Rare as the occurrence may be, there are times when i want to blog, but don't feel like typing. normally, i forget the whole idea and wait for a better time. this time, i think it's been a bit too long since my last post, so i'll try to work through the reluctance. don't know why it's there in the first place, actually. not like i'm super tired or anything, especially after a day of rotting. hard to explain, so i'm not even going to try. just chalk it up to an eccentricity or something. this post, i'm going to try and clear all of the stuff that i've been meaning to blog about, but have somehow forgotten.

odd as it may be, let's start with teeth. i have been fortunate enough to not need braces while growing up. other than occasional fillings and cleanings, the only other dental work i've had done was the removal of an impacted wisdom tooth at the end of J1, and some treatment for sensitive teeth in...army? i don't remember exactly when. that's why i'm not exactly comfortable with the idea of more dental work. yet, i may be forced to go for another procedure soon. the last molar on my top-left side is growing somewhat slanted, protruding outwards a little. due to that, it's angled in such a way that it's longer than the rest of my teeth, and it's causing me to bite the inside of my mouth whenever i close it. weird thing is that i've noticed the odd tooth a few years back, but it's only started giving problems recently, like in the past 2 weeks. teeth should have stopped growing at my age, right? anyway, i think i'll just find a convenient weekend or something to go see a dentist for their expert opinion on whether an extraction is necessary, or if any other solutions can work. just hope that the dentist i went to last time is still open. somehow i remember hearing that the clinic closed down or something last year.

next thing i can think of is safety, and by extension, my lab. the main lab is due for a check this coming thursday, and i just gave a short presentation (in broken chinese-english, no less!) during group meeting yesterday. at least i can say i've done my necessary duty to inform the rest of the researchers. so now if they get caught, they have no excuse. yet somehow, i think i might still end up covering for them, since too many demerits means lab closure. i also spoke a bit about solvent collection, since there was some confusion this past week. somehow, my fume hood partner (either accidentally or purposely) skipped out on his duty for monday and tuesday. his reason was that since he saw me doing it the previous week, he thought that his requirement had been cleared. coming from a guy who has published in JACS, it sounds a bit retarded. he's been in the lab longer than me, which means that he should know the system better. and yet...i don't know. maybe he's going into ORD mood. i understand he's due to submit his thesis soon.

research work is coming along ok-ish. while i think i'm (barely) meeting the requirement for number of reactions, i don't know how many of those reactions will be successful, if any at all. still, i guess it's better to have 100 failed reactions than no reactions at all. have to work up and column 6 reactions tomorrow, and set up another 5 to 6 different reactions. not to mention continuing my catalyst synthesis. seems like the microwave reactor works fine; just that i'm using too little sample, and that means that the temperature can't be detected accurately. that's why i've made a whole new pot of stuff, which i will have to column as well. looks like i'm in for a long week in lab. AND there's that damned safety check. bugger.

remember there was this post some time back i was talking about certain battles, and picking mine carefully? no? that's ok. i myself don't even remember when i posted it, i just know that it exists. anyway, i'm still not fighting as many battles as i'd like, partially because i'm scared of the outcome, and partially because i'm still debating on who to fight with. on the bright side, i just fought 2 of them in the past week, and both ended well. gives me hope, it does. i suppose i don't have to spell it out, but i will anyway (to a certain extent, at least). "battles" is a metaphor. metaphor for what? you figure it out. it's no fun if i give everything away, right?

here's something which i find really really weird. as i was walking home from the parking lot a month or more ago, i accidentally switched my phone's wifi on. to my amazement, my home network could be detected from five floors down, and the signal strength was decent enough for me not to experience lag! i thought it was quite cool. but then, i soon became annoyed, as i remembered that my wifi practically cuts off if i'm in bed, facing away from the router. to be fair, there is a wall separating me from the router, but you'd think that about 15 metres of air, downward elevation, and no direct line-of-sight would be harder to cross than 30cm of concrete/paint/brick and a couple metres of air right? apparently not. it's really more of a first world problem than anything actually serious. nevertheless, i've been tempted to buy a wifi range extender just so that i can solve this issue. maybe when we move house.

you know, i've often said that i want to live alone. that desire hasn't really changed. i'm sure groceries and laundry are a small price to pay for complete freedom and uninhibitedness. almost makes me think that instead of spending money on a car, i should have used it to pay the fees for a graduate residence...or maybe rent a place in buona vista/clementi. well...i don't know. hopefully plan japan works out. i think this will be one of the side-benefits that i can enjoy overseas.

japan! that reminded me of JLPT. have i mentioned that i missed the deadline to sign up for july's test? well, i did. was hoping to take it ASAP, as the knowledge from japanese 5 would be fresher if i took it sooner. but since i didn't register in time, no choice. just went to see the page today, and it seems that registration for the november/december exam opens sometime in august. can't miss this one, or my japanese will basically fade away. hopefully i can pass N2, then study a bit more so that i can take N1 either next year or the year after. it's not quite my original plan, but then seeing that only JLPT N1 gives a bonus when applying for japanese PR, i've had to adapt.

am i missing anything else? can't think of anything right now. oh. unstable iphone charging cables, and BPS brothers. but i think those can wait until the next post. considering the amount of work waiting for me in lab, i think that it's in my best interests to sleep early.

-random thought of the day: Should go down to the shelter.-

Performing in front of an audience is something i can sort of do, but would rather avoid if possible. don't like crowds. also depends on the audience, actually. the most i've done is give a scientific presentation to a small audience (less than 50 people), or taught a class in SJI/CJC. the latter is easier, actually, since there's less pressure on me. kata-wise, i've done it for the asian kata championships last year (about 100 people in attendance?), as well as for grading. granted that none of those can really be considered as large audiences, so i'm not sure if things will change once the audience numbers are scaled up. but that's not the main focus of this post. the reasons i'm writing about public performance are twofold. first, my cousin is due to give a presentation tomorrow (go!), and i was involved in an itsutsu no kata performance for the SJC 60th anniversary celebration on sunday.

also on sunday, i went to meet the ex-national coach at a judo club in lavender. he conducted an impromptu class, and i had the great fortune to be able to pick up a few pointers, particularly regarding his reverse shoulder throw. think it's something i can pass along to the SJI/CJC kids. that was earlier in the day. the performance followed, in the evening. in the past few posts, i've mentioned how my partner's been pushing me for the kata. while i am appreciative, i also find it quite ironic that he was the one who made the most visible mistake during the actual performance (forgetting to bow). luckily, i was able to react quickly enough, and followed his lead so that we looked uniform. it's not the first time that something like this has happened, either. actually, if memory serves, he seems to have made one big mistake in all of our performances so far. then again, i know that my performance hasn't been perfect either...though if you ask me, my mistakes are less noticeable. but well. he's the one with kata judge ambitions.

thank goodness i checked my email again today! i noticed that the next safety/housekeeping inspection for the S5 lab would be this thursday, and not next thursday like the main lab. seems like they set the times based on location, not PI. so anyway, i'm suddenly left with 1 day to tidy up the S5 lab. not impossible, but i'm definitely going to be dead tired by the end of tomorrow. with any luck, the grad student based in S5 will be there. if not, i'm going to raise some hell. something tells me that i won't get much research done tomorrow. probably all i can do will be to stop my ongoing reactions.

i'm feeling off today. not quite sure why. might be the stress from the safety checks. times like these are when i'm most vulnerable to bad thoughts. there are a few in my head already...just hope they don't get any worse. should probably try to get some sleep to prevent that from happening. and to distract myself a little, i'm scheduled for an overseas trip in a couple of weeks! that's all i can say now, unfortunately, but it's still something to look forward to.

-random thought of the day: Stupid emotions.-

Ok. the whole safety checks being the #1 bane of my existence thing? not an exaggeration after all. it was supposed to be a follow-up to the previous surprise check, so i focused on rectifying the areas that were highlighted as problematic. most of the issues were solved, but a few weren't up to the inspector's satisfaction. minor problems. i thought we were in the clear, but then she dropped the bomb. she wanted to see our other lab! since the focus was on our main lab, i made sure that i did everything until swee-swee for the check. unfortunately, expending all my effort on the main lab caused me to neglect the other lab. you have no idea how hard i was praying/hoping that everything would at least look decent, so i could give her a quick tour and get out of there. and wouldn't you know it, it didn't. i think we died quite badly there. no...i KNOW we died quite badly there. the report's in my email, after all. to her credit though, she did write that most of the issues in the main lab were resolved. makes me look less bad, and shows that i've been doing work. seems like there's a lot of stuff to do before the safety people will be satisfied.

it's tiring, you know? whenever there's news of a safety check, you can bet i'll be in lab until late the night before. and yet, the work never seems to end. the others in lab are cooperative, i have to give them that. wish i could delegate a bit more, but i somehow feel better doing the stuff myself. it's not that i have trust issues or anything, but if my simple email instructions to tidy up their individual places aren't executed properly, i really don't see myself entrusting anything more major to them. maybe i should ask for an assistant safety lead. i'm sure that i can get one of the 5 or so(!) incoming grad students. this is still unconfirmed, by the way. just something that was mentioned offhandedly at group meeting. kind of wonder how my professor will magic out the required space. knowing him, he has a plan. should be entertaining to watch.

think i jinxed myself in the last post, both with the safety check, and the BPS brothers. we had a kata session today. for some reason, their behaviour changes so much when i'm one-on-one (one-on-two, rather) with them. normally, they're quiet, reserved, even shy. but somehow, they act like (or arguably, worse than) the primary school kids i've coached. i don't know why this is the case. is it that they feel comfortable enough in front of me to let go of their inhibitions? somehow, i don't think so. i think the problem was that i failed to clearly outline my expectations right from the start. and add on the fact that ive been bordering on indulgent with them, and it shouldn't be a surprise that they're climbing all over me. like i said last post as well, it's odd that i don't have this issue with the SJI/CJC kids. and i'm really grateful for that. could also be because i'm not a coach of BPS, and so they don't accord me the same respect as their other coaches. looks like i really have to talk to their coach tomorrow. worst case i'll just stop coaching them. after all, i'm not under contract, and am actually volunteering my time. you'd think they'd behave a little better to show their appreciation, right? maybe i'm getting old and forgetting what it's like to be a kid. sidetrack: i kind of told my junior about this thing, and she said that i have what she calls "adorable stray" syndrome...like, i get emotionally attached to people whom i feel could use my help. and one of my worst traits is that i tend to show some degree of favouritism to people whom i like. that's suppressed during refereeing or when i'm taking training (i'm professional, after all), but it does show at other times. maybe they can sense it and are taking advantage.

haven't been going down to the shelter for a while. the last time was...3 weeks ago? something like that. been meaning to blog about the following point for a while, but you know...busy, forgot, other more important things, blah blah. so the point is this. volunteering at the shelter has made me realize that i just like to spend some time with the dogs, but i would not consider adoption. not at all. you see, it's all fine if i'm there for a few hours at a go to take them for walks, play with them, maybe clear up the occasional mess. the last thing's the problem, actually. i wouldn't mind playing all day with the dogs, but having to clean up after them is, to be honest, kind of gross. that's also one of the major reasons that i don't plan on having kids. if i REALLY had to adopt, i'd probably adopt my favourite dog (nicknamed mr fluffy). he's reasonably toilet-trained already, and his love for snacks should mean that any other training should be easy. but that's a big if.

some of the other volunteers call the dogs "kids". on a somewhat related note, some of my friends use "girlfriend/wife" when referring to their cars. i've never quite understood it. personally, i tend to think of the dogs as friends, or just plain dogs, which they are. as for cars...maybe partner? i don't know. not wife, definitely. i've always imagined it to be male, or at least not-female. well, whatever works for different people, i guess. it's just a form of address, after all. although it might be weird for unknowing passers-by to hear stuff like "don't forget your kid's leash", "did you de-tick the kids just now?", "your girlfriend is quite comfortable", "i just gave my girlfriend a wax and polish". of course, they can be twisted a little to have R21 connotations, but let's not go there.

this seems like a good place to end off. there's the SJC 60th anniversary thing going on tomorrow. my plan is to go, perform, and leave. maybe have a quick bite, depending. my partner and i had a short practice session earlier today. seems ok; i think it looks decent. but my opinion's biased. my objective criticism would be that i still have to work on the breakfalls for techniques #3 and #5, #1 to a lesser extent. and before that, i'm going to visit another judo club. my host from australia is back in town, and so is the ex-national coach. i saw him briefly earlier at SJF, but we didn't really catch up yet. hope there'll be sufficient time tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Don't let feelings get in the way.-

Safety checks are the #1 bane of my existence. ok, that might be an exaggeration. even then, they're surely among the top 5 banes. my lab is scheduled for one of those (safety checks, not banes...or maybe yes banes, based on the previous definition) tomorrow morning. and being the safety lead, i naturally have to be present. have i mentioned that i'm not a morning person? well now you know. forcing me to be in school at 9:30am to prepare for a 10:30am check is one very good way to annoy me. but well, it's in the job description. i am kind of grateful that my professor sent an email to everyone in the lab, asking for their cooperation. it's a small gesture, but it makes me feel that i've got his support. makes it that much more tolerable, i guess, even though i know it's a bit of a psychological trick.

i'm almost fully recovered! at last. was about ready to start screaming. my self-assessment is that i'm at about 85%-90% health, which is good enough for most activities in life. i guess it's good that i fall sick about twice a year. helps remind me to not take an unblocked nose for granted. and maybe it's my body's way of telling me to take things easy for a bit...although i'd much rather be informed via other means. sleeping for 5 days straight sounds like a good alternative.

went down for SJC training on tuesday, where i practised itsutsu no kata with my partner for the SJC anniversary demonstration. not sure if it was because i was still mildly sick then, or because i was tired after lab. whatever the reason, i was extremely annoyed by my partner that night. recap: i'm the uke and he's the tori for this kata. what that means is that i'm doing all the breakfalling. for some reason, he decided to start from the beginning every time there was a mistake. it sucked because the first breakfall is extremely hard (not hard as in difficult, hard as in high impact). think i might have repeated the set one too many times, because i kind of got tired, and my breakfall got weird, leaving me feeling like i sprained my last 2 left toes. still hurts a little to bend them.

objectively speaking, this restart after a mistake thing is a very good training method, and i'd usually be ok with it. the thing is, i'm the one doing all the breakfalling! in contrast, all my partner has to do for the kata is push and pull. to be fair, though, he probably has the right to demand something like that from me, because if the roles were reversed, i'm pretty sure that he'd have no problem repeating the breakfalls over and over again. hopefully things work out better this saturday, which is our final rehearsal before the actual day.

this got me thinking a bit. do partners always have to be on the best of terms with each other? by "partners", i mean all kinds of partners...training partners, business partners, lab partners, even people in a relationship. personally, i think that it would be impossible for two people to complement each other to the extent where friction doesn't exist between them at all. though i don't have the experience, i believe that even couples who have been married for decades still argue now and then. to cite an even more extreme case, i remember reading somewhere that penn and teller (i think, might have been some other famous pair) barely interact outside of their shows. i guess the more important thing is fitting together well when it counts.

surprisingly, i was also invited for a small-scale cat high old boys' dinner yesterday, at turf city. think this is organized for people who haven't showed up (or haven't been able to show up) at the regular saturday morning things. felt a tiny bit out of place, though. to put things in perspective, out of the 9 people there, i was the only one whose graduation year started with a "2". nevertheless, the atmosphere was nice and relaxed, and the food was good! i enjoyed myself, though i'm not sure if the rest minded that i wasn't really good for conversation.

serious thoughts on death rarely cross my mind...like once or twice a year at most. but it seems that when it does happen, someone i know passes away. it could be a coincidence, but i've had that happen thrice in my life already. what are my odds? but anyway. the thing that i was thinking about happened to be, "why are people so afraid of death?" i'll admit it right now. i'm afraid of death. for me at least, the reason is that we don't know what comes next. i mean, nobody has definitive proof of an afterlife, or of reincarnation, or stuff like that, right? it's not so bad for regular unknown stuff, like enlistment, or starting in a new school. at least you have time to prepare for it, and/or you have friends who can tell you what it's like. not so much for dying. the other thing about death that terrifies me is that i may lose all my memories. i just imagine myself going to sleep, and waking up as a baby, with no previous recollection of my previous life. and the one thing i wish i knew was, where was i before i was born? consciousness/sentience doesn't just spontaneously appear at birth and disappear at death, does it? with any luck, i'll have decades to go before this becomes a real worry. and you know what they say about worrying too much, right?

incidentally, these thoughts popped into my head a couple of sundays ago. somehow, one of the cat high old boys also passed away on that day. i really don't know if there's a link, but personally, i hope there isn't. not too keen to find out, either. this old boy used to go down to the saturday turf city things quite a lot, but i haven't seen him for the past 4 years or so. the scary thing is that he is/was the same age as my dad. his son (who was also from cat high) is...5 or 6 years younger than me. can't imagine how it must feel.

during army, i remember that my RSM would occasionally say something to the effect of, "i'm too nice to you, that's why you think you can climb over my head and ____ there is it!?" as you can imagine, it usually happened when we pushed our limits a little too far. by the way, fill in the blank. shouldn't be that hard. in case you still haven't got it, he was scolding us for taking advantage of his kindness. this quote has some significance to me at this point in time, because it seems that i'm letting the BPS brother climb over my head (no, not literally). normally, i don't really have problems with managing the CJC/SJI kids, so it's a bit puzzling. maybe i need more time to figure something out. after all, it's only been 3 weeks at most since i formally agreed to help out with their training. i should remember that certain things take time, and trying to rush it will only cause a bigger problem eventually. second reminder to self: every person is unique. what works for most people does not work for everyone.

previously, i noticed that shell fuel gave me higher/better economy, but couldn't be sure of the conclusion due to post-servicing being a variable as well. so i'm doing another experiment by using shell v-power for this current tank. then after this, i'm thinking of trying shell fuelsave again to confirm. the post-servicing thing shouldn't matter now, because i have the previous SPC tank, which was closer to the servicing, for comparison. my initial impression is that the v-power is better. not only does the car feel more powerful, i'm seeing better economy for now. as a reference, $70 of SPC petrol gets me about 400km (after discount, rounded off). let's see how v-power and fuelsave compare to that. i think what i'll do is make a dollar per km comparison, then decide which one i'm going to stick with. on a side note, v-power is expensive! maybe that's why i think it works...because having paid so much for it, i want it to work. and the shell rewards system is different from SPC. instead of a direct discount, they're doing point accumulation. i think there's a bit of a discount, but not as much as SPC. speaking of which, my friend recommended i get the new POSB debit card-cum-PAssion card-cum-EZ-link card-cum-nets paywave card-cum-some other stuff. it gives a 19% discount on petrol when used together with the SPC card. sounds tempting. only thing is i don't quite like the design. the current multitude card looks so much better to me. but trading appearance for monetary savings is worth it, right? after all, i'm an advocate of function over form. maybe i'll head to the bank one of these days to check it out.

-random thought of the day: My phone cable seems to be dying.-

Long bouts of illness are not fun. it's been almost a week, and i've not yet fully recovered from my cough. the nose feels a bit less blocked, thankfully. i should take comfort that even though i've been sick for a while, it's just a minor illness. with any luck, i should be laughing about it by this time next week. while on the topic of things to be thankful for, i'm quite grateful that it's been a rainy couple of days. the temperature should be more bearable for now.

the biggest thing that happened this week in school was (were, actually) the multitude of safety checks. we had 3 inspections over 2 consecutive days, and those just happened to be the days when i felt the worst. thanks, uncle murphy. well, we scraped through somehow, though not unscathed. have a re-inspection this coming friday, so i can't get off my toes just yet. damned safety lead role. thankfully i'm on good enough terms with the department safety people to be able to crack a few jokes here and there. helps ease the tension and prevents me from panicking too much. but still, it's serious business. have to make sure everything conforms to the requirements.

aside from that, the other big thing was refereeing today for the national junior championships or something like that. a seminar was held yesterday, and i got to see the impressive intake of potential referees. the seminar was enlightening, served as a good refresher for me, and got me really up to date with the new rules and some modified definitions. thankfully, i didn't have to participate in the theory/practical tests. yes, there's a theory test now. it's not difficult, but not that easy at the same time. still, i am of the opinion that anyone who paid attention during the seminar should have been able to pass it with relative ease...which is why i was surprised that some people didn't make it. guess not everything goes according to plan sometimes. watching the examinees referee today was mildly entertaining. as expected, there were many noob mistakes initially (eg. crossing their own bodies to give shido, saying "soremade" too quickly after giving score, forgetting to say it after ending the match, forgetting which side won, general nerves, too-fast gestures, etc.), but they visibly improved over the course of the day. thinking back to my own refereeing debut, i remember being ridiculously nervous, and awarding the wrong winner on my very first match. therefore, i can kind of understand how these errors came about. could be my own skewed perception of myself at work, but i don't remember making as many mistakes back then as the examinees did today. not that i'm putting them down or anything; good refereeing comes with experience and exposure. for their first competition, they did pretty well. and even the most veteran of referees (not that i qualify to be counted among that number) have off days. with this new bunch of referees being promoted, i can kind of feel myself moving up the ladder a little, and having to watch myself on the mats so that i set a decent-enough example. though i'm still waiting for promotion to SJF A. hopefully that happens within the year.

had a kata session with the BPS brothers yesterday as well. we recapped hand techniques, and went on to hip techniques. their form is improving, to the point where they MIGHT be able to pass grading if they decided to take the upcoming one in august. despite their judo ability, i have to remember that they are still kids. playful kids. playful kids who can be a handful. i don't want to go all authoritarian on them, because they're not my kids, but i have to be firm somehow since i am kind of responsible for them for training that is outside of their school's scheduled sessions. might want to feedback to their coach, ask him for his advice.

world cup is ongoing! i couldn't care less. the only snippets of news i can recall is that holland beat some other country 5-1 (and someone won $3000 from betting $10 on that score), croatia(?) lost the opening match, someone own-goaled(?)...that's about it. i know i'm a guy and all, but somehow, i don't get the appeal of soccer, basketball, baseball, F1 racing, etc. i kind of get/like rugby a little, judo (naturally) is something i appreciate. bowling too, but to a much lesser degree now. and this kind of ties in nicely to my next point. is it ok for me to express my (negative) opinion about a sport? my short answer: yes. long answer: it can be done, but i should keep it to myself/share it with only the appropriate people, or be prepared to face any backlash. for instance, if i said privately to a small group of friends that only idiots watch the world cup, we'd probably have a little friendly argument and laugh about it, but we'd remain friends. on the other hand, if i took out a full-page newspaper advertisement with that message, i'd be in for a lot of trouble. or i might just be dismissed as mad, which might end up being more convenient.

conversely, if someone said that judo was stupid, i'd feel offended, but curious at the same time. rather than being hostile immediately, i'd seek to understand their perspective, and hope that a common understanding could be reached after some mutual exchange of ideas. too bad not everybody thinks like that. the reason i'm writing about this is actually partially linked to the above paragraph. the BPS brothers did something of which i REALLY did not approve. reason being i thought that it was disrespectful. wonder if i came down a little too hard on them, though. i mean, they have every right to air their (controversial/incendiary) opinions. but when they do it on a public platform (think social media), that's just inviting unnecessary trouble. in the interest of the image of singapore judo and the people involved, not to mention inter-discipline relations, i told them to remove their post. don't know for sure if they did it, but i trust that they did since they gave me their word. i think it's not really a character fault...more of an immature mind, which tends not to see the big picture or think through possible consequences thoroughly. it should resolve itself with time/age, though. i just hope they understand the reason behind my actions.

better get to bed. have to make an effort to go to school earlier. must catch up on research, and balance the safety stuff concurrently. in this coming week, i'm scheduled to meet at least 2 groups of people for catch-up sessions. am quite looking forward to it. there's also the SJC 60th anniversary celebration thingy, which i'm quite neutral about. would rather not perform if i had a choice, but well. what to do?

-random thought of the day: Might be time for a haircut.-

Whenever i fall sick, i try to recall the last time that i was unwell. thankfully, i fall sick so infrequently that i usually can only remember that it happened about a few months ago. this particular bout of illness started manifesting symptoms about 2 days ago, and got worse last night/this morning. oddly, i didn't really feel it during SJC training, but it hit me when i got home. think it's because i haven't been eating and drinking all that well recently, not to mention the all-nighter in lab last friday. add that to the recent heatwave, and i guess that me falling sick doesn't come as much of a surprise. right now it's a semi-blocked nose, cough, and the beginnings of a sore throat...usual stuff, plus (i suspect) a bit of dehydration. with any luck, i'll recover in time for the referee seminar on saturday.

last you heard, i was going to meet up with my friend who had came back from the US. well, we met up on saturday, and watched x-men: days of future past. i liked the movie well enough, and the effects were nice.

*SPOILERS*

i just don't get how shadowcat gained the ability to send people into the past. and there was this website i saw that pointed out that mystique should not have been able to drop an article of clothing since she shapeshifts to make the appearance of clothes. hard to imagine professor x as a mutant druggie, too. not forgetting their insinuation the JFK was a mutant! other than that, i liked the fight scenes (blink was super cool!), though i wish they gave more screentime to older magneto. and since when was bolivar trask a little person!?? all in all, despite some inaccuracy, i think it was a great way to retcon and reconcile all the movies so far. can't wait for the next instalment in the series.

*END SPOILERS*

don't recall doing much on sunday, just that i went down to SJC to get approval for the kata performance. it was greenlighted, and we had our first practice session yesterday. even though the kata only consists of 5 techniques, it's pretty difficult to execute. i'm the uke, so i'm the one taking the falls and all that. the first and second techniques require special breakfalls, which are taking me a while to get used to. the second technique isn't that bad, since it's kind of like a poorly-executed rolling breakfall. the problem lies in the first technique, which requires a standing back breakfall done with a totally straight body. normally, we (i) tend to roll with a breakfall to help disperse the impact. but the image that has to be conveyed over here is "dead tree", so none of that rolling stuff. i'm actually feeling sore from the breakfalls yesterday. figure that it'll take a few more practice sessions to get it right (or at least passable).

i also saw the BPS brothers (new nickname!) for more nage no kata. they managed to get the sequence down, which is good. we focused more on the first set (hand techniques), and my partner and i tried to explain the principles to them. not sure if they were overloaded or not. i thought it was manageable. then again, i've known the key points for significantly a longer time than they have. well, i shouldn't have my expectations too high. they're new to kata, after all. at this point, any progress at all is good enough. as a reminder to myself, i have to work on: getting their form right (including details at a later stage), stopping the uke from jumping, their footwork/stepping, general confidence and smoothness, and synchronization. seems like a lot of stuff (and it probably is), but we have the luxury of time, so i'm not too worried yet.

on a slightly related note, i think that i shouldn't rush into anything with them. clarification: i mean that in the sense of a coaching relationship. every now and then, i'll get odd coaching urges. so far, it's happened once previously (that didn't end well), and now. odd because these guys aren't even from SJI/CJC. hopefully they'll go to CJC after secondary school, but that's still some distance away. right now, i think seeing them for kata sessions and getting to know them better is enough. one step at a time. my preliminary assessment/evaluation is positive, though, which is good. as much as i hope that we can build up trust quickly, some things just cannot be rushed.

have i mentioned that it's been baking hot these past few days? well, it has. funny, because it was still nice and cool-ish on saturday. after that, it's just been hot hot hot. humid, too! and no wind. killer combination. to be fair, it rained for a bit yesterday, but that didn't really do much. still had trouble getting to sleep...though that might also have been because of my nose. hope sleep comes easier tonight.

my laptop seems to be dying. 2 of the 3 USB ports have already died, and the touchpad just decided to join them on the lorry yesterday. i called the lenovo service centre, but got their automated thing which tried to connect me to a customer support person. i was on hold for 10 minutes. twice. and i still didn't get through! bugger. i'm fairly sure that my laptop is still covered by warranty (i remember getting the 3-year extended package). and i just found out that the service centre is located at bukit timah shopping centre, which is not too far from school. maybe i can drop by and get it fixed someday.

since i'm sick and all, i've contemplated taking the rest of the week off. that plan won't work, because there's a fire safety pre-inspection tomorrow, and the actual inspection on friday. guess who's the safety lead and thus has to be around? bugger X a million. well, i suppose it's good. forces me to work through the sickness. still have to get a few more syntheses done, and email a guy about a microwave reactor. on the bright side, i see pink skies on the horizon. maybe it'll rain a bit and relieve some of this damned heat.

-random thought of the day: Still need to check my tyres.-

Not only am i early for group meeting, i'm the first one in lab! ok. for full disclosure, i cheated. how? by staying overnight in lab again. not much choice, since i had 3 carbon NMR samples and an overnight slot. so i had to change samples at odd hours. was mildly annoyed that i overslept and missed the second sample change by an hour. hopefully i can get a nice spectrum for the last sample despite the reduced time. and as you'd expect, the last sample is the one i need to confirm the most. well, that's life.

went down to BPS yesterday to kaypoh around their judo training. i'm on pretty good terms with their coach, so i have a more or less open invitation to attend their training sessions. picked up a few coaching pointers, as well as some recent trends in technique development. i really like the atmosphere at BPS judo...it's warm. guess it's in line with it being a "family", as the coach was telling me. one thing that really really impressed me is that the kids who came in late (even the white belts!) stopped to bow to me after greeting the coach. i don't even see that kind of behaviour from the SJI/CJC kids! ok, to be fair, some of the seniors do do it. maybe it's because i didn't inform the juniors. then again, isn't it the seniors' job to do that? i mean, it's kind of egotistical for someone to be like, "bow to me!" right? also, i'm still trying to figure out how the coach maintains such good discipline in his class. it's like, the atmosphere is relaxed, there's laughing and joking, but at the same time, they're focused on their drills and stuff. not much idle chatter or people not actively participating, which i find to be an issue with SJI/CJC. should ask him for some tips, i think.

the coach also asked me to teach share nage no kata with 2 of the kids, who happen to be brothers. they're sec 3 and 4, and both are brown belts. went through the forms of the first 3 sets. considering that they're totally new to the kata, i think we made decent progress. there's still a fairly long way to go, though. hopefully i can see them through to black belt. i've already missed one opportunity somewhere else, so it would suck even more to miss another one.

halfway through talking to the BPS coach, he asked me about the difference between a coach and an instructor. based on my understanding, an instructor only teaches, a coach is more involved in the athlete's development, like guiding him towards his own style, devising a personalized training programme, and sometimes even playing a part in the athlete's life outside of the sport. i realize that i really want to be that kind of coach for some people...to be involved in other aspects of the athletes' lives even outside of judo. and that is both a great strength and weakness. it's fine when the athlete is agreeable to it. in fact, that one particular coaching success last year happened due to something of a similar nature. but when the athlete feels uncomfortable or doesn't take to it that readily, things fall apart very quickly. on my part, i guess what i can do is watch out for any signs, and react accordingly. also, i should probably know when to step back a little and give the athlete space. just for my future reference.

SJC turns 60 this year, and they're organizing some function in 2 weeks' time, and part of the programme is a kata demonstration. originally singapore's #1 were supposed to perform nage no kata. but they can't make it due to personal commitments. that then got assigned to my partner and his nage no kata partner...who will be overseas at that time. so now it falls to my partner and i to pull something off. oddly enough, he's decided on itsutsu no kata (translated: five forms). it's one of the two highest-level kata there is in judo, if not the absolute highest-level. that might be why i think that the movements look ridiculous; because i don't understand them all that well (or at all, actually). surprisingly, it's actually very short! like, the whole thing lasts about 2 minutes from starting bow to ending bow. we're probably going to be at SJC tomorrow to give it a try, and possibly get feedback. i'm half hoping they decide to just scrap the kata demonstration, but there's no way i'm that lucky.

less than half an hour to go before group meeting. still considering whether i should make a quick canteen trip to get something light (like bread) or wait until after group meeting for lunch. actually i think group meeting will have started by the time i decide. so, later it is. nice how my decisions get made for me sometimes. since i stayed overnight, i think i've earned the right to leave right after group meeting. i mean, i can do that even under normal circumstances, but it doesn't look good when practically the whole lab stays back to do some work. but today, i feel justified. good thing too. if i'm not mistaken, my friend just got back from the US, like he landed early this morning. we should be arranging to meet up soon...possibly as soon as later today or tomorrow. wonder if he's watched x-men yet?

-random thought of the day: Morning people are scary.-

Man, it's been an emotional couple of days. first thing first, results.

CM5198: S
as expected. nothing much to say about this, really. of all the components (research presentation, scientific presentation, online presentation, attending seminars, 3 write-ups), i think the online was the worst. i had to deliver the presentation in one take, and it sucked quite bad to play back my own voice recording. nevertheless, all things considered, it wasn't that bad. in fact, it was my slackest module this sem, if not ever.

LAJ3201: S
taking japanese was not my smartest choice this semester. it detracted me from my research more than i'd like to admit. somehow, i think i lost out on both ends here. being distracted by japanese meant that i couldn't/didn't focus on research, and having slow research progress meant that i tried to compensate at the expense of japanese. there's a destructive cycle if i ever saw one. but anyway, it's over, and i passed. have to get my nice shiny intermediate-level certificate from arts. i think what i'll do is get the japanese 6 textbook next sem and learn at my own leisure.

CM5225: B
the last time i saw a B on my grades was in year 4 sem 1, for med chem. the grade is less than ideal, especially since this is supposed to be my area of expertise. but well. since it still keeps me within the safe range, i'll take it. somehow, i think my presentation saved me for this module.

CM5262: A-
the final was manageable, so that was good. didn't like the brute-force memorization that was required, though. i swear, i've forgotten most of the content already. the primary purpose of this module was to clear the requirement and hopefully pull CAP, so in that sense, it worked.

semester CAP: 4.00
overall CAP: 4.25

that brings me back down to second-upper honours, and is 0.01 lower than my final undergrad CAP. not like it really matters any more, but just for comparison's sake. i just realized how damned hard it is to keep a first-class CAP. with one 1 module to go, there's no way i can bring it back up. assuming i got an A for the last module, that would put me at CAP 4.4 only, which is just 0.1 off. well...i don't know. i figure that CAP above 4 is good enough.

as usual, there were a few people posting their results on facebook. one of the honours students in my lab got first-class honours. it's really stupid, but i felt this irrational surge of jealousy when i saw his post. what's worse is, he will probably not be competing with me for jobs or anything in the (foreseeable) future, because he's bonded to MOE. not only that, his degree will have no effect on me at all...at least none that i can think of. have no explanation for my feelings sometimes.

the biggest thing so far this week was one of my friend's relationship issues. not going to post details, since they were shared in confidence. suffice to say that "complicated" barely scratches the surface. but anyway, we've met up twice just this week alone, which is way more compared to the once in a few months i normally see him. first time was for dinner at itacho sushi in ion orchard. didn't go crazy with the bill this time, which was nice. was still expensive, though. regardless, we ate reasonably well. today's meeting was for supper at the upper thomson branch of rochor tau huay. we talked, and it seems that he's a little kancheong about some things, probably not helped by the girl being overseas now. she'll only be back next week, so i've been telling him to calm down and wait until then. hope i did him some good.

i still find it weird that i'm capable of dispensing relationship advice when i've never been in a relationship myself. that same friend mentioned that it's because i'm an independent, objective observer, so i can give a balanced, fair perspective on things. but i do wonder...how good of a job am i doing given that i don't have the first-hand experience? guess there's no way i'll really know. actually, let's go a step further back and ask, what's the job in the first place? reassuring my friends? acting as counsellor? offering them an alternative viewpoint, or a course of action? could be one (or more) of those, actually. i figure that as long as my friends continue coming to me for this kind of stuff, i must be doing something right...or they're just that desperate.

going to just wrap up with some car talk since it's getting late. can't remember if i'd mentioned it earlier, but i sent the car for servicing about 2 weeks ago. at the same time, i decided to test how shell petrol worked. could be either/both of these factors that caused my fuel economy to go back up to more than 10km/L. now that i've just topped the tank up yesterday with SPC petrol, i'm at about 80km with about 1/5 of the tank gone, meaning that i'll get about 400km total. could be due to the different petrol, or because a longer time passed since servicing. not sure. i'll have to test that by pumping shell petrol again next time for a comparison. also, i noticed that my tyres were inflated to WAY higher pressures than the recommendation. not sure if it was done accidentally or deliberately. after some reading on the internet, it seems that going about 5psi above the recommended is normal. but in this case, the pressure is almost twice of the recommended, so i really don't know. or it might have been because i checked the pressure on a hot day, so the tyres expanded. think i'll go check again in cooler weather, and see how from there.

-random thought of the day: Plan well!-

Time to get some stuff out of my system. coincidentally/ironically, i was just thinking to myself last night that i'd survived quite well, considering that i hadn't been blogging for the past week or so. that went downhill quite rapidly today. why, you ask? kata competition, that's why. my partner and i came in third for ju no kata...out of 3 teams. we lost to singapore's #1 ju no kata pair (for future reference in this post, "the girls"), as well as singapore's #1 nage no kata pair (for future reference in this post, "the guys"). yes, you read that right. it's not a typo. i won't deny it; it kind of stings, and i am quite upset now. reason being that the guys only began training in ju no kata a little more seriously this past wednesday, and they had actually taken part in the category just to try...in other words, for fun. and then you have my partner and i, who have been training for the past...2 to 3 months? something like that. i'm not saying that we should win because we trained for a longer time. i know when i've been outperformed, and today wasn't one of those times. i can happily accept losing to the girls, because i know that they're THAT much better than us. even losing to the guys in nage no kata is practically expected, because i know i'm way below their standard. after 25 years on this planet, i would like to think that good sportsmanship and logical, objective thinking are qualities that i've picked up. but this...it's hard to swallow, mainly because there's nothing to show for our hours of practice, and the effort we put in analyzing each technique, trying to get all the little details right. so frustrating.

let's do some analysis of the variables. since i was performing the kata, i (obviously) can't tell you how i did from a third-person perspective. based on what i felt, however, the pace was ok, general forms of the techniques were there. as far as i remember, i initiated all the steps with the correct foot, and the lifting felt stable enough. our execution wasn't perfect, though...i know i made a mistake on technique #10 (not moving from elbow to wrist), while my partner made a mistake on technique #15 (wrong positioning to turn me). those were the two most glaring errors that i was aware of. i'm sure that there are many many more things we did wrong, but being involved in the kata, not having a video reference, as well as not knowing the exact judging criteria makes it difficult to identify our own mistakes. of course, i'm not going to discredit the guys; they did an admirable job. in particular, i liked their lifting for techniques #3 and #4. call me biased, but despite that, i felt that we did a little better overall.

even though i felt we did a little better, why did we still lose in the end? there are a multitude of possible reasons. my assessment of our performance could be wrong, for instance. or the judges saw something else that i missed. maybe what we thought was right is actually wrong. or there are some other reasons that i didn't think of or don't want to write down. who knows? the final outcome is that we lost. this is, to me, the biggest difference between judging kata and refereeing for shiai. in shiai, there is a clear system to award the scores. even a beginner can tell whether a throw is good or not. and there's a jury panel, who will correct any mistakes that the referees make. not to forget that scores are given on the spot, so the audience knows what's going on. for kata, it's largely impression-based. i mean, there are some guidelines, but they're not widely known. the way i practise is that i know the key points of a technique, as well as the things to avoid, and i try to aim towards "perfect" execution. maybe i'm doing it wrong. the score breakdown is also usually not available, so we don't know where exactly we went wrong. all we usually see is a number that indicates our final score. don't get me wrong...i'm not calling for any changes to be made to the scoring system. just that i feel its a little ambiguous.

on the bright side, the guys were gracious enough to say that it was a fluke. there's some comfort in that, but it still doesn't change the result. i don't think i've mentioned that this was a national ranking competition, right? maybe that's another reason i'm feeling bad about it. well...at least it's over. it's a valuable learning experience, both for kata, as well as in expecting the unexpected and managing disappointment. as usual, the next logical question is "what now?". well, the expected response would be to look forward and train harder for whatever the next event may be. but to be honest, i'm thinking of taking a bit of time off from kata, possibly from judo entirely. the wound will take some time to heal, i guess. and i kind of don't want to see the kata people for a while. they're not to blame in any way; it's completely my weird/irrational thinking, that much i know. it's just that for a physical wound to heal properly, you have to get rid of all the dirt, broken glass, whatever's in it before disinfecting and applying the bandage, right? same thing for emotional wounds. being around them and having to maintain a poker face is like applying the bandage when everything's still dirty on the inside. the wound won't heal well. furthermore, with that kind of mental state, practising kata would be non-constructive at best, destructive at worst. so, until i feel that i can honestly say that i've let it go, i'll conveniently go missing for a while.

judo aside, research has been mostly rocky. i am increasingly doubtful that this is the right path for me. maybe i should take my senior's advice, which was to quit after masters and start again in japan, maybe in a different research area. it's increasingly tempting to think like this, you know, when reactions don't work out, or when things are going to hell, as they seem to be doing in my case right now. and i was doing a little reading up on applying for PR in japan. seems there's a point system in place, the more points the better. you can get points based on your education level (bachelors, masters, or phd), income, japanese linguistic ability (JLPT N1 only, unfortunately), age (most points for being under 30), and some other stuff, like if you're working in a highly specialized field. i don't know...it does sound nice. but at the same time, there'll definitely be issues that i haven't accounted for, and probably some that i didn't even know existed.

i swear, i've been forgetting this next bit for the last 3 weeks or so. i did go to see my japanese final test paper in the end. got 52.5 (or 52, can't remember exactly)/80, which is below the class average of 56-ish. it's more of a blow to my pride than anything. i'm still fairly confident of getting an S. guess i'll know for sure tomorrow, since it's results day. somehow, results day stopped being scary after i finished undergraduate studies. if my predictions are right, i should end up with 2 S'es, a B/B+ and a B-/B. CAP is expected to drop from last sem, but i should still have a decent buffer. speaking of grades, i passed the written QE. this news is even older. believe me, i've meant to post about it, but somehow, i just kept forgetting. it's definitely good news, because i won't have to relive the nightmares of physical and analytical any more.

guess that covers about everything i can remember up till now. think i'll be pulling off more late nights in school, and maybe even a few all-nighters. i really have to get in the game for research. what one of my friends said might be true...one of the root causes might be my lack of communication with my professor. think i should email him way more frequently and let him feel my presence more often.

-random thought of the day: Even monkeys fall from the tree.-