Got a few major arrows out of the way recently, so i'm feeling pretty good...except for some slight physical discomfort, which i'll come to later.

the first major arrow was refereeing on saturday. we started around 4:30pm, and ended at around 11:00pm. all for no pay, too. but well, the learning process is the most valuable takeaway. i asked the new referee director about my refereeing, and he seems satisfied enough. his exact feedback was that my judgement is usually accurate, but that i need to hold my gestures for longer, and keep my annoyance in check when the competitors don't follow instructions. taking into account some feedback i received a while ago, i tried to be more decisive in giving scores. hope that it was noticed by people who brought that to my attention. there were only 7 referees spread over 2 contest areas for most of that time, so it was quite draining. i don't think i got more than 10 minutes' total break time. definitely a good experience, but not one i'm keen on repeating anytime soon.

the other aspect of this refereeing session was that we tested out the newest revisions to the IJF rules. i'm not too supportive of the changes, but i'm in no position to make or incite any radical objections. the reason i don't really like the new rules is because it seems to me that there'll be a lot more shido (penalties) being given, leading to more frustration from players and coaches. ultimately, the referees suffer the most. but on the other hand, the referees are more protected in a way, since scores awarded will be more accurate. i guess we'll find out how things work at the next competition, which is likely to be national schools.

fast forward through a couple of days of (rather half-hearted) studying, and we come to today. the organic materials exam is over, and i thought it was decently manageable. most of the first half was applying concepts, but the second half was literally copying from notes. i know my answers aren't perfect (especially for the synthesis section; the irony), but i think i'll do decently enough...B to B+, optimistically A-? so now i'm left with organometallics, which is exactly a week later. still not too worried at the moment, because i think that i'm more or less on top of most of the content. just have to read through the notes and clarify a few uncertain points...like electron counting.

also earlier today, i went to TTSH to get medical clearance for the national athlete carding program. the entire process wasn't too different from the NUS pre-admission checkup, so that was good. saw the doctor and told him about my knee issues. as a result, i'm scheduled for a scan (MRI i think) at sports council. bugger is i don't know when, but i'm sure i can fit my schedule around it. before scheduling the scan, the doctor also did a few tests, which i think were for checking if my ligaments were in working condition. my test results seem normal, so this supports the theory that it might be a meniscus injury. that, and my ligaments may be a little loose...i don't know. guess we'll see what the MRI reveals. the one difference between this checkup and the NUS one is that here, they drew my blood. don't know if you know, but i am really not good with syringes and needles. i mean, using them for transferring reagents and solvents is fine and all, but not when a needle is going to go into me. still cant believe i donated blood in J1, and again in army. anyway, the wound still hurts a little. should be fine after a good night's sleep. another thing i noticed was that my head began to hurt after the checkup. it feels like somebody is pulling at my brain, near the lower back of my head. it happens most frequently when i look down, and is accompanied the a very very slight bit of nausea. thankfully i drove home without incident. not sure whether it's due to the blood-drawing (unlikely, they only took 3mL), or might it be the X-rays? or maybe i'm tired from waking up so early. well, as with the needle wound, i think it should clear up after some sleep.

looking forward, i see 2 major arrows over the horizon. annoying thing is, both deal with lab safety. the more immediate issue is the S5 lab commissioning. i really had no idea new labs (even those we took over from another professor) had to be commissioned. the subsequent thing is the SCDF check. this one is bigger because violations can be penalized by fines and/or court charges. have to make sure everything is in good shape. but i'll worry about all that after exam period. for now, i think i'll try to sleep off the pain in both my arm and my head. still contemplating whether to take tomorrow off or not. maybe i'll just go top up petrol, settle season parking and call it a day after that. see how.

-random thought of the day: I want my shoes!-

Of all the skills i've picked up so far in my life, hiding my surprise came in the most useful when collecting the car yesterday. i was prepared to pay $640 since i knew that the tyres had to be changed. earlier, the servicing guy had called me to tell me that my battery was at around 30% charge. so, i decided to change that too, since i wasn't sure if it could last until my next servicing, and i didn't want to make another trip specially just to change the battery. so that came up to another $140 or so, bringing the projected total up to $780. my poker face skill came into play when i saw the total bill for $943. that's more expensive than one month's instalment! the additional $200 or so arose because they charged me for the consumables (engine oil, engine cleaner) used in the process, and also because they replaced the worn-out rubber on my windshield wipers. there was also a servicing charge or GST of some sort. well, at least i know that i should be paying much less next time (everything else constant), since i don't expect my tyres to wear out for at least another 2 years, or better yet, if they could last me until the end of the car's COE. thank goodness my parents didn't give in and agree to get another car when i was an undergrad. i don't think there would have been any way for me to keep up with loan and maintenance payments on my limited (not to mention unpredictable) tuition income. i'd had to have worked so much harder, and my results would probably have suffered as a result.

besides that, the servicing people also notified me of another problem. it seems that my front dampener/shock absorber (i'm not good with car technical terms) was worn out, and air somehow got into the hydraulics when they hoisted the car up or something to that effect. so the service guy told me that i might experience increased bumpiness while driving for the next few weeks. i felt it a little while driving home, but that might have been my imagination after learning about it. i actually don't think that the drive home was anything out of the ordinary. somehow, no good analogy comes to mind at the moment to describe the feeling of feeling something that might be imagined. i guess i'll ask the friends who have sat in the car before for a comparison the next time we go out together.

in general, it was a very good servicing experience. convenient, excellent customer service, and staff who gave intelligent, well-thought out advice and suggestions. the only thing i was - not unhappy, more of irritated - about was that the staff adjusted my mirrors. i guess they had to, since they needed the visibility while driving the car around...and i understand that perfectly, so i'm fine with that. the irritating bit to me was that they didn't adjust the mirrors back. it took me some messing around to set the mirrors back to something that sort of worked for me, though i still don't really feel entirely comfortable with the current set-up. think i'll do some more tweaking as i drive over the next few days.

reading week is over, and my first exam is in 5 days from now. went through the materials notes today, and tried the practice questions. seem to me that the toughest part will be the synthesis section (if there is one). the rest can more or less be explained according to the notes. don't think the lecturers will test anything outside of the notes. so, i just have to know where in the notes the relevant explanations are...and that's something which i regrettably don't know that well at the moment. this means i'll just hole up in the library on sunday to get better acquainted with my notes. since it's an open-book exam, i think i may do up some summary sheets...2 or 3 per day sounds manageable actually. i may even shoot for 4 and get it done by monday. with all the studying i have to do, looks like i can't go down to the dog shelter this sunday.

over the years, i've watched several TVB dramas about various occupations, like firemen, policemen, and teachers to name a few. in particular, 2 of them left an impression on me, and they were about pilots and doctors. i guess it's because deep down, i secretly would like to be one of those. maybe not doctor, since i know how tough my friends in medicine have it. that's not saying pilots have it easy...i guess the glamour of being a pilot makes it attractive. not to mention the frequent travel opportunities. but i know that it's just a dream. a very nice dream which i sometimes wish i could live out, but a dream nonetheless. i think it's a bit too late to start that career path at 25.

tomorrow should be a pretty busy day. my ideal schedule would be to go for CJC/SJI training, shower there, then go to the SJF for the referee seminar and practical. not sure if things will work out exactly like that (most likely the difference will be whether or not i go for training). well, we'll see i guess. other than that, in the near future, i may want to see the materials professor for clarification on the synthesis, and i have a medical checkup on the morning of exam day. thank goodness my paper is in the evening. 7:00pm, to be precise. haven't had a late paper in a while. in fact, i don't think i've had a late paper in 1 to 2 years...not that i remember, anyway. also have to go down to ventus with my friend to apply for the staff season parking personally, as he had problems logging into the system. not forgetting a pretty big safety check, plus commissioning of the S5 lab. but those can wait until after exams.

-random thought of the day: Nights are becoming warmer again.-

Don't know about the rest of you, but every so often, i do things that make me question my intelligence. things like sending the car in for servicing and forgetting to take my house keys back with me, to quote a recent example. and this was after i reminded myself about it on the way to the servicing place, mind you. genius knows no bounds.

before national training yesterday, i went to queensway to get my shoes replaced. unfortunately, there wasn't much to choose from in terms of design. the boss only had high-cut designs, or more of the ones that i bought previously. i didn't want to get yet another pair of the same thing, since odds are that they'd split soon too. the next shipment of shoes (with a different sole) would be coming in around early december, which is in a couple of weeks from now. so, i decided that the best thing for me to do would be to wait. in the meantime, i'll be using my sports shoes for lab, and formal shoes for other occasions such as refereeing this saturday. thankfully, it's exam period, so i'm not expected to be in lab that much...at least i think i'm not. incidentally, the parking at queensway is ridiculous! $1.50 for the first hour or part thereof. should have stayed longer than the 20 minutes or so it took to get the stuff done, so that my parking would have been worthwhile. well, at least now i know for my next trip there.

national training went better than on saturday. my partner wanted to go down early, since he knew that the place would be crowded later on in the training session. good thing we did, too! managed to run through the form for all 3 kata in relative peace and quiet. we even switched tori and uke roles for 2 of the kata! i found that the quiet helped me tremendously in focusing. being fresh helped me to better reflect upon my performance, and to notice the little mistakes. still have a long way to go. SJC training was immediately after national training, so i hung around for a bit to watch. as a bonus, i got to help teach some new members. good for improving my coaching skills. sometimes i think it's good to go back to basics; remember what it's like for a beginner who may be afraid of falling, or someone who is still figuring out the body positioning for a basic technique. i think that helps me remain grounded and not set my expectations too high, even towards the more experienced kids. need more coaching experience, i think. yesterday showed me that i'm still not explaining some things well enough, and my technical knowledge needs a bit of updating.

as you may have gathered from the whole house key story, i sent the car for servicing today. the service centre was quite posh! anyway, since i made an appointment, there was barely any waiting time. in fact, i had just sat down in one of the pretty comfortable chairs when the guy approached me. it was quite simple, really...he just checked my mileage, tyres, and asked me if i wanted to highlight any issues. i told him about the various scratches and the oil seepage which the test report showed. even though this servicing is technically free, i'm still paying about $640, because my tyres are worn out. the nice service staff there told me that new tyres have a tread depth of 8mm. my tyres were at 1.6mm, or 20%, or just at the legal limit. so i figured might as well change them. assuming that the previous owners never changed tyres over the 125 000km or so for which they had the car, this will probably be my first and last tyre change while the car is in my possession. oddly, i'm experiencing some mild separation anxiety. i've parked the car overnight in school before, so i don't know why this is happening. well, good news is that they said it'd probably be ready before lunchtime tomorrow, so i can get it back in time for running all over the place this weekend.

the last 2 things i did today was to go to the bishan MRT ticket office, and borrow yet more books from the library. at the ticket office, i found out that unlike previously when my army EZ-link card expired, i could not do a direct transfer of the value in the expired card and put it into my new card. instead, i had to file a claim, wait for 10 working days or so, then the money would be refunded to me. apparently it's because of a new system. maybe the new system has other benefits at the staff end, but from my perspective, the old system is better. i also found out that there was $9 left in the card, so i decided to save the trouble and keep my old card. $9 isn't much, and i think i can forgo it. worst case is i'll go file a claim if i desperately need the money...though i hope i'll never reach the stage where getting $9 out of my old EZ-link card is of utmost importance.

for the next few days, i have to study. planning on trying the organic materials questions (with reference to the notes of course; it's an open-book exam) and watching the webcast for the organometallics lecture which i missed. not forgetting to annotate my materials notes, of course. that should keep me plenty busy until the weekend, i think, where judo will take over for a little. actually, the biggest problem isn't the modules' content. if i know me well enough (and i think i should), the biggest problem will be getting started.

-random thought of the day: Must sleep earlier.-

Where do i begin? so many things have happened, it's hard to decide which one to talk about first. i think the safest bet is to do it in semi-chronological order depending on the events, and i'll be starting with dinner and drinks with the chem kids on thursday.

i had thought that more people would be going from school as a group, but it turned out only a friend and i left together. the others either went directly from other places, or went home from school first before going down. at kent ridge MRT, i found out that my school EZ-link card had expired. my friend tells me our cards expired on 30 october, which shows how rarely i take public transport now. so i bought a new EZ-link card. they gave me a black one, which is think is nicer than the previous blue or red/orange/yellow ones. so now, what's left for me to do is register it online, and transfer the balance from my deactivated school card to the new card. i wonder if they'll allow me to forfeit the deposit and keep the old card?

so i wanted to transfer the value from my old card to the new card. to do that, i had to go to a ticket office, which not all stations have. fortunately for me, bishan MRT does have a ticket office, so i went down earlier tonight. i had assumed that they would open until 9:30pm or 10:00pm, so i left lab at 8:45pm and took a nice leisurely drive down, reaching at 9:45pm. it wouldn't have made a difference anyway, since they closed at 7:30pm. i'm just a little surprised at the early closing time. to make it even more ridiculous, they only open at 12:00pm, and have a 1-hour lunch break sometime in between. so that's like...6 hours and 30 minutes of work per day. i guess they chose those work hours based on the projected human traffic flow and all that. so, the plan is to go down tomorrow and see what i can do.

our meet-up was at the clarke quay/robertson quay area, where we had ippudo ramen for dinner. there were actual japanese staff there! and i saw more japanese people there in one evening than i've seen in other parts of singapore over the last 25 years combined (NUS and the japanese school excluded). makes me think that i should hang around there more to brush up on my japanese listening skills. the ramen itself was good, if a little overpriced. $22 or so for mixed-soup ramen (pork and fish) and a few garnishes. i'd expect to pay about 1200 to 1500 yen in japan. but well, considering it relative to other ramen places in singapore, i guess i can't complain too much. the ramen egg continues to surprise/fascinate me. even though i've read and tried a few recipes off the internet, i can't get the perfect combination of solid white and barely-set yolk. mine tend to be undercooked. guess the tricky thing is that there's no indicator to tell you when the egg is done, so everything is by feel (not literally; you'll get burned).

drinks afterwards was at wine connection. 1 bottle of red wine, 3 or 4 bottles of white wine (i lost count), and a cheese platter were split between the 9 of us. the wine was quite nice, and that i got to let loose a little in the presence of good company made it even better. after this wine trip, i think i can say with conviction that i generally prefer red wine to white. white wines tend to be a little too sharp/acidic for my liking. we then had supper at this prata place, before i caught a lift home. oh. i should mention that the reason i took the train down was so that i wouldn't have to drive while not-perfectly-sober. i left the car in school, and only drove it back the next day. wise decision on my part, i think.

since i only got home around 2:00am, and was mildly drunk, i ended up sleeping in and not going to lab on friday. thankfully there were no hangovers or stuff like that...i just felt really tired. the effects of drinking and the time taken for them to wear off seem to get worse and longer respectively as i get older. well, at least i know i don't have much potential to be a party animal. saturday was normal...group meeting followed by national training. the drive from school to SJF was quite frustrating due to a massive jam on the AYE. it was due to an accident, and the road was practically clear after the accident location. damned kaypoh drivers, holding up traffic. i wonder if they realize what big idiots they are. that, along with yet another jam outside the SJF (this time for some event or another...one lane was occupied by illegally-parked vehicles) caused me to misjudge a u-turn and mount the kerb. i've taken that u-turn at least 100 times, so i really think it was my mental state that caused the misjudgement. thankfully there was no major damage. if i was walking, i think i'd scratch a line across those parked cars as i walked. inconsiderate people. halfway through national training, i did a breakfall, and felt pain shoot upwards from my sole, at the outer edge of my right foot close to the heel. i've experienced this before, but from the middle of my foot as i got out of bed. for some reason, that area feels kind of tender now, and it hurts when i try to apply weight on it. walking with shoes isn't that bad though. well, we'll see how i feel at training tomorrow. worst case we can focus on other kata that don't involve me hitting my foot against the ground.

i suppose i should expand a bit more on national training. although we do kata, we still participate the warm-up and physical training. the coach plans training so that we do warm up, uchikomi and nagekomi before breaking off to practise kata. recently, the coach has started to do speed uchikomi, which leaves me tired out even before starting kata practice. it's tired to the point where i'm bent over, trying to regain my breath. and my partner tries to get me to continue, even though my arms feel weighted down and i'm practically drenched in sweat. i know that his intentions are good, and he wants me to improve, but for some reason, it frustrated me more than anything this past saturday. as much as i want to push myself beyond my comfort zone, i do know my absolute limits. and practising kata while exhausted does more harm than good, i think. so, i suggested that we take it easy, and shift the high-intensity training to other days. see if that works better tomorrow.

went down to the dog shelter to volunteer on sunday. my favourite dog was at the vet, so i missed seeing him. still, it was one of the more productive days. i left feeling quite accomplished/satisfied. and it seems that i'm starting to feel more at ease around the other volunteers. hope that it's mutual. by some weird coincidence, my friend's girlfriend (who is now my friend as well) started volunteering there a short time after i did. she read about it on the internet, it seems. and she just adopted a dog yesterday! i really wish i could adopt one, but i know it's not feasible until i get my own place, and have lots more free time every day. well, i can dream for now.

my first-ever reading week as a grad student just started today. considering i only have 2 well-spaced-out finals (next wednesday and the wednesday after), i'm not too worried yet. still have to watch the webcast of an organometallics lecture which i missed. and even though it's reading week, i have a fair few activities lined up. going to queensway tomorrow to get my shoes replaced again. backstory: the soles of the shoes i bought sometime in july split sometime in september. i got a replacement about a month ago, and those soles split too. makes me think there was a problem with the whole batch, or the design sucks. so, i'm going to ask for an alternative. i don't mind topping up the price difference, as long as i don't face this problem again. on wednesday, i plan to go for SJI/CJC training before sending the car in for servicing. which reminds me. i need to remove some valuables from the car. hopefully i don't need to come up with any additional expense. and more importantly, i hope there's no need for major repair, so i can get the car back soon. in between all that, i have to study for organic materials first, then organometallics. and group meeting is cancelled for the next 2 weeks, which makes me happy.

last thing. remember how half of my dual-screen set-up died some time back? i tried most things, like sending the monitor for repair/testing, reconnecting the cables, redownloading the drivers...all to no avail. i just downloaded the driver from windows update, and it started working again. really makes me wonder what the hell was going on. it worked fine with the old driver, so why did it suddenly die? well, i guess the important thing is that it's fixed. life is too short to wonder about every single anomaly.

-random thought of the day: Mildly worried regarding a recent development.-

Facing a bit of a crisis dilemma at the moment. for the record, yes, i know it's after 12:00am, and yes, it's still tuesday night as far as i'm concerned. so, about the dilemma. it's actually a simple question: should i go for CJC training tomorrow? here's the background information: training has shifted to 10:00am, which actually works better for me. it lasts for 3 hours, meaning that i'll get to school around 2:00pm, which is awkward, i guess. of course, there's the option of taking an off-day, so that's not a major issue. there's a seminar tomorrow from 11:00am to 12:00pm, which i'll miss out on if i go for training. but that's also not much of an issue, since my professor isn't hosting, nor is it directly related to our work.

by this line of logic, i should just go for training, right? and yet, i still have my reservations. now we're getting to the deeper part, i think. the main reason i'm disinclined to go for training is because i somehow feel like i'm not getting anything back. after all, nobody does things that don't benefit them in some way, right? in my case, i spend long hours in lab working towards my degree, which will set me up with better job opportunities, and hopefully, more money in future. going for national training helps me get in my exercise time, and prepares me for the kata component of grading, so my eventual payoff is fitness, and higher odds of promotion. volunteering at the dog shelter doesn't pay in terms of material/tangible gains, but i enjoy spending time with the dogs, and somehow, i think it's therapeutic to some extent.

previously, i looked forward to going back for training because i felt that there was somebody there who could benefit at least a little from my coaching experience, not to mention hanging out with the kids was quite fun. but recently, there's been some...friction (real or perceived), and that makes me wonder (again) if going back is worth it. at this point, i should clarify that nobody is forcing me to go back, and i do so willingly. so i can't really blame anyone. is there even blame to be assigned in the first place? oddly enough, right now, the touch-my-heart answer is yes, i would actually still want to go back tomorrow. maybe i'm still hoping for a change. i still can't figure it out. not that i'm spending too much time thinking about it; lab work keeps me plenty busy. but some stray thoughts will sneak in when i'm taking a break and spacing out. while i think the best course of action is to settle it, i don't see how that can be done without wrecking the friendship...whatever's left of it, anyway.

you know what? i think i'll just go to sleep, and see what time i wake up tomorrow. i'll make a decision from there. for all i know, i might not go anywhere tomorrow, and just spend the day with myself. who knows?

-random thought of the day: Need to put a towel and umbrella in the car.-

-------------------------

*Short update on Thursday 14 November 2013, 12:26am*

so i woke up at 8:50am, which was plenty early to make either of the events. in the end, i went to school to listen to the seminar and subsequently spent the whole day in lab. my head tells me it was the right thing to do, but i still feel quite...odd. it's not guilt. the best description that comes to mind is a very weak version of regret. i don't know why, either. going by what i wrote yesterday, this is the correct course of action no matter how you look at it. so why do i not feel 100% good about my decision? on the bright side though, i did get a fair bit of lab work done, which will ultimately be good for me.

it was definitely not my day for driving. think i may have gotten busted for speeding slightly along farrer/adam roads (86 km/h in a 70km/h zone). sneaky traffic police person was hiding at one end of the overhead bridge. by the way, i don't speed for fun or to show off my engine (1.6L is nothing to show off anyway). i just drive according to the speed of the other cars on the road. just so happens that the other cars were going fast. but well, i'm thinking that if i'm suay enough to get caught, the penalty should be a fine of around $150 (probably less), and 3 demerits. though i can afford it, i'd really prefer not to waste unnecessary money. guess we'll see if anything pops up in the mail by this week.

the second driving-related bad thing was i got booked for parking in a reserved lot at the SRC carpark. to be fair, this was a bit of my fault, since there was a nice "reserved" signpost. in my defence though, it was the only lot available at that time. funny how though i'm a season holder, there are no reserved season parking lots for students. well, my season parking expires at the end of the month, and i plan to ask my friend (who's a staff member) to help me apply for staff season parking. that should save me a lot of trouble in the future.

have a dinner appointment with the chem kids tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to. other than that, things seem set to be pretty routine. even finals don't seem like such a big deal any more. still have to study though...i'd like to maintain (or even improve on) my undergrad CAP during grad studies.

-random thought of the day: Damned DNS server died again. Why did we switch to singtel again!?-

This post is being written from my student room, where i'm about to finish up another sunday in lab...just have to run a TLC and i'm going home. actually, "another sunday" is quite misleading...i only got to lab around 4:20pm, and didn't really do much work. just spent some time arranging stuff at my new space. about that...one of the phd students is leaving soon, and i'm set to take over his place when he goes. so, i arranged with him for me to move in a little earlier. by right, we're sharing the space now, but since his thesis has already been submitted, he's not doing that many experiments now. so it's effectively mine. feels good to have a permanent space in the lab again, and not having to run around looking for a spare stirrer or place to run a column. thing is, it's on the other side of the lab from my UROPS/honours workspace, so i have to get reoriented somewhat. don't foresee a major problem there, thankfully. there are a few major changes i'd like to make for my comfort, but they'll have to wait. it somehow doesn't seem right to move his things too much while he's still considered a member of our research group.

would you believe that this coming week is week 13? i feel like i barely learned anything this semester. that's not a good sign. have to read up for both of my modules. despite its content being heavier, i'm less worried for organic materials since it's open-book. organometallics seems easy enough, but i definitely have to brush up on electron-counting for transition metal complexes.

last saturday, i saw that starbucks was starting to sell christmas-themed drinks already. in particular, the peppermint frappuccino (with candy cane bits) caught my eye. so, i asked the nice manager lady (she was manning the register) to make one of those, but with dark mocha. i got my drink (which tasted great), enjoyed some pleasant small talk, and generally had a very positive service experience. yesterday, i decided to get another one of those things, so i went by the same starbucks. nice manager lady wasn't there, but i still placed my order anyway. i think the barista was new, because i got what tasted like a regular dark mocha frappuccino instead. no candy cane bits either! i asked her, and she said that was specially for the peppermint frappuccino, which i thought was odd, since i got candy cane bits last week.

actually, i didn't even notice the lack of peppermint flavour until i was halfway through the drink. not smart, i know. so, i just asked for my 90 cents back (that's how much the extra peppermint cost), and there wasn't much resistance. somehow that makes me think that she forgot the peppermint, and took the least troublesome way out. anyway, the whole point of this story is to illustrate that the service standard can vary greatly, even if the same place is patronized on different dates. i think i'll drop by starbucks once a week (after group meetings on saturday) for a peppermint DMF. just hope i see nice manager lady around more. incidentally, don't tell a chemist that you drink DMF, or at least don't do it without explaining the abbreviation. s/he will seriously worry for your safety and sanity otherwise.

things are looking up slightly for kata. my tori role for nage no kata has improved a bit. not quite leaps and bounds yet...maybe a small hop at best. still, any improvement at all is good news. figured out better escape attempts for 2 techniques in katame no kata, so i'd count that as minor improvement as well. most interestingly, i've more or less got the ju no kata sequence down too! it's only the uke role at the moment, but considering i was having trouble remembering the varios twists and turns as recently as 2 months ago, i think that this is a pretty big accomplishment already. once again, my target for the near future isn't to win competitions. i just want to become proficient in kata so i can handle whatever the examiners decide to test us on, whether it's 3 or 5 sets of nage no kata, or even if an additional kata is required.

i remember that when i was in secondary school, i'd go for "retail therapy" sessions every friday after school. i believe i've blogged about it more than once, too. despite how it sounds, i didn't really spend a lot...like $20 maximum each time? and most of the things i bought were essentials anyway, like stationery, though there was the odd completely useless purchase. and the money i used was from the allowance i'd saved up over the course of the week anyway, so it wasn't like i was emptying my bank account. but anyway, i seem to remember that those sessions were quite destressing. so, i went shopping for lab stuff yesterday. i wouldn't call it a "spree" exactly, but i did buy lots of stuff. it actually was quite relaxing! what's more, this is stuff that the lab needs, and that we'll all have use for, so it's like 2 birds with 1 stone. even better, since i was shopping for equipment used in the lab, i get to claim all expenses from my professor. major win. think i should do this more often.

ok. think i've procrastinated long enough. time to get that TLC done and head for home.

-random thought of the day: Need more quiet days in lab.-

Survived today on just 4 hours' sleep, which i think is quite a feat, considering we had to go pick up all the lab equipment. don't know why i couldn't sleep last night either. nothing in particular was on my mind, but i just had trouble falling asleep. felt rather annoying, actually. but i made it through the day just fine, and the only noticeable side-effect is i'm feeling pretty tired now. so this will probably be a short post before i crash.

actually, nothing much out of the ordinary has happened since the last post. i do find myself becoming more susceptible to emo nowadays, which isn't good for my health. have to do something about it. first thing that comes to mind is that i have to update my playlist. throw more happy songs in.

i've also been feeling (physically) out of alignment since national training on saturday. think i might need to see a chiropractor to get everything cracked back into place. i've always wanted to see a chiropractor, actually. just haven't found the time to go down. maybe this week, if time permits.

-random thought of the day: Tough day tomorrow.-