Although my calendar shows that it's 31 december, and that tomorrow will be the start of a new year, it really feels more like a weekend than anything else. nevertheless, i have to accept that the year is ending, and write my usual end-of-year post.

to start off, the theme for this year came to me more easily than last year's. to me, 2013 represents "growing up". transitioning into "work" (well, pseudo-work, since i'm technically still considered a student), and doing various more "grown up" things. by that, i mean things like maintaining my own car, going overseas without family, and just generally being more independent, i guess. of course, i'm not deluded enough to imagine that i know it all already; there's always room to grow and improve. so perhaps the theme should be "growing up - the beginning"? whatever works i guess.

looking back, quite a lot of things happened this year! the biggest accomplishment for me would have to be graduating with second-upper honours. as i'm sure you would have heard before, it took 3 semesters to pull a CAP 3.74 back to above-4 levels. that's something i'm actually quite proud about, and something that i could not have accomplished if i had continued to be the loner that i was in year 1. in between pulling my CAP, i decided to take japanese, and not only did that help in CAP-pulling, i got somewhat good at it, to the point where i can do basic translations between singaporeans and japanese. that's another thing i'm quite happy about, and it's motivated me to continue. but well, there's a bit of difficulty now, so we'll see how that works out.

judo-wise, i'm not sure whether i've made progress. kata-wise, there's definitely been an improvement. not only was there improvement on what i already knew, i learnt new things as well. ok, granted that i started the year not knowing much, so improving now is still easy. i'm happy that my partner and i have learnt the form for ju no kata, and i've learnt the last 2 sets of nage no kata. representing singapore at the asian kata championships (and subsequently joining the national team) was a good experience, too. at least i've been exposed to competition, so the experience will come in useful, whenever the the next competition is. and getting first aid and NCAP certification was nice too; nearly forgot to mention that. but at the same time, my breakfalls are deproving, almost to the point where i'm losing confidence in my breakfalling. the way i see it, there could be 2 possible reasons. (1) my skill really deteriorated, and/or (2) the standard for breakfalls got pushed higher for kata, and my current skills are no longer adequate. unfortunately, there seems to be no other way to improve than by regular breakfalling practice, which is painful. but success can't come easy all the time, right?

at east coast, i thought about what were the most memorable events (both good and bad) of this year. the good was obvious - grad trip(s). somehow, it was quite astonishing (at least for me) to see the architecture in different countries, and experience weather that is not the singapore default of hot and humid. if possible, i think that i would like to do a lot more travelling in future. thankfully for my wallet, i'm not (yet?) like some of my travel-holic friends, who want to set foot on every single country on earth before they die. i think for me, japan will be good enough, with occasional trips to australia, the surrounding south-east asian countries, and maybe the US or UK. somehow, i don't foresee myself going to more exotic places like south america or africa. anyway, travel plans start with a kodokan training visit next year. everything's tentative for now, but i really hope something materializes.

the most memorable bad thing this year is something i'm still having difficulty understanding. i really don't know how a 180° change in attitude can happen in just a month and a bit. the worst bit is that we were getting along so well before! it almost makes me wonder if there were external influences, or if the niceness was fake. well, it's a learning experience, albeit a painful one. my lesson is not to invest too much into an interpersonal relationship. it's hard, because i think that's how i'm programmed. but that being the case, that's an area i have to work on.

money-wise, i'm in decent shape. had a huge dent put into my savings by the grad trips, and i'm grateful that the dent is almost patched by now. i think now that i'm earning more money than from giving tuition, i've been a bit too liberal in spending. but well, i guess to a certain extent, money is earned to be spent. i think the main point of savings is to guard against rainy-day scenarios. my rainy day scenario would be my scholarship getting terminated. if that were to happen, i'd probably have enough to last...half a year or so? that's after the lifestyle changes to save money (eg. less or no driving). so i guess i'm covered. still, it never hurt to save a little more. think i'll set a higher target next year.

as for relationships, both romantic and interpersonal, this year has been pretty average. no development on the romantic end, which is...not unexpected, yet strangely disappointing. there has been a failed friendship and a failed more-than-a-friendship, so i'm not entirely happy/satisfied with that. i think this (has been, and still) is my most significant area for improvement. at the same time, i've become better friends with people in the lab, the national team (and the judo community in general), and mended a broken friendship, so that's good. i'm also grateful for the multiple opportunities to interact with japanese people, be they judo instructors, people at the hostels, the random pharmacist lady, and not forgetting the japanese teachers in NUS.

wrapping things up, i think that despite some regrets, 2013 has to be the best year i've had in recent memory. looking back at my new year's resolutions, there are still some things which i've not been able to do, so that's a slight bummer. nevertheless, i'd give myself a performance rating of about 8/10 for how things went this year. not too bad, if i do say so myself. with about half an hour of 2013 left, i think i'll go play some marvel online. as always, i'll see you all tomorrow for the new year's post.

-random thought of the day: Hopefully 2014 will be good for me as well-

Did a lot of stuff in the past 6 days, plus a few other things happened. so, there's quite a bit to catch you up on. the last post was this past monday, so let's start with the day after that, aka. this past tuesday, aka. christmas eve, aka. results day. to be honest, i kind of forgot it was results day until i was woken up by the SMS. my results for this semester are as follows:

CM5268: B+
not too bad...considering that my minimum requirement is a B average, i can live with this. and i think i got a fair bit of the final wrong too, especially the synthesis section (the shame!) and predicting the liquid crystal phases of some compounds. nevertheless, i'm pretty happy with this result.

CM5211: A
so my seniors were right. organometallics is a must-take, especially if you're a singaporean student. not that the lecturer is biased or anything...i guess we click better since he's singaporean too. as i mentioned before, i enjoyed the final (weird as that sounds), so getting an A is quite satisfying.

semester CAP: 4.50
overall CAP: 4.50

what i wouldn't give to trade my undergrad CAP for this semester's. it's actually a win-win situation. my current CAP would get me first-class honours, and my undergrad CAP would still place me well above the CAP 3.5 requirement. if only it was that easy. well, at least i started off kind of well...and given that there are only 4 more compulsory modules to go (only 3 of which are graded), i think i'm reasonably safe. after all, i can't possibly drop THAT far, right? don't answer that; let's not jinx it.

speaking of compulsory modules, or modules in general, i emailed my professor about taking japanese. the only reason i didn't speak with him face-to-face is because he went back to hong kong for christmas, and he's only due back this coming thursday. anyway, reading his reply made me feel a little annoyed, even though i have no right to be. you see, my professor has mastered the art of telling you no without actually saying "no". weird, right? his reply was along the line of "since your research progress is extremely far behind schedule, i recommend that you minimize taking any modules outside the minimum requirement". of course, he still left it somewhat open by saying that the choice was mine. it's...tricky, to say the least. anyone with even a tiny bit of EQ would read between the lines and drop the whole idea. but being the stubborn earth dragon that i am, i am tempted to just try. of course, as what he's fond of saying, i am ultimately responsible for my own actions. don't know if my judgement's a little clouded, but i really want to just go for it.

at the same time, i know that if i do go for it, something somewhere else has got to give. first thing that comes to mind: my laziness. i think i really have to remind myself more often that i'm getting paid for what i do in the lab. so, my professor expecting results from me is not only perfectly reasonable, but justified. so please, future me when you read this, work harder! the next thing that could possibly go is judo. considering that i don't plan to go back to SJI/CJC regularly any more, and that national training clashes with group meeting while NUS training overlaps with some classes i may take, i think it may just be a matter of time. but even if i become not part of the national team, that doesn't mean i still can't train on my own, right? although the incentive to train will be significantly reduced. well, i think we'll see where the fates take me regarding this.

my partner and i trained on christmas eve too! no better way to spend a holiday, right? SJC training was cancelled, so we had the whole dojo to ourselves. the peace and quiet made it easier to focus, and as a result, i think we were more productive. we did all 3 kata, even alternating roles for 2 of them. at present, i feel more comfortable in the tori role for nage no kata and in the uke role for the other 2. of course the eventual goal is to be comfortable in both roles for all 3 kata, which is difficult, but achievable. also, it seems that my partner went to analyze the video of our asian kata championships performance, and he somehow managed to figure out what we lost points for. we tried out the textbook version, and it felt odd, yet good. i guess the odd bit comes from our lack of practice with this version. in time, i think we can make it look good. the bugger is that there are quite a lot of details to remember, and goodness knows if i've forgotten some of them already. have to check my retention during our next training session. in addition, we did uchikomi sets too. 20 sets of 10, 10 sets of 20, and 10 sets of 10, totalling 500 in 20 minutes for both of us. that's 500 in 10 minutes for each of us, or 50 per minute, or almost 1 per second. not bad, considering i even took small breathers in between. i think my partner is good for me...i really need someone to push me to do such crazy stuff, because i sure as hell won't do it on my own.

we finished up, and then went to upper thomson for a late dinner...partially because i was hungry, and also because i wanted to use the petrol vouchers i got from the SPC which is now undergoing renovation. my partner was nice enough to buy me dinner...maybe because it was christmas eve? actually no. he does buy me meals now and then. maybe it's my good karma coming back to me. i guess he was feeling nice, plus the meal wasn't too expensive. i figured that the least i could do was to buy drinks. one ok-ish bowl of bak chor mee later, he went home, and i went to the SPC. turns out i misread the voucher. it's actually $2 off for every $50 spent, so i didn't get to spam vouchers like i'd thought i could. one other thing worth mentioning here is that i met this really nice pump attendant. he was the one who corrected my misconception, and even suggested that i just pump $50 worth of petrol to maximize my savings. it was really nice talking to him, and it just goes to show that good service isn't necessarily confined to atas places. in fact, receiving such good service at SPC, not an atas place at all, impressed me even more. should go back there to use up the remaining vouchers. incidentally, i wonder if these vouchers are a plot to make more money while improving customer relations? that's just the cynic in me talking. i can't really be bothered to do the calculations to figure it out.

after that, i headed home, showered, and was in bed when my friend SMSed me, asking me to go over to his place for a drinking session. seems that his other plans were wrecked, so there were a few of them at his place. so i went down. it WAS christmas eve, after all. he asked me to get some mixers and (more) alcohol. i tried both the 24-hour giant and 7-11, but both places had this funny rule: no alcohol sales past midnight. did you know that rule existed? i sure didn't. so i bought some mixers and went over. the only alcohol available was whiskey, so i just went for it. got nice and buzzed while watching austin powers, and eventually fell asleep at around 5:00am. woke up 6 hours later, not hung over. go me. since we didn't have plans for christmas, we decided to have lunch at J8, then go home to rest or whatever, then meet back again for dinner at itacho sushi at ion orchard. suffice to say that going to a popular mall on a public holiday wasn't our smartest choice. we ended up waiting for about 45 minutes for a seat. in fact, i think we spent about the same time waiting as we did eating. still, it was good. i liked their sushi, though it's hell of an expensive! nevertheless, you can clearly see that it's been handmade. thankfully, i didn't have sushi in japan (sacrilege, i know), so i didn't have the gold standard to compare it against. in a way, i guess that's good, because i think that if i had had sushi in japan, the meal would have left me ranging from disappointed to upset. and when i do have sushi in japan next year (plans are to go for the annual kata seminar sometime in the middle of the year), the experience will be so much better.

thursday ad friday were normal-ish...back in the la for more synthesis. there's some progress...i have to do one more column before going on to the next step, while another reaction is happily (i hope) refluxing away as i'm typing this. it would suck to go back and find out all the solvent escaped or something. once again, let's not jinx it. friday evening was a departure from normal routine though. i left lab early to meet one of the CJC kids who's now in NUS. we had fun catching up while walking around nex, where i discovered a beard papa. i am SO going back at least once a week from now on. unfortunately, i couldn't get my christmas pie from don's...they were all sold out. looks like i'll make it a new year pie then.

nothing much happened yesterday, except that i got some faulty iphone cables exchanged. i bought them off ebay, and the seller is located in singapore. we were supposed to meet on friday, but he was sick, so we pushed it to saturday. he even brought one of those portable power packs so we could test the cables! after the exchange, i now have 3 more working cables. the plan is 1 for the student room, 1 for the car, and 1 for beside my bed. the original cable is going to be used to connect the phone to the computer. yes...think that'll work out nicely. today was a bit more active...went to the dog shelter, then to east coast park. correct me if i'm wrong, but i think the coastline receded. you know those masses of rock that you can sit on? i distinctly remember the sand going right up to the sitting surface back in 2011. and the progression used to be grass, fine white sand, wet sand, sea. now it's just grass, wet sand, sea. maybe they took the sand for land reclamation? anyway, this year's east coast walk wasn't really helpful, because i have already thought at great length about most of the questions i was asking myself. oh. by the way, the macdonalds there is a rip-off. unless there has been a price revamp in the last 3 weeks or so, their prices are inflated! maybe it's because east coast park is a popular destination, and that makes the rental higher. who knows?

in the coming week, things look to be pretty slack. it IS new year week, after all, and the nice NUS president declared tuesday a university holiday. i still have to go back tomorrow to check on my reaction and do the separation, and maybe set another reaction for the new year break. lunch with the chem kids is scheduled on tuesday...which reminds me. i have to change my rehab date. not sure if there'll be any more drinking on tuesday night/wednesday morning. correction. not sure if there'll be drinking with my friends. i do intend on opening the nice bottle of sake which i bought from japan earlier this year. if all goes well, i may be able to take thursday off, before everything goes back to normal on friday. as usual, look out for the year-end and new year posts; that's one tradition i have managed to successfully uphold so far.

-random thought of the day: TA-ing for year 1s on Fridays next semester!-

Traditionally, i'm the most emo in december, probably because of the weather and/or the festive spirit. this year is no different, though since i'm busier with lab work, i've got less time to be emo. it's both good and bad, good because i'm not emo as much, bad because i'm not slacking. but well, at least the work is something productive. i'm actually quite happy that one of my compounds matched the literature NMR! FINALLY. hope that the synthesis which i will repeat (for the third time, but with some modifications to the procedure) tomorrow will go smoothly.

the weekend was nice and slack, which i really appreciated. group meeting and a small dinner get-together aside, the rest of it was purely me-time. somehow, the late nights in lab this past week messed up my sleep cycle, and it's not completely fixed yet despite the copious rest i got. no worries though, the coming 2 weeks are supposed to be slack, so i guess i'll have time to slowly adjust it back.

despite it being christmas in less than 48 hours, i still don't feel very festive. part of it is because i've been occupied with work, the other part is because growing up, i didn't really celebrate christmas, and i still don't really celebrate it now. just not a habit, i guess. like last year, i'm not sending out christmas cards this year. i figured that it's better to meet up with people instead. makes it more personal, i guess. besides, even if i magically write all my cards and send them by tomorrow, they'll only reach after christmas...so not much point.

i realized that planning my physio today was kind of not-smart, because it made me quite reluctant to go to school to set up reactions. so, i took an unplanned day off, and will be setting up the reactions tomorrow. wonder if it'll be ok leaving one reaction over christmas? i might end up going back to top up solvent or something. or maybe i'll just start with like 250 or 500mL of solvent; that should last the almost-2 days that i'll be out of lab. jumping back to my physio, other than the ACL being a little loose, the nice physiotherapist couldn't find anything wrong with my knee. so, after a few other tests and observations, she determined that my hips were the problem. there's this thing called the lower kinetic chain, where force is transferred from the hips to the knees and finally to the feet. so it seems that my knee problems originate at the hip. i find that to be a bit...weird/ironic, because my favourite techniques are hip throws. anyways, the nice rehab guy taught me some stretches and exercises which i have to do faithfully. as a reminder to myself, they include hip flexor stretches, hamstring stretches, glute stretches, squats, one-legged squats, balance exercises, and lunges. after the stretches, the therapist asked me to walk around and see if i felt any different. i felt that i could exert more power with my legs after the stretch, which he rephrased as my muscles feeling freer. quite accurate! still, i have to keep up the stretches and exercises on my own, otherwise any progress today will be wasted.

just as my rehab session was ending, the whole of my right shoe detached from the sole. that necessitated an urgent trip to queensway to get replacements, at the same time destroying my plans to go back to school after physio. actually, that's not entirely true. my plans to go back to school were destroyed when i found out that i had forgotten to bring my transponder, which were still in my jeans pocket. genius me strikes again. after shopping around, i finally settled on a pair of asics (yes, again) shoes. my previous ones were light grey with light orange highlights. this new pair is darker grey with really bright reddish-orange. best part is, they're 4E! when i bought my last pair of sports shoes, the salesperson told me that 2E was for wide feet. today, i found out that there's 4E for even wider feet. that's the maximum you can go, no 6E or 8E. still, these new shoes fit slightly better. only problem is that the laces appear to be too short. think i'll have to shop around for longer laces. wonder where i can go for that? while i was at queensway, i checked the other shop to see if my work shoes had come in or not. unfortunately, they hadn't, and i have to wait another 3 weeks or so. considering that this and next weeks are christmas and new year weeks respectively, i think time will pass a little faster.

think i'll end off here. will probably schedule an east coast trip sometime over the next few days (or even the weekend), and meet with friends in the spaces between. other than that, i don't think that there's anything major scheduled for the rest of the year. things should go relatively smoothly for the last 8 or so days of 2013.

-random thought of the day: The charging cables I bought online don't work!-

Got out of lab early for the first time this week today. by "early", i mean "while the sun's up"...what little of the sun there was through the rain, at any rate. figured i deserved a break after staying past 12:00am for the past 2 days. knowing that the AYE would be jammed, i took buona vista road home. to my surprise, it was jammed as well. the first thing i saw up ahead was a column of smoke, which is not normal. apparently, a taxi caught fire on the left lane. of all the luck! and thinking that braddell road would be jammed, i took bishan road instead. based on what i saw as i turned off, the road leading to braddell and upper thomson roads was clear. damn it. still, i got home in decent time, so i guess i shouldn't complain.

this past week has been kind of stressful. there was the SCDF check, which turned out ok. turns out that the check was more for the corridors than the labs. it's good though...less trouble for us. was also busy in lab with the synthesis of 2 catalysts. and it was my week for solvent disposal duty. speaking of which, of all the luck, solvent disposal got postponed from yesterday to today. that threw off plans for my physio appointment at the sports council, since i had to come in early to label the waste. so that's rescheduled for next monday afternoon. no big deal.

since i got off early today, i went to run a few errands. there were 3 things i wanted to do: get a case for my phone, go to the library, and do some grocery shopping. managed only 2 of those, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad, right? in order to find a suitable case, i walked all over j8. started at the apple shop, then went to this phone accessories shop, followed by popular, some more random shops, mini-challenger, best denki, and finally the shop where i found what i wanted. i was actually looking for something that covered the ring/silent switch and volume buttons. in the end, a nice staff at best denki told me that there was a new shop which just opened at level 2, and that it was an authorized otterbox dealer. so i went there, and got an otterbox preserver. it was a nice surprise to find it in singapore so quickly, since it was just released in the US sometime last week. admittedly, it isn't cheap, but i think it's worth it. besides, it's an added incentive for me not to change phones so quickly. i just installed it, and it feels pretty good. although it's supposed to be waterproof up to 2m for 30 minutes, i don't think i'll be testing out that feature very frequently (or even at all).

grocery shopping was less eventful...just got some stuff to cook and sweets/snacks to bring to lab. also saw this bazaar thing at level 2. as tempted as i am to head there, i think my wallet might protest. at any rate, i think that i won't be doing much more shopping for the rest of the year.

since it's getting late, and i have group meeting tomorrow morning, i'll just leave some blogging prompts. actually, i think i won't, mainly because nothing comes to mind right now. the blogging mood seems to have vanished. well...i think i'll blog again tomorrow, since it's my first free saturday in...2 months? either that or sunday. we'll see.

-random thought of the day: Christmas is coming.-

'Boys never grow up. they just get older, and their toys get more expensive". although it's somewhat paraphrased from what i remember reading somewhere some time ago, i do think it's accurate. my biggest toy currently is the car, and i my newest toy is a shiny iphone 5S. i think that'll be my christmas present to myself. despite saying that i would be ok with no christmas presents for 5 years after getting the car, i'm still free to give myself presents, right?

thankfully, my precision planning went off smoothly yesterday. got to the sports council early (mental note: park at macdonalds next time; the first hour's free), and the consultation with the doctor was rather short, too. she had me do a few movements, and then moved my legs about to check for problems in the knee. she didn't find anything odd, which is a huge relief. problem is that that actually raises more questions. if there's nothing amiss, why does my knee pop now and then when it shouldn't be doing that at all? very weird. anyways, the doctor said that some muscles were tight, and based on her observation when asking me to squat, others were weak. so i'm scheduled for a few sessions of physiotherapy and rehab, and we'll have another review after that. i think she's reluctant to send me for an MRI right away, as they're expensive. well, not like i'm in urgent need of one right now.

when going to the sports council, i took the usual route that i would take to the SJF (they're within 1km of each other). as i was coming off the CTE and going onto PIE (changi), i got charged $4 for ERP. is it just me, or is that a bit the very ridiculous!? consider this: it was already past 8:45am, so i'd expect the morning traffic to be dying down. in fact, the road was pretty empty (then again, it's also probably due to the ERP), and remained empty even after i merged onto the main PIE. what's more, i was headed towards the east! normally, traffic is heavy in that direction only in the evenings. west-bound traffic is usually worse in the mornings. really don't understand. think i should reschedule my appointment to a later time, or better yet, find an alternate way with no ERP. let's see...assuming i get 10km per litre of petrol, and every litre costs $2, any detour shorter than 20km means i save money.

since i got off early from the sports council, i parked the car at home and took a train down to nex instead. the total train fare came up to about $1.70, which is about 30 cents less than what i'd pay for the 2 hours of parking i would have used. plus the petrol costs, i actually saved money! i got there at 10:30am or so, and there were already like 4 people in queue. by the time the shop opened, the queue was up to...about 35 people? anyway, i got through the queue pretty fast, but ended up waiting for about 50 minutes before my number was called. you'd think that for a place with 20 counters, they'd process customers more quickly, right? for some odd reason though, despite the masses of people waiting, only about 6 counters were operational. not efficient at all. and what's worse is that even after your number is called, they take SO LONG to process your request! i must have spent another 45 minutes waiting while the nice lady inspected my phone, filled in the trade-in paperwork, erased my phone, got the new phone, filled in the recontracting paperwork, and finally got everything in order.

i ended up getting a 32gb space grey iphone 5s. so far, it's fun to mess with, and transferring my data over via itunes was relatively painless...except that i did something wrongly and lost all my previous whatsapp conversations, amounting to some 74 000+ messages. it's a pity, but as my partner said when he found out, "it's not bad to clear out your whatsapp by accident; there are 90% redundant messages that you won't miss". i don't know, though...i think that most of my whatsapp messages have good memories attached to them. but well, my friends are still around, so i can always make new good memories and attach them to future conversations. the one thing that's throwing me off, however, is that everyone's name appears in a different colour in my group chats! i've been so used to seeing certain friends' names in certain colours that i sometimes recognize the sender of the messages by colour before name. now i have to double check to make sure i'm not saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. well, nothing some adaptation won't fix. and that extends to the new iOS and general layout of the phone, too. also, i have to get a case for the phone, plus a few accessories, like extra charging cables.

lab work is picking up, too. now that i got admonished for slacking off, i have to put in more effort. got one synthesis done (pending product NMR), and another is underway. both are looking good right now, though i don't have any solid proof that they've worked. if all goes well, i can move to step 2 for one reaction, and characterize the other product. i guess this is what the seniors meant when they said "2 reactions a day". it's actually not hard...just have to plan well. also, i'm starting to occupy more space in the fume hood as my senior moves out. i'd say that it's about 80:20 now, with me having less space. it should reach 0:100 in about 3 weeks if all goes according to plan.

SCDF check is the next-biggest arrow. somehow, i get the feeling that i'll be in lab until late tomorrow, either doing experiments or preparing for the check. probably both. just hope that everything goes smoothly. i know one thing that isn't going smoothly...more pieces of rubber are detaching from the soles of my sports shoes. and as for the shoes themselves, wearing them for long hours every day is causing them to smell. how come i didn't encounter this problem with my work shoes? anyway, it looks like i'll have to get some charcoal for them, and for the car as well. been meaning to do that for a while now, actually, but haven't found the time. well, sometime in the coming week, probably.

-random thought of the day: Why am I sleeping late again?-

Things don't always go your (my) way, and today's a timely reminder of that. i'd thought that i'd planned it quite well...go to the dog shelter in the afternoon, meet my friend for dinner, and get the new phone after that. the first 2 things went smoothly, but the starhub shop was out of stock. i didn't really foresee this, because i went to the bishan shop yesterday evening, and some models were still available. but as my friend pointed out, that could be because the bishan branch doesn't do trade-ins, whereas nex does. the nice guy at nex told me that new stock would be coming in tomorrow, and that the queue started around 10:30am, half an hour before the shop opened. i wanted to go down around 10:45am to wait (considering it's a weekday and the expected crowd should be less). thing is, blind me forgot that i'm scheduled for a medical at the sports council tomorrow, at 9:30am. i have no idea what the medical entails, except that some tests are going to be done. this means i can't judge the time well enough to plan my sequence of activities tomorrow, which kind of sucks.

right now, there are 3 main activities tomorrow. the medical, getting the phone, and going to school. no matter how i look at it, the medical has to come first due to the timing. the phone should be next, because stocks are limited and may run out before i can get my hands on one. next variable is where? i could go back to nex, which would take more time. vivocity is a viable option, but i'm unfamiliar with the route (and the parking is expensive). right now, i'm thinking of reaching the sports council at 9:00am. with some luck, they might have a slot open. assuming everything there takes an hour, i should be able to make it to nex by 10:30am, 10:45am latest. by the time i get the phone (assuming they haven't sold out) and ironed out the contract details and stuff, it should be...11:30am? then i can get to school by 12:15pm or so and prepare to work late. sounds good on paper, but i'm anticipating several wrenches in the works...one of them being morning traffic.

actually, a more elegant solution would be to just leave getting the phone until tuesday. but there's kind of a male pride issue here. you know the joke where a guy will only make one trip to carry his groceries from his car to his house, no matter how much stuff he bought? it's similar here, but with errands to run instead. my mindset on this is "why do over 2 days what i can do in 1?" if only i applied it to my lab work too, i wouldn't have gotten told off during group meeting for having too little content in my presentation. but i digress. think i'll give it a go, and see if i can pull off another precision planning sequence.

about group meeting, there isn't really much else to say; that bit in the above paragraph speaks for itself. i guess that if i was really looking for excuses, i could blame the exams or the various lab inspections. while those things did slow my research down somewhat, the main problem is that i'm not utilizing my time well enough. i mean, i spend pretty long hours in the lab, but don't have much stuff to show for it. and that sucks. part of it probably has also been due to me going for judo training, whether it's SJI/CJC, NUS, or national. at this point in time, i think i might have to stay away from SJI/CJC for a while, both to catch up on my research, and because of some interpersonal issues that developed a while ago. as usual, they'll survive without me.

getting scolded by my professor must have affected me somewhat, because my partner noticed some differences during training. even though we trained on friday as well, he said that i felt heavier on saturday. can't be that i gained significant weight in a day, right? don't answer that. on my part, i did notice that i was less patient (very bad for kata), and more prone to feelings of frustration (again, very bad). it's not a big issue though...i think that this will clear up naturally once i've redeemed myself for research. and since there's no national training until next year, i really have to spend more time in the lab.

the last thing i'd like to think out loud about for today is the new phone. why am i even getting a new phone in the first place? ...because i can, i guess. there's no real reason for me to; my 4S still works well (except for the odd app or two crashing now and then). a part of it is probably also due to the novelty factor (fingerprint sensor) and better hardware. probably the most significant reason is because i should be free to decide how to spend the money that i've earned. but anyway, assuming that the purchase is (however weakly) justified, i'm still hung up about which model to get. colour-wise, i'm pretty fixed on black (or space grey, as they call it)...the issue is the memory. my 4S is 16gb, and i've used about 8gb out of the 13 usable gb after formatting, OS and whatnot. so it seems that i have excess space already. but i have the feeling that i may use more apps with the 5S. besides, more space never hurt, right? unless you're my wallet, that is. well...i think i'll leave this to fate. i'll just get whatever's in stock. if both are in stock, i'll get the 32gb one. let's see how it goes.

-random thought of the day: Must go to Aljuined another day for one more minor errand.-

My experiments are done for today, but i'm staying in school for a bit longer to avoid the horrible evening traffic. and since i'm sort of free, i figured that i'd blog now and free up some time for later. maybe i might even sleep earlier tonight!

got my glasses problem solved yesterday. i found online that the optician that i wanted to visit opens at 12:00pm. i got there at 12:05pm, but found that the place was still closed. waited for about 10 minutes before i decided that it wasn't worth risking being late for the PFM check, so i went to another place to get it done. the nice lady there told me that they couldn't just replace the arm, and i had to get an entire new frame. although the lenses aren't a perfect fit, i actually like the new frame better! it's black and plastic as well, but looks a bit more...sporty, i guess, like sunglasses but with slightly downward-curving arms. not bad for $70 (she gave me a $10 discount...i'm not entirely sure why, but i'm not complaining).

as an added benefit, i got to see how the lenses are installed into half-rim frames. it's actually quite easy. you just need a flexible, thin strip of something to get the supporting string in and out of the groove in the lens. the lady used ribbon, i used a strip of the wrapping from my dayplus bread when i took the lenses out to clean the edges. i'm still getting used to the new frames. the thing is, the design is such that the arms cause a triangle to appear at the corner of each eye, and the triangles keep registering in my peripheral vision. think they'll fade into the background after a while, like the circles of refracted/reflected light in my lenses did. in fact, i can't even see them now, no matter how i try.

i was really quite puzzled as to why the regular shop didn't open. maybe the owner's habit is to have lunch, then open the shop. but in that case, why list the opening time as 12:00pm? it's frustrating when you need to see him urgently. and it's not like i don't want to give him business...he just wasn't around to take it. on the other hand, maybe it's the culture there. i noticed that a fair few shops still weren't open even just before i left.

the best part of this whole thing is that i was on a tight schedule for the lab inspection, and then when i got to school, they told me my lab didn't need to be inspected. so basically, it was a rush for nothing. i'm more relieved than annoyed actually. no inspection means that the people won't find fault with my lab. and even though it was quite a rush, i still got everything that i needed to do done, so it's ok, more or less.

while at bukit timah plaza, i was contemplating making a spare pair of glasses. not right then, because i was rushing, but sometime in the future. but now that i got my glasses fixed, a spare seems so...unnecessary. i guess it's one of those things that you never really know how much you need until you need it, if that makes any sense. i guess i'll go down sometime when i'm free.

just when i was starting to think that uncle murphy had forgotten me, he sent me a very timely reminder that i'm still in his thoughts. remember how i have to wait for A MONTH (yes, i'm still unhappy) until my new shoes arrive, and how i'm using my sports shoes temporarily? well, my sports shoes are starting to fall apart. it's nothing serious yet, just the bits of rubber on the sole coming unstuck and falling off. i've lost 2 pieces already, and another 2 pieces are loose. looks like i'm going to have to spend even more money at queensway. i guess it's about time, too. i bought these shoes in 2008 or so, when a hole developed in my previous pair. getting 5 years of use (more like 4, because i was in work shoes more often than not though honours year) is not bad already.

these next few days are shaping up to be quite rushed. all of a sudden, i found out that i'm scheduled to present for group meeting this saturday, so i'm trying to push out a few more results so i don't look like a complete slacker. there are 2 more sessions of national training before we break for the SEA games and year-end period, and i want to get my shiny iphone 5S. oddly, starhub has stopped displaying the stock availability on their website, so i think i'll go down to nex and try my luck this weekend. have to fit a haircut in there sometime too.things should work out in the end.

-random thought of the day: Buy hacks!-

A mix of good and bad things have happened today, so much so that i'm confused about how to feel overall. if you ask me now, it's more negative, but that could also be because the bad things happened later in the day (ie. closer to now), so i'm feeling their effects more strongly. to help myself make a fairer judgement, i'll list the good and bad stuff in separate lists, then evaluate my day based on that.

let's start with the good:
woke up early despite mis-setting my alarm (minor miracle).
had generally good traffic everywhere i went today.
managed to talk to 2 juniors i quite like.
passed the lab commissioning with only minor issues.
made it to national training on time despite a detour.
tried out the tori role of ju no kata.
despite my glasses' arm breaking, they can somehow remain on my face.

now for the bad:
PFM check was postponed.
season parking most likely won't go through.
went to queensway for nothing.
got a minor abrasion on my finger.
my glasses' left arm broke off.

seems to me like although there's more good stuff, the magnitude of the bad stuff is larger, thus resulting in net negative feelings. since i'm pretty happy with the good stuff, i see no need to vent about them. hence, i'll be talking mainly about the bad stuff, and more importantly, why they're so bad.

the S5 lab was actually scheduled for 2 checks today, PFM and commissioning. out of the two, PFM is more major. i would rather have got that over with first. actually, i feel less upset that it was postponed, and more because we were only told on the day itself, after the scheduled time. i was in school at 8:50am just to prepare for it! and if you know anything about me, you'd know how rare of an occurrence that is. ok, to be fair, i'd have to be in school early today for commissioning anyway, but i just think those OSHE people have too little regard for our time and effort. that in turn can be interpreted as them having too little respect for us. but well...as long as they don't delay again, i won't make more noise about it.

about staff season parking...we originally had a sort-of plan, but something came along and messed it up. depending on how things go, i may end up having to ballot for season parking for all 8 semesters of graduate studies. the silver lining here is that i can use the science season carpark during holidays. besides, what are the odds that i don't get season parking for ALL 8 semesters? let's not jinx it; i don't want to tempt fate. the thing that upset me here was the horrible attitude of the staff. for one, they didn't get my name right. given that my name is tricky, i didn't blame them initially. but when they got it wrong even after i'd introduced myself, that was too much for me. next, when something went wrong, they seemed to assume that it was my fault. for instance, one of the staff was surprised that i was brought to speak with her. her first reaction - "you don't have an appointment, right?" in actual fact, i had called the previous day to set it up. so my impression of the staff is that they are are good at tai chi, but cannot provide any solutions. as tempted as i am to say that they're worthless, i have to admit from previous experience that they handle their routine work well, and since this situation is a little extraordinary, they may not know how to react. but at least the issue was explained to me satisfactorily...we'll see how the situation develops.

i am actually most angry about the queensway thing. remember the soles of my work shoes split some time ago? i brought them to get replaced before exams, and the shop owner didn't have stock then. he told me that he would order a new shipment, with improved soles, and said that it would arrive in mid-december, which is around now. earlier today, i called him to check on the shipment, and he told me that it had arrived. so, i went down to queensway before national training to pick the shoes up. i was extremely angry when the boss told me that they only had shoes in another design, and not the one i specifically requested for. do you know why i was (am, actually) so angry? (1) because i called in advance, and received (false) confirmation. if i had shown up unannounced, i'd only blame myself if the shoes weren't in. (2) because i'm suffering for someone else's mistake. not having the new shoes means i have to wear my sports shoes for another month. although they provide excellent support, they're not something i want to wear every single day. not to mention sports shoes make me drop a notch on the formalness scale. i hope my professor doesn't ask me to pick up any of his guests, or attend any fairly formal occasions. worse, i have to go down YET AGAIN in january, and waste even more money on parking and petrol. (3) the boss offered me weak alternatives, and wasn't apologetic at all. the alternatives he gave me were: get a new pair of the old design (which would most likely split again), get another design (nothing else caught my eye), or wait another month until mid-january. ANOTHER MONTH!! i understand that running your own business isn't easy, but surely your customers' requests are too important for you to mess up, right? i do empathize with him...he told me that this replacement pair would cost more due to the different sole. initially, if i had managed to get the (correct) replacement today, i was planning on topping up the difference, just to reduce his loss in replacing the shoes for me. but now, no. one month of having to make do with second-best costs more to me than the extra $10 i was willing to fork out. and not once did he say "sorry". the closest he came was "there's nothing i can do", which is not an acceptable alternative to me.

funny story how my glasses broke actually, i remember putting them right on top of my clothes before training. when i finished training and went to change, i found them rolled in my clothes. this makes me think that someone broke it (hopefully by accident and not on purpose), and tried to make the evidence less obvious. well, since i didn't see it happen, i can't be sure. as much as i hate to suspect any of the national athletes and SJC members, i am sure that my glasses wouldn't spontaneously break like that. well, at least the lenses are intact, so i can still see (and drive). that's definitely something to be thankful for. the plan now is to go to bukit timah plaza tomorrow to get the arm replaced. hopefully there's some stock. if not, both arms can be replaced at a go; i don't mind paying slightly extra if there's really no choice. if really necessary, the whole frame may have to be changed...i'm ok with that as long as it can be done quickly. worst-case scenario would be having to grind the lenses to fit in a new frame, or get a new pair of glasses altogether. the shop opens at around 12:00pm and as luck would have it, guess when the PFM check was postponed to? tomorrow afternoon, 2pm. i just hope that whatever fix is applied, it can be applied fast. makes me think that i should get a spare pair of glasses made, too.

you know what? i think i should go sleep this off. maybe the fatigue makes me feel bad stuff more strongly. the one good thing about the check being in the afternoon is that i don't have to reach school early like i did today. just hope that my lucky stars align, and everything goes smoothly.

-random thought of the day: Must catch up on lab work.-

For most university students, holidays start when exams end. sadly, that is not the case for graduate research students. for us, the phrase "what holiday?" best describes the situation. my last exam (organometallics) was yesterday, and i already stayed in lab until 10:00pm today. no choice though...stupid safety checks. as for organometallics, i think the exam went pretty well! everything was doable (i'd go as far as to say enjoyable), though i got stuck at one part. thankfully, another of those rare brilliant brainwaves hit me, and i recognized that the question was asking us to compare grubb's and schrock's metathesis catalysts. and i finished with about 10 minutes to spare. thought i made excellent time until i flipped to the last page and saw a question which i'd forgotten to answer. managed to finish it in those 10 minutes, so that's something else to be grateful about. as much as i don't really like to predict high grades in case of disappointment, i'm thinking that an A-something is possible. hopefully it comes true. i think i might need it to balance out the damage from organic materials.

as scientists, we test our hypotheses with experiments, then adjust our conclusions accordingly. this extends to situations outside the lab as well. i tested the nitrogen tyre thing by checking my tyre pressure. surprisingly, they were still almost-full after about 2 weeks! maybe there is something else to the nitrogen that i'm not getting. either that or the new tyres keep the gas in better. whatever the case, my tyres remained inflated. the odd thing though, is that my fuel consumption still sucks. can't remember the figures offhand, but i think i'll be lucky to hit 400km on this tank. so that's bugging me a little. why is my consumption sucking on full tyres? my guess is that it's something to do with the just-after-servicing engine performance. hopefully things go back to normal after the next refuelling.

i just checked, and my phone contract is up. that means i can change to a new phone! still having a small internal debate between iphone 5s and samsung S4. after the horrible omnia experience with samsung, i think i'm more inclined to the iphone. i was just looking at iphone prices, too. the 16gb one is going for $540 or so, while the 32gb one is going for %670. trading in my phone gives me a $200 discount, which means i'll be paying about $340 and $470 respectively. that also means that the 32gb phone after discount will be cheaper than the 16gb phone before discount. the question then is, since it seems like such a good deal, should i go for the 32gb phone? or should i just save more money and go for the 16gb? i think it would be more practical to go for more savings. well...i think i'll go down to wherever still has stock either this weekend or sometime next week.

now that my exams are over, i really have to focus on research. that, and intensive judo training. it's actually more for the SEA games athletes, but we have to support them as well. think i should be pretty occupied these few days at least, if not weeks.

-random thought of the day: Being responsible for lab safety sucks.-

Nothing of significant interest happened over the past 4 days, except maybe for national training. could have been due to the weather, but i felt really lethargic and i tired out much faster than normal. hopefully it's a one-off thing, and everything goes back to normal this coming saturday.

today, though, was quite annoying. i tried to go down to the carpark people's office to get staff season parking done, but due to some complications, i now have to talk to the OED people. not that big of an issue...just quite inconvenient. i won't complain too much if i get the parking though. just hope everything goes smoothly on thursday. the more annoying thing is that while leaving the carpark, i decided to take a shortcut, and ended up bua-ing the kerb. as a result, there's now ANOTHER BIG SCRATCH MARK on the left-hand side of the front bumper, quite close to the first scratch mark. i could have screamed, but my friend was in the car at that time, so i kept the scream mental. this scratch mark is a little worse than the previous one i think, because it's deeper (i think it may be a scratch-dent hybrid). just by feel and sight, i can actually tell that the top 2 layers got taken off, and i'm looking at at least the third layer of paint/rustproofing. and if that wasn't bad enough, the same panel popped out again. so, it's off to ubi i go tomorrow to get it stuck back into place. hopefully they can squeeze me in sometime in the late morning, or early afternoon at worst. mental note: wake up early to make appointment.

while monitoring my fuel consumption, i was just thinking about one of the value-added services i got from the servicing. they filled my tyres with nitrogen, and claimed that it would deflate at a slower rate as compared to air. i didn't think too much about this initially, until i saw that my fuel gauge dropped 3 pixels after only 50km or so. given that i used the same fuel and drive like how i normally do, i don't see how this can be attributed to anything other than tyre pressure. upon further thought, i realized that pure nitrogen would make the tyre deflate faster than if air was used. you see, nitrogen has a molecular mass of 28. air is slightly heavier (about 29) due the the inclusion of oxygen. diffusion rate is about proportional to molecular mass (or the square root of...my physical chem sucks) so, pure nitrogen would diffuse out of the tyre faster than air, which has oxygen (molecular mass = 32). if they'd wanted to make tyres stay inflated longer, they should use a heavier gas...argon comes to mind, as does carbon dioxide as a less expensive alternative. maybe that's a way to recycle exhaust emissions! the other possibility i can think of was that nitrogen does keep tyres inflated for longer, but they underinflated my tyres. less likely, since i trust their professionalism. well, i'll go get my tyres pumped tomorrow, before heading to the ubi service centre.

since i've had a bit more free time than normal recently, i've been doing some thinking about my modules for next semester. call me stupid, but i'm thinking of doing something quite risky...which is taking 4 modules on top of research work. let me explain first though. the 4 modules i have in mind are asymmetric catalysis, one other chem module, graduate seminar, and japanese 5. the last 2 modules are (or should be, at least) S/U-able. i know graduate seminar is, not sure about japanese 5. i've sent an email to the lecturer to ask. asymmetric catalysis is being taught by a nice japanese professor, so i think it should be fun. besides, my lab group specializes in asymmetric synthesis, so that module should come in useful. as for the last module, i'm debating between bioanalytical, analytical techniques, or contemporary materials. although bioanalytical is the combination of 2 of my nightmares, there's no final exam. i'm disadvantaged for analytical techniques (and bioanalytical too, actually) since i didn't take any level 4 analytical modules. contemporary materials is scary, since i've taken organic materials this semester and didn't really take to it well. looks like i'm screwed whichever way i turn. will, i guess i'll see what modules my friends are taking. maybe that'll help my decision process.

i called the shoe shop, and the boss told me that the new shipment would probably arrive next week. that's kind of not-good news, because that means i'll have to use my sports shoes for this thursday and friday at least. main reason i don't like wearing them to lab is because they squeak on my lab floor. and i've been wearing slippers to school recently, just to avoid that. in my defence, it IS exam period, and i should be studying.

as usual, there's some stuff which i want to blog about, but can't recall right now. mildly frustrating, but well, it shouldn't be that important if i can't remember it. the forecast for the near future (at least until wednesday) is study, study, study. i realized that (1) there's actually quite a lot of content for organometallics, and (2) i'm not as on top of all of the content as i'd like to believe. so, i'm going to have to work a little harder for organometallics as compared to materials. nothing i can't handle, i think.

-random thought of the day: Wow.-