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.
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.-
No comments:
Post a Comment