my road tax. i'm not about to try it at home, what with the shaky internet connection. oh. must return my library books too. looking slightly further ahead, i've got to finish my organic materials presentation slides my this coming week in time for my presentation on the following monday. and my friend's getting married this coming saturday! while several of my friends are engaged already, he's the first person i know within my age group to get married. well...i think i should cut it here. my internet's stable for the time being, so i'd better take advantage of it and publish.

-random thought of the day: People are so confusing sometimes.-

Chances are that you guys have probably seen at least one post where i talk about my weird dreams. in case you haven't, you're about to see one now. brief background: the earliest occurrence of a weird dream in my memory dates back to secondary school, probably before i began blogging. though i don't remember what the exact dream was, the experience of having that dream left an impression on me. for some strange reason, i have 2 recurring weird dreams. they're not exactly the same each time, but have the same overall theme. the first theme is all my teeth somehow falling out. that's the most common of my weird dreams, having happened around 4 times (which i can remember; actual number is probably higher) so far. wonder if it's my guilty conscience manifesting because i don't visit a dentist regularly. the second type of dream started after ORD, and involves me being back in camp. wait...it gets weirder. in the most recent version of that type of dream, i dreamt that the ferry terminal to tekong had been upgraded to airport-like quality, and we could pilot our own 2-person hovercrafts back and forth. very interesting. i wonder if there's a reason these themes keep popping up? might be my subconscious trying to tell me something.

recurring weird dreams aside, i also had one pretty scary dream. (un)fortunately, i don't remember exactly what it was about. i do recall, however, being a little scared to go back to sleep. so far, i think i've only had this kind of bad dream twice, which is already 2 times too many for me. i'm really not much of a horror person. my weird dream rate has been quite high over the past 2 weeks. i attributed it to stress in the past, but i don't think i'm feeling particularly stressed now. or maybe the dreams are an outlet, hence reducing my stress levels? i don't know. don't get me wrong; i'm not adverse to weird dreams. it's the scary ones i don't like. well...we're still a long way from understanding dreams, so i guess i can live with the uncertainty for now.

nothing that interesting happened on friday...just got my organic materials presentation almost done, like 90%. just have to add the findings from the second paper, and an overall conclusion. projected slide total (excluding the title slides) is about...20. i have to get through that in 15 minutes maximum, which means a time allocation of about 45 seconds per slide. should be ok. just hope i don't overshoot at all, or in the worst case scenario, not overshoot too much.

this weekend was good. there was a team of 2 visiting judo instructors, and they spent the whole weekend giving seminars and teaching class at various locations across the country. my partner had previously trained with one of them in japan before, so he wanted to entertain them for one night. and luckily, i got invited along to act as a translator in some of their classes, as well as for dinner, where we had the famous claypot rice at geylang, and tau huay for dessert. one of the instructors also works for (or is some high-up guy in) this company called pfluster (the "p" is silent). really wonder how some companies come up with their names. i'm sure there's an interesting story behind it. on a related note, i realize that my japanese language level has dropped SO much just after one summer and half a semester of not actively studying japanese! really really need the practice, especially in both speaking and listening. reading and writing seem to be ok for now, so that's somewhat of a relief at least.

what a difference a few kPa make. the air pump at my nearest SPC got repaired, so i went to inflate my tyres earlier this morning. when my tyres were less-than-full, i got an average economy of 9km/L. like i mentioned before, each pixel of my fuel gauge represents 2.5L of petrol. i can normally get about 25km per pixel, which works out to 10km/L nicely. when the tyres were underinflated, i don't think i even hit 20km per pixel. and after inflating my tyres to the recommended pressure (and refuelling to a full tank for a fair comparison), i've gone 40km and the first pixel is still lit up. in the interest of fuel economy (and by extension, my wallet), it looks like i have to faithfully top-up my tyres at the same time i top up my petrol.

also earlier today at SJC, one of the club members lightly brushed the right-front corner with his car. the damage is barely noticeable, and he was nice/honest enough to tell me about it. these are 2 things for which i'm very grateful. thankfully, 80% of the damage is on the front bumper, the other side of which i'd scratched up already, so i can live with that. the other 20% is on the panel above the bumper, and it's very easy to miss at a glance. overall...minor heart pain, but i'll survive.

receiving a letter from the LTA out of the blue can be a scary experience. believe me, having just received one this past thursday, i'd know. luckily for me, it wasn't about a traffic or parking offence. they just wanted me to renew my road tax. even though the deadline is about 3 weeks away, i should get working on that soon. from the letter, it seems that i need various documents, and compiling those might take a bit of time.

i went back to lab after the SJC session, and set up 3 reactions. hopefully they'll all be ready for work-up and analysis tomorrow. somehow, i was tired enough that i fell asleep for about an hour in the student room. woke up before it got too late, though, so that's good. halfway through writing this post, i realized that it's my turn for solvent duty/waste disposal tomorrow. and guess who went all the way back to lab on sunday, but forgot to count the bottles of waste solvent? well, looks like i'll have to go in early tomorrow to get that done. and speaking of tomorrow, the chem kids have a guild house dinner planned, and i also have to go down to nus judo training for a bit. yes, i decided to join as a temporary stop-gap measure. have to talk to the coach for a bit, find out a bit about the carding procedures and attendance matters. hope everything falls nicely into place.

-random thought of the day: Bak kwa is a good idea for omiyage.-

Discretion is the better part of valour. do you agree? explain your answer.

since it's thursday today, i thought i'd join the throwback thursday trend for once, and ask a question in the style of secondary school english essay questions. there's a reason behind this particular question, and unfortunately, it's tied to a negative experience. i'll elaborate more on that later. for now, let's recap the week so far.

nothing much for monday and tuesday, just regular work and classes. somehow, i think that the content covered for graduate modules pales in comparison to level 4 modules. don't feel like i've learnt all that much, especially for organic materials. well...as long as i can keep my CAP above the requirement, i'm ok with it. had a minor moron moment on monday, in that i forgot to bring my transponder to school. so i had an unexpected early day. made up for it on tuesday though. for my research, it seems that i may be changing direction a little, since my compound is unstable to heat. have to do a fresh round of literature searching to get the general idea of the reaction procedure.

yesterday and today were fruitful in lab. finally got my compound to crystallize nicely. too bad that with the change in direction, it won't see much use anytime soon. at least i identified my error, so there's a learning experience. i surprised myself by reaching school before 8:00am today. part of it was because i wanted to test the hypothesis of pumping petrol when the ground is cold (low temperature = higher density = more mass per unit volume = more petrol per dollar). the other reason on because i woke up at 4:50am, and couldn't get back to sleep. i think that this won't be a frequent occurrence...just when i need to refill the tank, which is once every 2 weeks or so. minor bummer was that the air pump was out of order, so i wasn't able to check my tyre pressure and re-inflate as necessary. think i'll go to the ang mo kio avenue 1 or upper thomson branches of SPC soon.

good thing i was in school early, i guess, since there was the asset check plus a surprise safety inspection. luck was really on our side this time. in preparing for the asset check, we inadvertently prepared for the safety inspection as well. all in all, everything took longer than i'd expected! thankfully, i gave some leeway when booking my NMR, and had sufficient time to prepare my samples after the checks. since i came early, i thought i could leave school early...but talking to my professor, and the rain made that quite difficult, nevertheless, i left at around 7:45pm, which is early by my standards. it was good, i guess, since i got some errands run. bought paper and labels for the lab, and socks for myself. i really don't know where all my socks have gone! when i came back from japan, i had around 5 pairs of socks. somehow in 2 months, all but one pair have disappeared. it's quite frustrating/annoying, because i have to be in shoes during weekdays. so i bought 6 pairs of socks. luckily they had a sale going on. one pack of 3 pairs for $18, 2 packs for $19.90, so practically half off. hope they don't go missing again.

so now, the thing about discretion. as i was turning into my carpark, someone was turning out also. even though i had the right of way, i motioned for them to go first. i'm not sure whether they didn't see my first 2 gestures, or they were distracted, or whatever. anyway, they took a long time to turn out, which resulted in me giving them a "what the hell!?" kind of gesture. no, it wasn't obscene, just sort of like this:

for some reason, the guy's passenger got sufficiently angry to stop the car and come out to confront me. not wanting to cause any traffic situations, i just ignored him, turned in, and parked. i did wonder, though, what i would do if it escalated into a physical confrontation. i realize that despite all the judo training, i'm not exactly how i would respond in a street fight scenario. judo is only effective up close, and more often than not, it's a reaction-based system, meaning that the opponent has to initiate something first. the advantage i think i have is that the ground can be used as a weapon for me as well, while the disadvantage is i don't like getting hurt pointlessly. but the more fundamental question i think is, is it "correct" to even engage him? seems like all martial arts teach the same core principle - "never fight if you can avoid it". not forgetting the follow-up line - "if you have to fight, hit first and hit hard".

to tell the truth, i was a little scared. mainly for the car, though. the way i saw it, i was at a disadvantage because the car could be collateral damage. his car was far away, so no worries for him there. besides, i don't know if any of them live here, and if their memory will be good enough to remember my license plate number. i'll probably have to be on my guard a bit, and check for any new scratches, dents, flat tyres, cut brake lines (goodness forbid), and stuff like that. well...considering this is singapore, i'd say that the odds of something like that happening are...15-20%. maybe i'm thinking too much. but just in case, here's what i remember: white hatchback-type car, possibly a honda. 2 chinese guys, probably in their 20s. very short hair (NSFs?). driver wore glasses. well...let's hope that this information never comes in handy.

-random thought of the day: The back of my Kodokan keychain is peeling off.-

While doing some lab work yesterday after group meeting, my senior said that i should try to change my language. upon doing some reflection, i realize that i have indeed been using the words "sad" and "depressed" a lot since semester started. could explain why my mood hasn't been that good for a while now. so for starters, i'm going to try and avoid any negative references in this post. that should be easy, since the main point of this post is to blog about a few happy events in the past week.

i'd forgotten to blog about my organometallics presentation earlier this past tuesday. all things considered, i think it went quite well! probably could have improved on is time management (overshot by 3 minutes), but other than that, i think i simplified the paper sufficiently and got the message across clearly. the lecturer didn't have any questions for me, which i think is a good sign. my friend said that he saw my mark (18/20), which is ridiculously good by my standards. i'm a little reluctant to believe it though, because i don't want to set myself up for disappointment. so with the presentation out of the way, i only have the written report (4 pages) and the organic materials presentation before my CAs for the semester are complete. the presentation is a little worrying though...we're supposed to review 2 papers. my topic is on liquid crystals and OLEDs. those papers are very different from organic chem papers, and as such, present quite a challenge. but i've found a pretty good review paper, and hopefully i'll get the hang of reading it in time for my presentation 3 weeks later.

on thursday, i met up with 2 of last year's honours students (the last one was overseas) and the UROPS student in my lab for dinner. i don't mean we had dinner in lab, but that they're from my lab...but i think you might have guessed that. we went to saveur, where there was no queue! what a pleasant surprise. apparently, google translate says "saveur" should be pronounced similarly to "sever". the nice wait staff pronounced it while taking our order, but i forgot how it sounded. do remember thinking that she said "starter" instead though. and "saveur" means "flavour", not "savour" as i'd previously assumed. my starter was the signature pasta (highly recommended!) and a mushroom cappuccino, which is just mushroom soup served in a cup, not mushroom-flavoured coffee. for the main, i had the pork, which was nice. just that the serving size was a little small. about 150% of what they gave would have been perfect for me. so far, i've had the sea bass and the pork. i think that i may eventually try everything on the menu...the duck looks like a promising next target. we then went to this chinese dessert shop. they got mostly durian stuff, while i had mango sago. after that, since i was going back to school anyway, they decided to come along for a short visit, surprising the 2 group members who were still there. i think we should meet up more often...but also depending on everyone's schedule.

the next good thing was on friday, where i met up with 8 JC classmates for dinner at heartland mall (close to kovan MRT). i was late, so they had already ordered at sakae sushi when i'd arrived. don't know why they chose to eat there. but well, i went along with it since they'd already ordered. the food was (barely) ok by singapore japanese food standards, but the service sucked like hell. my friends waited up to 30 minutes for their food to arrive, and this was despite 3 reminders to the staff. really don't know why they went in in the first place. maybe because it wasn't crowded. after dinner, some of them wanted to go bowling, so we tried our luck at the nearby superbowl. i was surprised because (1) i didn't expect a bowling centre in a heartlands area, and (2) it was packed! ok, granted that it was relatively small (26 lanes at the most), but still. we didn't get to bowl in the end due to the crowd, but went to nex for ice cream instead. got mint chip, chocolate, and coconut. the guy in front of me in the queue got ahead of himself and gave instructions for my order, thus messing it up. had it been sprinkles or syrup, i would have just taken the screw-up. unfortunately, he asked for peanuts as a topping. unless it's mixed in as part of the flavour, i never have nuts on my ice cream. so too bad. wonder how the staff accounted for this. hope they didn't end up in a tight spot. if i were in the guy's position, i really wouldn't know how to fix the problem.

after that, 2 of us went for drinks, and subsequently stayed over, at our third friend's place. ironically, one of the friends was the guy i'd had a big problem with in japan. i guess now that we're back in our comfort zone, he behaved a lot more...normally. in fact, it was somewhat less obnoxious than what i'm used to, which was pleasant. we got hungry halfway, so took a taxi to cheers at serangoon gardens for snacks (and mixers for the other two). i had group meeting, so i went off to bed after the wine, while they continued with jack daniels. wonder when they finally crashed. thankfully, i woke up bright and early, and more importantly, not hung over. made it early to group meeting and survived the whole thing, though i was still tired. all in all, it was great hanging out with the JC people again, especially since i haven't seen one of them in 6 years. as much as i want this to be a more common occurrence, most people are working now, and our schedules aren't that likely to align.

on a side note, i'm finding that service staff aren't really capable of good communication any more. of course, this is a generalization, and there are exceptions (like saveur). but by far and large, i get the feeling that service staff don't understand english all that well, or don't have a service-oriented mindset. however, this is dependent on several other factors as well. for instance, i'd expect service staff in shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, generally more upscale places, to be competent in english and more customer-oriented. i definitely do not expect the same high standard of service from an uncle in the NUS canteen, compared to the customer service centre of starhub, for instance. but i'm not saying that the canteen uncle has bad service, mind you. in fact, the canteen uncles are generally friendly, which makes waiting in line a bit more bearable. but there's an exception to the location rule, and that's the age of the staff. even though i'm capable of decent chinese conversation, i generally try to converse in english first unless the other person starts off in chinese. nevertheless, it still bugs me when people (who look) under 35 can't understand english properly. oh well.

also on friday, i met a very interesting person, about whom i'm dying to learn more. unfortunately, it doesn't seem like our paths will have the opportunity to cross all that much. but well...i don't know. i can't deny that i'm interested...but the odds of further development are low...my (rather optimistic) estimate places it at 15%. fingers crossed.

3 more exciting things are lined up in the upcoming 3 weeks. in order of my excitement, SJI/CJC training is resuming (this coming saturday), my friend's getting married (3 saturdays later), and i turn 25 in 11 days. other than that, it's the usual routine of lab work and stuff. i'll be fine. have to start working on my breakfalls and flexibility a lot too. that aside, i find myself thinking about the interesting person a lot. really don't know how things will turn out.

-random thought of the day: Get motivated!-

'I think i'm screwing up my life.'

that thought suddenly came to me earlier today. i realize that it's kind of late now, and i should be sleeping in order to wake up nice and early for school tomorrow. but i reasoned that if i don't get this out of my system, i won't be sleeping very well tonight anyway. don't worry...i'll make it as short as i possibly can. so here goes. i'm not making significant progress in lab work, i feel like it's me against the world, and administrative work is taking the enjoyment out of judo.

for lab, i literally do not have any more valid reasons for slacking. i have a car, a transponder, and to top it off, my substrate just arrived. literally no excuse. and yet, i don't know what's holding me back from diving into lab work 100%. guess i should remind myself that i'm being paid, so i've got to get my act together. my current behaviour is probably more reminiscent of an honours student, evidenced when the mass spec lab staff asked who my mentor was. for my own sake, i should wake up my idea.

being alone isn't new to me. in fact, i prefer solitude most of the time. if you haven't guessed yet, i'm the type of person who only needs (wants, actually) a few very close friends. but even then, there are close friends, and there are CLOSE friends. somehow saying it has more impact than reading it. but what i mean is that even within my close friends, there are some i trust more than others. for instance, out of the 10 chem kids, i trust all of them with my material possessions, like if those with driving licenses wanted to borrow the car for something important, i'd readily lend it to them (with the understanding that they'll pay for petrol and any damages, of course). however, there are only 5 to 6 of them i'd trust with my secrets. anyway, i tried a little experiment earlier. well, more like study. what i basically did was look through the contacts in my phone, and pick out those to whom i'd be willing to open up. out of 90 contacts (that says something in itself already), i picked out 6 people...which is 6.recurring 6%. i thought the sample size might not be large enough, so i tried with my facebook. out of 356 people, i found exactly the same number as before. 6 people, or 1.69%. although there are some overlaps from phone nd facebook (as expected), none of the 6 people from my phone and/or facebook are family. interesting. maybe i should just go with it and talk to one of those 6 people. that might do my heart and soul some good...provided i can get the words out. i have mentioned that i freeze up at sensitive conversation topics, right?

judo is frustrating me from 2 ends. one being not having a club, and the other from suddenly suffering a deprovement in skills. the club thing is becoming a bit of an issue. all i need is 2 months, but something tells me that that won't be easy (or even possible) to get. i don't know. my partner's advice is to filter out the noise for as long as necessary, though i doubt i will be capable of that. as for skills, my breakfalling issues have improved a little, but there's still a long way to go. still can't seem to project into the roll. i think i need more practice breakfalling over obstacles. on the bright side though, my NROC application went through! so that's the coaching bit more or less down. also, i finally found out the problem with my refereeing. i look too unsure! have to be more confident and assertive i guess. too bad there's no more chance to practise this year.

actually, i think the main question i should be asking myself is, "what is the worst-case scenario?" for school, it would probably be withdrawing from graduate studies, or more extreme, getting kicked out...though i don't think it'll get there. besides, i'd prefer to leave on my own terms. the alone thing...a quick online test showed that i'm not depressed, which is good. i don't know what exactly will be the worst-case scenario for this one. maybe becoming a crazy cat man. worst case for judo is me leaving the circle...well no. i'll stick around SJI and CJC. what's more likely to happen is that i get dropped from the national team, either permanently or until i solve the club issue. in all honesty, i think i can live with that. but well...we'll see. right now, i think i'm overdue for bed.

-random thought of the day: Want to get away from it all.-