Waking up at about 3:00pm kind of killed my plans to go into lab today. so instead, i spent (what was left of) the day rotting and generally not being productive. figured i can afford one day of slacking.

it hasn't been too long since my last post, so i don't have much to say. but some interesting stuff did happen, which i kind of want to share. like i mentioned in the previous post, i went down to the bank to get a new debit card, and check on the credit card. the debit card application went smoothly, with an added surprise. since it's SG50, i didn't have to pay for the PA thing. still makes me slightly uncomfortable though, to be "forced" to be a PA member. well...as long as i remember to cancel the membership when the debit card expires.

credit card application didn't go that smoothly, unfortunately. it seems that the card i'm looking at was launched only recently, so much so that the website hadn't been updated and the bank staff couldn't direct me to the appropriate page or even get me the right form. instead, they asked me to call the credit card hotline, which i did. the lady there was most helpful, and offered to mail me a copy of the relevant form. she also told me that i should have gone to DBS to get it done, rather than POSB, as since the card is a DBS product, there's a higher chance that the form would have been available there. ah whatever. i'll go down if the form doesn't come in the mail by this week.

i was just looking through my finances. having a car really does eat up a large portion of my money! don't get me wrong, i still think it was a worthwhile purchase. the bulk of expenditure on the car goes to the monthly instalments, which will end by this july (YES!). after that, i should have a lot more disposable income, which should increase even further after the QE at the end of the year. that should not translate into increased spending...at least i hope it won't. i think i'm at the stage in life where i have to start doing some planning for my future, for things like buying a house, investments, rainy-day scenarios, that sort of thing. i guess it's a good thing that i have friends and relatives in the insurance/financial planning sector. should really find out what i'm already covered for, and what i can do to make my money work for me, other than parking it in the bank with the best interest rate.

sorry for the digression. there was a meetup with some of the JC judo people, where we played blackjack. didn't bring much money, since i didn't expect to be gambling. was down at first, but a turn at being the banker/dealer brought me way up. then i played a little less reservedly to help minimize losses for some of the others, and ended up winning ~$30 overall. definitely can't complain. the atmosphere was nice and relaxed, with plenty of laughs. i'm grateful that the host thought of and included me in this, since we barely keep in contact. i think i see him like once a year, tops. have i mentioned that for some reason, a relatively large number of people from my cohort in CJC went on to study law? there are like 3 lawyers in judo alone, plus i know another 3 to 4, easy. anyway, since it was a gathering of judo people, the topic of my refereeing suspension came up. here's where i think it's REALLY nice to have lawyer friends. upon hearing my brief summary of events, the lawyer friend who was present said that what the SJF did was illegal. not just illegal as in against the SJF constitution, but illegal as in like, against singapore law...like, there can potentially be a court case, which i'll more or less definitely win. learning that piece of information made my day more than winning at blackjack, really. i don't want to resort to such drastic measures (don't have the time or money), but it certainly strengthens my position, and gives me a very powerful last resort. maybe i should casually bring that up when talking to the referee director next time...

went to novena to meet my JC friend for dinner after that. another guy was supposed to join us, but he had something on and cancelled last-minute. so it ended up just being two of us. i had this odd chicken rice craving, so we went to united square, then novena MRT, in search of an open chicken rice place. you'd think that by the third day of CNY, business would be back to normal, right? apparently not. guess everyone wants to make full use of the long weekend. since chicken rice didn't work out, my friend suggested tomi sushi at novena square. i've walked past it more times than i can remember, but never eaten there before. why not give it a try, right? so we did. the prices were bordering on ridiculous, but the quality of food was good enough to somewhat justify that. what DID justify that were the japanese staff! both of us came to the same conclusion that if a japanese food place has japanese staff, its standard can't be too far off. then again it might be some psychological thing going on, too. but i'll choose to believe the former. thankfully, my friend was feeling generous that night, and footed a part of my share of the bill too. doesn't seem like much, but you'd know exactly how much that means if you knew this friend in real life, and his usual stand on money.

after dinner, we headed back to his house for a bit and watched avatar (blue aliens, not master of all 4 elements), which happened to be showing on channel 5. call me a mountain-turtle, but i didn't catch it in the cinemas. in fact, yesterday was the first time i watched it. the whole "connecting with animals" thing kind of creeped me out. i'm ok with forming a psychic bond and all, but do the white connecting things really have to move like that!? kind of gross. the graphics were great, though. might also have been because of my friend's HDTV. incidentally, does anyone else feel that HD makes a lot of things look fake? like, there's no way movement can be that smooth, or for colours to be so outstanding. i don't know. might just be my eyes, for all i know. both of us came to the conclusion that the movie was actually quite racist...like it showed white man's supremacy over the technologically-backward tribal natives. and i think the blue aliens were modelled upon native american and african tribespeople. admittedly *SPOILER ALERT* the tribespeople won out in the end, but still...i don't know. before going home, i had a pretty deep talk with my friend. although i was kind of annoyed with the other guy for cancelling on us, i was also somewhat grateful since it was easier for us to talk one-on-one, which his absence facilitated. so...yes. another "success", i think. my assessment has been good so far. go me! have to keep the streak going.

school as per normal tomorrow. it's been a good few days of rest, and i'm actually quite looking forward to be back in lab tomorrow. should do some columns and NMRs. hopefully at least ONE of my reactions would have worked. and i was mistaken last post. my professor is off this coming week too, which means that i'll only have to present next thursday. thank goodness. really have to get cracking.

-random thought of the day: Feeling incredibly lucky.-

CNY day 2 sees me back in lab, doing some simple reaction work-up. again, i'm not complaining; nobody forced me to come back. i'm a little worried that i may not have the correct product...that's pending a column, which i will run on either sunday or monday. upon reading the procedure again, i realize that i may have misunderstood the instructions for one step, and that might have caused me to lose most of my product. bugger. thankfully, i still have some of the starting material, and the reaction is only an hour long. think i'll do the reaction again before going for the CNY gathering which my friend is organizing tomorrow.

seems to me like CNY is the chinese equivalent of thanksgiving and/or christmas, where families get together and do stuff together that they wouldn't normally do the rest of the year, like tolerate each other's presence. so i figured, what more appropriate time for me to talk about this particular quote - "blood is thicker than water". disclaimer: i'm not a linguist nor a historian, so i could very well be wrong. but i've checked the info against some reliable-looking sources, so i hope that's my due diligence covered. anyway, the most common interpretation of "blood is thicker than water" is that family ties (blood) are more important than relationships with friends (water). seems fine and well, but from what i've read, it means the exact opposite. the full quote goes, "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". to translate into plain english, it basically means that the bonds which you've made by blood (ie. blood brothers, a somewhat archaic concept) are more valuable than those with the person who gave birth to you.

personally, i tend to agree more with the latter interpretation. after all, you can (and often do) choose the people with whom you associate, but you have no control over who is related to you, or which family into which you're born. so why should you force yourself to fit in with them? if you get along well with your parents/siblings, that's good for you, but i feel that you shouldn't have to bend over backwards to please them, or make unreasonable concessions for their sake(s). and before you say that a person should be indebted to their parents for the gift of life, and all the years of upbringing, i think that it should be the opposite, that parents are obligated to bring their children up until they can be self-sufficient. after all, i don't think children ask to be born. in fact, i'd go as far as to say that everyone has absolutely no control over their birth. as such, parents, who are responsible for creating this new person, should be responsible for it...up till a certain age, i guess. otherwise, there'd be people permanently relying on their parents, which wouldn't be fair as well. i believe that it's a somewhat unpopular opinion, but well, that's my analysis. incidentally, that's also one of the more major reasons i don't want kids.

was just browsing through the POSB website, looking through the debit and credit cards. my current debit card is set to expire in about 3 months, and i figured that i should get a replacement. at present, the PAssion debit card looks the most attractive, because i get a 19% discount on petrol at SPC, which is the brand i use most often anyway. this is in contrast to the 15% i get with my current debit card. 4% may not seem like much, but savings' savings. only thing bugging me is the PA membership. in addition, i was also looking at getting a credit card, namely the DBS live fresh student credit card. although it's not a necessity, i think it's good for a couple of reasons: (1) if i use a credit card like i use a debit card and pay all the bills on time, i'll have a better credit score (correct me if my understanding is wrong). (2) i can use my OCBC account to pay this card bill, contributing to the 3 bill payments a month thing, which i will need once the car loan is fully paid in july. (3) there might be other small benefits, like from the cards' rewards programs or whatever. i realize that aside from 0.3% cashback upon a minimum spend per quarter, my debit card does essentially nothing value-added for me. will probably make a trip down to the nearby POSB branch tomorrow to get clarification and possibly submit the applications.

suddenly, i feel a tiny bit overwhelmed. don't know why, either. might be because of my reactions, or the upcoming plans with friends...maybe both. i'm sure things will work out eventually. as a reminder to myself, check out the bank tomorrow morning, then come back to lab to run a column and/or start a new reaction, go to my friend's CNY thing in the afternoon, meet JC friends for dinner. sunday will most probably be free, or i just might go back to lab again. or maybe set up a dinner appointment with a friend i've been wanting to meet for a while. it's then back to normal on monday, and i'm meeting my weird ex-NDU friend on tuesday night. i should probably state here that to me, "weird" doesn't have a negative connotations when i use it to describe people. quite the opposite, actually. the last thing on the current agenda is dinner with a few judo elders next saturday evening. oh. and i think i'm due to present for group meeting this thursday. rats. don't know if i have enough data to present or not. should probably put a few more reactions to stir, right?

-random thought of the day: Something still feels off.-

Big problems can be caused by small things, as i was reminded when i stepped on a splinter today. probably happened at the judo club, because i suddenly felt a stabbing pain coming from my sole after a bit of warming up. luckily one of the other coaches had nail clippers, which i used to pull the damned thing out. tweezers would have been preferable, but since nobody had any, i had to make do. didn't end too badly, since i still managed to achieve the desired outcome. upon inspection after i got it out, the thing was like a few mm long at most. the amount of pain it caused was definitely not proportional to its size. much like how one single moron can potentially cause a traffic jam, or how one (or a few) power-hungry bugger(s) can kill an organization. just saying. draw references at your own risk.

as if to make up for my sucky thursday, friday the 13th went really well! somewhat ironic, but i'm not complaining. got done in lab at 8:00+, which was relatively early. dropped a lab senior off, then went to meet my car fanatic secondary school friend for dinner and a drive. i've blogged about him before...he's the psychologist with the tattoo. it was quite spontaneous, actually. we started tossing the idea around after he commented on my "1 year of happiness" post the day before, then we firmed plans up on the day itself. i realize that not everyone will be willing to extend a friendly hand, or even reach towards your extended hand, so i should really focus more on those who do reciprocate. not saying to ignore the rest, but just to prioritize. anyway. we had dinner, then we swapped cars for a short drive around serangoon. he drives a civic as well, though it's 1.8L and somewhat modified. driving his car felt...different. i mean, it was basically the same car, so i was familiar with the dashboard layout and all that. but somehow, it wasn't a perfect fit...which is to be expected. driving it was a great experience, though minor things like seat position, mirror alignment, and this huge bear keychain hanging from the rear-view mirror blocking a bit of my view kind of subtracted from the overall score. and maybe i'm not sensitive to it yet, but for all the modifications, i didn't feel that it was very much different from my car. i mean, i'm beat in terms of power and acceleration, that's a given. but other things like handling, braking, smoothness...about the same. maybe i can't appreciate it.

midway through driving, i was just thinking that my car is really MY car, as in, everything there is adjusted for my comfort and convenience. like even from the passenger's seat, i know where everything is, what button does what, and can reach for everything relatively easily. perhaps the most telling thing: my phone fits perfectly into the holder. for some strange reason, it gives me a sense of pride. sounds stupid, but well, i don't care. we talked for another good 2 to 3 hours after our drive. he was basically trying to teach me about car stuff, and i tried to understand what i could. it's actually not that difficult once someone breaks it down for you and explains the technical terms in simple language...much like science. well, it actually is science, if you're being technical about it. it was interesting, but i'm not much of a car fanatic, so that'll all be trivia as far as i'm concerned, i guess. the thing i find interesting is that we view our cars in pretty much the same way. not as a girlfriend or a wife, or even as a spouse of any sort, but as a reliable buddy/partner with whom we've been through thick and thin, and who will always be there for us no matter what. maybe that's why we click.

had fun yesterday too, first with CJC/SJI training, where they had shiai, and i refereed for a bit. really getting rusty. need a refresher course, ideally the upcoming referee seminar. hopefully the management will unsuspend me in time. we'll see. then, it was lunch with a few seniors, where we planned out more details for our upcoming japan trip. seems like it'll be the standard tokyo, osaka, kyoto, nara thing like my grad trip some time back. difference is that for this trip, we'll be spending more time in osaka, so we can do a bit more exploration there. i must admit, i didn't really do thorough research about the attractions last time. just went around with my friends, taking in the sights. now that i've had a hand in the planning, it suddenly seems more exciting! then again, it could also be because last time, we were pretty much free and easy with only very vague ideas of what we wanted to do. this time, it's a bit more...specific, i guess, in that we're trying to fit everyone's wants into the schedule.

that same night, i went over to scary's place for mahjong. lost quite badly...like $77 kind of badly. in my defence, i haven't touched mahjong for at least 2 to 3 years prior to this. understandably, my senses would not be as sharp. adding on the fatigue as the night wore on, you can imagine that my mind was not the sharpest there. wasn't TOO bad, i did enjoy myself quite a lot. and i got to meet scary's sister too! she happens to know some of my cat high bowling juniors, as they're currently in NUS bowling together. yet another reminder that the world is small. interesting trivia: the scary siblings do look quite alike! you'd think that that's a given, but you also have people like me, who don't resemble their siblings at all. and although i don't like them romantically (scary's attached, not to mention way too close a friend), i must admit that they have good genes, and look really good. luck of the draw, i guess. of course, they probably do their part to maintain themselves as well.

went for a carwash after judo today. seems like the SPC at AMK avenue 1 does a better job than the braddell road one, which is where i usually go. something just told me to try a different branch, and i'm happy that i did! hopefully the weather will cooperate, and not rain for the next 1 to 2 weeks. or even if there must be rain, can it be away from where the car will be? i think raining in pasir ris or tuas would be pretty safe. you know about the construction works going on right outside my place, right? the home for the elderly that was greenlighted despite a residents' petition and a lame-ass attempt to find alternate sites? thing about construction work is that a LOT of dust/sand is generated, and since i park in the lots right next to the damned thing, the car gets dirty really really quickly. it's not even funny; the last time i went for a carwash, all it took was 2 days for the coat of sand/dust to build up again. so in an effort to stretch my dollar for this most recent carwash, i've decided to try relocating to a different carpark that's further away from the construction site, but still within 50m of the lift. hopefully with some natural and man-made obstacles (trees and my block respectively) in between the car and the construction, less dust will reach the car.

(not literally) at the same time, i also went for a haircut. the hairdresser took a bit too much off of the sides, i think. it looks almost like my army hairstyle. but well. i'm still presentable, and the hair will grow back. no point getting too upset over it, unless it's something like a inverse mohawk, like what mr bean did to that kid in the TV show. the hairdresser put something in my hair to style it. although i think it did look pretty good, i can't be bothered to spend X dollars on the product, and spend X minutes in front of the mirror trying to get that look. the most i go as far as hair products are concerned is shampoo. not even conditioner. and as for styling, does towel-drying and a quick run-through with my fingers count? that's all i do, basically. as you might guess, i'm a pretty low-maintenance kind of guy. physically low-maintenance, i mean. like i don't do facial masks, deep cleansing, any of that. someone had to explain what body butter was to me. until now, i still don't really get it. all the steps: wash, exfoliation, some product, body butter...something like that. pretty sure i got the sequence wrong. but my point is, are the benefits really SO significant that people would waste time and money as compared to using regular shower gel/soap and water? don't know, probably won't ever find out.

part of the reason i decided to get the carwash and haircut is because it's going to be CNY in like 3 more days. main reason was that my hair was getting long and uncomfortable, and the car was getting way too dusty/dirty. i don't think i've done this in previous years, because as far as i remember, this year was the first time i realized that prices go up during the CNY period! for instance, the carwash was $1 more expensive, and i paid almost double the usual price for the haircut! so so scary. i think it's just an excuse to jack up prices for more profit. not exactly right, but not legally wrong either. well...lesson learnt. time this sort of things such that i won't be affected by the price hike. maybe like cut hair a month before, wash car a week after. something like that. alternatively, get this sort of thing done at non-chinese establishments. no reason to raise prices if you're not celebrating, right?

-random thought of the day: The meaning of CNY diminishes with each passing year.-

All things considered, today wasn't one of the better days i've had. well, it actually started from last night, when the construction company blocked off about 60 lots of the downstairs carpark for some reason or another. and this was without informing residents, i think. there was no notice put up near the lift, as is the usual practice, nor were flyers or anything distributed to inform us...or at least, i didn't receive anything. thankfully i managed to get a lot which was reasonably close to the lift, like 80 metres away? thereabouts. my bad luck with carparks (and traffic in general) lasted through most of today as well. firstly, a quarter of the science season carpark was closed off! what are my odds such that both home and school carparks would be affected on the same day!? so i went up to the satellite centre, which was also full, and which is a rare occurrence in itself. next alternative, SRC. there were lots there, thankfully. not-so thankfully, i got into a minor accident.

for those who don't know the SRC carpark layout, it's a two-lane, one-way road that goes round in a circle/oval, and there are lots to each side of the road. so i was on the left lane, and there was a small truck to my right. we were pretty much side-by-side, when the truck driver suddenly turned into my lane to reverse-park into a lot. and the only reason that happened would be because he didn't check his blind spot. of course, i jammed on the brake and horn simultaneously, wound down my window, and flipped him off, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction, given the circumstances. my mistake was that i didn't think too much of it at that time, and drove away to park. the preliminary assessment was that everything was fine, and i probably stopped in time. granted, the preliminary assessment was rather rushed, since going to 3 different carparks killed my planning and almost made me late for NMR. before leaving for home tonight, i had enough time to look over the area more carefully, and i noticed that a bit of the edge of the front bumper had came out. the only way that would have been possible is if there had been a minor collision, which i probably didn't feel. managed to push it back into place, so that's a relief. makes me wonder if one day, my front bumper will just give up and fall off while i'm on the road. that would be a sight to behold, i'm sure. but let's not jinx anything.

junior senior wanted driving practice today, so he drove home again. and wouldn't you believe it, the traffic lights were down at the 4-way junction next to north point. actually, given my horrible luck today, i *would* believe it. we got stuck at the traffic light for about 5 minutes. considering it usually takes about 2 minutes maximum to clear that junction, i was a little annoyed. worse is that when on the way home, i forgot that going by SAFRA/OCC would have allowed me to bypass that same junction altogether. ended up getting stuck there again...for about 10 minutes this time. it was so, so frustrating. hopefully things return to normal tomorrow.

lab was pretty frustrating as well. my reaction failed, for the second time. i'm sure the intermediate from the first step is pure and correct, since i have a nice, clean NMR spectrum whose integration matches the expected values. that brings the integrity of the other reagent into question. that's why i've scheduled a mass spec tomorrow, to test whatever crude product i have left, the product obtained after column, and the reagent i'm suspicious about. unless there's no reaction at all, either the reagent's spoilt, or the product decomposes in column. i'm more inclined to believe the former. will know for sure after the mass spec. in the event that everything is fine, i may have to either use a catalyst, or modify the final structure of the compound. bugger. but well, it's research. i would have to be super lucky if everything goes nicely according to plan.

before i forget again, like i did yesterday, i just wanted to let you all know that i failed the JLPT. quite badly, to boot. but as i've said many times before, i probably don't deserve to pass, considering how much/little studying i did. not sure how things will go from here. don't think i can cram hard enough to make it for the upcoming june/july one. maybe i should sign up for prep classes? and with plans for me to do my QE presentation this december, i don't think taking it then would be a good idea either. well...it's nothing urgent. just would be nice to clear ASAP, but i won't die even if i end up never taking the test. see what the future has in store, i guess.

-random thought of the day: Sleep off the negativity.-

'Nobody said it was easy...'

yes, coldplay, i know. don't rub it in. running into a few minor snags in my synthesis is a good reminder that life can't be smooth-sailing all the way. this reaction trouble is nothing that a bit of troubleshooting won't fix. to be fair, i'm taking quite a few shortcuts, like not using perfectly dry solvent and not maintaining an inert atmosphere, to name my first 2 modifications if this round of reactions still goes badly. the TLC looks somewhat promising, though. like 2 spots for one reaction, though the other one's just one long streak which may or may not contain multiple compounds. hoping that tomorrow's crude NMR will give me some good news.

i was kind of too fatigued in the last post to really talk about what's been going on. let's see...my previous professor burned bridges, my kata partner got married, and more recently, i had driving practice with a few people, and we had a barbeque at my professor's place. that should about cover the past week and a bit. so, for my old professor burning bridges, what happened was that he "caught" me in the old lab, taking dry THF. the reason i write "caught" in quotes is because i'm not in the wrong. even when i was still under him, people from various other labs have been coming to take dry solvent, and we've never turned anyone away. although he didn't say anything to me at that time, he later shot me an email advising me to spare a thought for his group members and not use up their limited resources. it might make sense to a casual observer, but having been from his lab, i know that there's literally enough solvent to bathe in. so obviously that line won't work on me. but well, he's the professor, so i have to accord him the necessary respect, and not let him see me do such things any more. thankfully, i'm on very good terms with most of the postdocs and grad students, so we can still work things out. guess my good karma came in handy here.

as for my kata partner getting married, it was a top-secret thing. most of his friends (myself included) didn't know until the wedding was over, and we were invited to his post-wedding reception. true to his style, it was completely informal and laid back, gifts optional. among the judo people, only another friend and i turned up. although we mainly kept to ourselves at first, we eventually began talking to some of the more outgoing people there. it was that night when i realized that although we've been partners for something like 2 years, and have known each other for like 7 or 8 years before that, there are still a fair few things i don't know about my partner. well...i suppose i know the important things, like his character, his technical proficiency, (some of) his weaknesses, and above all, that i can trust him. i figure other things like what he was like as a kid, his family history, his job(s) etc. are things which would be nice to know, but are ultimately not essential to us functioning effectively. as it is, i think we already complement each other decently, both in kata and in coaching. then again, i haven't been training or coaching with him for a good 6 months already. even then, i think we'll quickly fall back into sync if we started again. that night was also the second time i met his wife. the first time i met her was a couple of years back, when she was still his girlfriend. or were they even dating then? i have no idea. but yes. she's nice, and i have a pretty good impression of her. still, my thoughts don't matter that much. after all, i'm not the one who married her. though for what it's worth, i hope they'll be happy together.

driving practice is actually quite misleading. while i suppose driving every day counts as practice for me, i'm actually referring to letting a couple of people i know drive the car. the first person is the junior senior whom i mentioned last post. he drove from NUS back to his place in yishun on monday. some background information: i've known him for close to 10 years, since he was sec 1 and when i was J2. so, i think i've got a pretty good idea of what he's like. true to expectation, he was pretty steady on the road. only things i felt he could improve on were his braking, which was jerky (excusable, given the car is unfamiliar to him), and his position in the lane (too close to the left for my liking). other than that, i have basically no complaints, and would rate him at a B+ to A-. in fact, i think i'd be confident enough to let him drive solo if he performs equally well for the next 1 or 2 practice drives. unfortunately, the girl cancelled on him, so he won't be needing the car on saturday after all. on the bright side, more practice time for him! the other person is my lab senior, who despite being older, got his license later than me. i'm not comparing or judging or saying that i'm superior for getting my license earlier. just mentioning the relative experience levels for perspective purposes. despite him and the junior senior getting their licenses at about the same time, he was far less steady in my opinion. one thing he did which mildly annoyed me was turning the steering wheel while the car was stationary during parking. also, i just generally felt less safe while he was driving, somehow. maybe because i don't know him that well yet. my rating for him would be a B- to B. but well, i don't think he'll be driving the car very often, so i guess that's ok. at least this time, they are both people with whom the car agreed...unlike "person". yes, i was stupid enough to let "person" drive the car once, from science to utown for our dinner appointment. i make it a point to apologize to the car every now and then for putting it through such an ordeal. oddly enough, the car didn't seem to like "person"...at least that was the feeling i got in the passenger seat. call me stupid, but i believe that somehow, the car was giving me a warning. maybe next time one way to gauge the suitability of a prospective date would be to let them drive the car for a bit?

my professor organized a barbeque at his place, which is pretty near school, and which was also the place to which my senior drove. he stays in a nice small condo known as the spectrum. how...chemist-like. too bad spectroscopy isn't his research area. that would be a perfect fit. the condo was nice, though one rule i didn't quite like was that visitor's parking was limited to the hours of 8:00am to 10:00pm. wonder why. talking to group members outside of a lab setting was nice. got to find out a bit more about their personal lives, and they in turn found out a bit more about me. helps with the bonding, i think. however, my friend kind of dropped hints that things are a little less-than-perfect below the surface. i figure that i should be able to accommodate things if they're minor, or in a very extreme worst case, talk to the relevant parties. after all, we're all like above 25 years old. most things should be able to be reasoned out or compromised upon.

last thing for now, the refereeing issue. i mentioned that sometime in december, the SJF asked me to account for the macau trip. with the whole professor moving thing and relationship issue, i conveniently left it aside. crisis management was far more important. but now, i guess it's time that i wrote in. after all, there's an upcoming referee seminar which i hope to attend. not only that, national schools is like 6 weeks away. must ensure that i'm reinstated and allowed to referee. otherwise, i'll need some buffer time to make noise. i just hope things go smoothly/quietly; that would be the best solution. but if the boat must be rocked, so be it. i won't lose out as much, compared to the management.

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

Spending a late night/early morning in the student room. earlier tonight (last night, you know the usual), i met up with some friends from the previous organic lab. we had karaoke at buona vista, then dinner at holland v. first time having mexican food this year, i think. somehow, my timing was a little bad, in that i left a column stopped and dashed off before checking the TLCs. so i came back to lab to check them and see what i got. seems like my major product is more or less out already; just need to concentrate, dry, and get its NMR. with any luck, that'll be the major product, and i won't have to flush out the last spot which i think is still trapped in there. either that, or they've already co-eluted, which would be quite upsetting. never know until NMR, so i shouldn't think too much.

got a bit carried away while sparring during SJI/CJC training earlier today. as a result, i have a sore right shoulder, left knee, and right calf to show for it. the shoulder should go back to normal in a few days, though it hurts to raise my hand above shoulder-level. hit the knee hard against the mats, nothing major there. as for the calf, it feels like i survived a very bad cramp...although i didn't. might be in for one later when i'm sleeping. hope not.

one of the junior seniors asked me for a pretty interesting favour. he wants to borrow the car! apparently he's chasing this girl and wants to take her on a valentine's day date. although he's a pretty steady guy and i'm all for helping him in his quest, i still can't help but feel the slightest bit of hesitation. makes me wonder how my dad agreed to let me take the car on weekends so readily last time. well, i think i'll have to make myself feel better by having a few (more) supervised drives with him. based on today's drive, he's quite a safe driver, which is good. safe braking distance and all, signals while filtering. major plus point, that last one. i don't have any major complaints, with only one minor issue being that he steps too hard on the accelerator. then again, the car is new to him, so i guess it's a fairly excusable thing. i'm actually not that worried about his skill...it's the other morons on the road that bug me. not to mention it's the first time i'm actually faced with such a request. well...considering who it is, i suppose it won't be that bad. plus, i do want to do what i can for him.

guess it's time to head home. hope i wake up in time for judo tomorrow. there's a whole mess about the refereeing situation, which i'll go into in the next post. am too tired to think properly now, and the last thing i want to do is inadvertently expose myself to gunfire.

-random thought of the day: My cashcard's expired!-