Although i'm on leave from the lab, i've still been tired out these past couple of days. reason: refereeing at national schools. it's been a pretty good 2 days so far, with 4 to go! not sure if i'll referee the full 4 remaining days, but we'll see when the time comes. if i had to rate my own performance for the event up till today, i'd say...70%. gave a few wrong scores (which is normal and acceptable), don't think i made any bad matte calls (which is good), slightly lost my temper (not too good), and thankfully, was not involved in any major controversy. hoping that at least keeps up, or better yet, improves for however many days i'm still refereeing.

there were a few incidents yesterday and today, which i think are worth sharing. should probably start with me losing my temper. so what happened is that it's been team bouts so far. with 5 people per team, a team of 3 referees will referee 2, 2, and 1 bout. in between the referee change, when i was bowing out and walking back to the table, the RI and HCI girls went into the competition area. partially because i was rather annoyed, and partially because i was a little far away (honestly more of the former), i yelled, "STAY OUT!" at them. not smart, doesn't look good at all, and you know what made it worse? the HCI coach, aka. the current SJF interim president, yelled back, "eh, relax lah!". i honestly don't know. it's just like...what!?? i guess it might have been the excitement of the nationals that caused them to forget the rules and protocols. should learn to be a little more accommodating and to have lower expactations, considering that these are schoolkids who are not exposed to international-level competition.

i can still understand and forgive forgetting the rules due to excitement. not knowing the rules at all, on the other hand, is entirely the fault of the coach. like the kids from a certain school whom i will not name outright. instead, i'll state 3 "random" chemical elements: boron, hydrogen, sulphur. get it, get it? the kids from that school, my goodness. i think the only kid we disqualified for leg grabbing was from there. and somehow, knowing who their coach is, i'm not surprised. well...whatever. i'm not close to that school at all, so whatever the kids learn doesn't affect me in any way.

yesterday, i saw something that made me feel...not quite right. in an A division girls' match, one girl was obviously stronger than her opponent, and consequently dominating her with strength. you know, dragging her around the mat, forcing her to be in a bent position all the time. that's still ok; part of the fight strategy, after all. what i found objectionable was that after the referee had called matte to reset the competitors after the weaker girl had been dragged to the floor again, the stronger girl, who had already let go, went out of her way to go back and push the weaker girl down to the floor again. admittedly, it's not a penalizable offence (to the best of my knowledge), so there's nothing that we could have done. but it's just so guai lan! not to mention that it reflects so badly on the person and on the school.

speaking of emotions running high, some people i know are involved in some controversy. seems like one of the referees (who is my friend and senior) gave a controversial decision. thing is, this decision was already agreed upon by the entire referee team on duty on that mat, and even the referee director. i wasn't involved, by the way. one of the competitors whose school was competing (a normally nice, friendly person with whom i'm on ok terms), and who was watching from the sidelines found it fit to yell an obscenity directed at the referee. classic case of shooting the messenger. worse is that insulting the referee is a big no-no. i think the ipad used to record the match might have caught it. i don't know. investigations are still ongoing, and it's not like i can do anything about it anyway. i guess these few incidents impressed upon me how important it is for coaches to do their job well, and instill both knowledge of the rules, as well as ethics and sportsmanship into their athletes. being a coach myself, i hope that i'm on the right track here.

however, sometimes no matter how good the coach is, kids will be kids and do things that we would consider to be stupid. one of the BPS kids got in trouble with EVS. knowing the coaches of both schools, i did my best to mediate, and things were solved amicably. what a relief that the kid had enough brains to just apologize and not try to fight or argue! and what a relief that both coaches are upfront, straightforward people who can let go of issues once they've been settled to their mutual satisfaction, unlike some other people who hold grudges over minor matters. i'm thankful that the EVS coach still gave me some face, and didn't go confront the BPS kid on his own. goodness knows that would have ended badly. looks like i have more friends (or at least fewer enemies) than i'd thought!

more significantly, the competition so far has seen several upsets. the usual RI/HCI dominance has been broken for the A and B divisions! well...HCI dominance, at any rate. it's thanks in part to st gabriel's last year, as well as to NYJC this year. i am so so happy that SJI and CJC now stand a chance in their respective divisions. and on a slight selfish note, it means that i have an excuse to not referee one of the finals bouts! no matter what, i will not referee SJI, to avoid any possible controversy. there is a huge conflict of interest there. the coach was already unhappy that i refereed CJC, but there wasn't much choice due to a lack of manpower on monday. besides, i think that the other 3 finals bouts will be stressful enough.

in addition, i also found out something much more serious than refereeing problems. i've been more or less sworn to secrecy, so do forgive me being vague(r than usual). so remember last week or so, when i said how some drama had went down? there's more to that than i'd initially thought. so person A, who has a history of mental problems, including (but not limited to) suicidal tendencies, went through a breakup. as a result, when person A went missing, my friend, person B, got worried enough to go to some of person A's favourite hangouts in hopes of finding person A there. and in the process, something quite bad happened to person B. bad enough to cause mental trauma, let's leave it at that. and i'm not talking about the "my eyes, they burn!" kind of mental trauma that i'm usually subjected to. how i wish that it had been the case! unfortunately, i'm talking about the serious kind of trauma, the kind where you have to see a therapist to get better. i swear, no amount of coach training, first aid training, mental skills training, or any sort of practical experience that i've had so far could have prepared me for such a scenario. i met up with person B on monday, and i got so so angry when i heard. you see, this could have been avoided entirely, only if person A hadn't been such a melodramatic little *insert profanity of choice here*, and hadn't disappeared, or had at least just picked up their damned phone and stayed on the line. what kills me even more is that person B has told me and a few others who know about it not to tell person A. as a result, person A is still going about life in that little bubble of theirs, unaware of the chain of events and subsequent damage that they initiated. although i'm not allowed to say anything about the incident to person A, i wonder if i could just give them one solid punch to vent my anger. believe me, considering the possible damage of a punch (a broken jaw at worst), that's already letting them off lightly in proportion to the damage that they've caused.

the slightly irrational part of me wants to blame myself a bit, because person B had called me on that day to ask for help in searching for person A. i was tied up in lab, so i just told person B to be careful. had i gone down to the place, the incident might not have happened at all. but then again, i know that that line of thinking is not entirely correct/logical, for a number of reasons. given what i know about person B, i'd trust them to take care of themself under normal circumstances. i didn't count on person A's disappearance having a large enough impact to throw person B off by that much. but now i know for sure, telling person B to step away is definitely the right thing to do. i just wish that the knowledge didn't come with such a high price, and that i'd done it earlier. i am thankful to be one of the few people that person B confides in a fair bit, hence why i know what happened. as far as i'm concerned, what i can do now is just to be there for person B, and carry on as normal. our current understanding is that i won't bring it up, but person B can talk to me about it any time there's a need to.

somehow, i suspect that my professor has forgotten that i'm supposed to be on leave these 3 days. emails have still been coming in, and i suppose it's partially my fault for contributing to the illusion by replying quite promptly. well, at least it's minor stuff. nothing that will occupy me for hours. going off on a slight tangent, i realize that my professor is the kind of person to whom i'm afraid to submit anything less-than-perfect. well, maybe not afraid. but i felt super guilty/embarrassed/horrible/idiotic when he rejected something i prepared. admittedly, it was rather half-assed. and this was just through email, not even face-to-face! i guess the other way of saying it is that he makes me want to strive for perfection...which is rare. not many people can bring out that small, rarely-seen side of me. i can't even force myself to care sometimes! but well. i guess it's a good thing to have someone like that in my life. goodness knows i need a push every now and then.

-random thought of the day: Damned clicky shoulder.-

Peer pressure is quite powerful. it was also the reason i found myself on the padang at 1:30am last night/this morning, waiting to go into parliament house to pay last respects. if my friends hadn't coordinated anything, i probably wouldn't have gone down at all. the system was different from what i'd imagined. i thought that it would be a straightforward queue system, where the line would just keep inching forward until we actually got to the place. turns out that they used a block system, like there were 10 different holding zones, and once one holding zone had cleared a certain point, the next one would be moved up in the queue, and repeat. it's actually a pretty good system...instead of being on our feet and moving all the time, we were able to sit/lie down in one spot for a bit. helped to save energy. and of course, having friends there helped to pass the time. we filled each other in on some idle gossip, small updates and the like. time really does pass faster when you don't think about it. and the company really helped. i think that even if i had somehow decided to go on my own with nobody to "suffer" alongside me, i would have called it quits around 3 to 4am.

for our case, we were stuck in our holding area for about 4 hours. joined the main queue at about 5:30am, and spent another 1 hour or so walking towards parliament house. the whole process was rather efficient, i'll give them that. security check was fast, and the procession inside parliament house moved at a brisk pace while not feeling rushed at the same time...though admittedly, i was initially too tired to notice that we had already reached the main hall where the vigil was being kept. the only bright spot in this whole thing was that i coincidentally bumped into my first ex-OC from unit days, who was doing usher duty. given the ungodly hour, the multitude of people, and the length of time in which we hadn't seen each other (since about 2008 until now), i'm not sure whether he could place my name, or even recognize my face. still, he smiled and gave me a handshake, which i suppose is way better than "who the hell are you!?". dropped him a facebook message to jog his memory a bit. let's see if he replies.

had quite a busy week. went to give the BPS a short course on all the rules and scores. hopefully i didn't miss out anything too important. then went to cover class at the judo club, since one of the coaches is currently on holiday in spain. there was this guy there, whose story is nothing short of miraculous. he got hit by a bus while driving some 6 or so years back, and damaged his spine to the point where doctors had given up on him ever being able to walk again. through sheer determination and maybe some luck, he's now on his feet (with the aid of crutches), able to drive again, took up karate while still wheelchair-bound, and is now taking up judo as a beginner! i was so so impressed/amazed when i heard his story. what makes it even better is that he's a pretty fast learner! like, he got the hang of breakfalls really quickly, plus he was watching another pair train, and broke down the throw to me perfectly. i think it's because he's older and quite smart (he's an accountant by day), so he catches things quite easily. due to his injury, his physical limits are still kind of low, towards which i'm fully understanding. it's my first time teaching someone with such...unique circumstances, so i wasn't quite sure how to handle it at first. i'd like to think that i eventually found a balance of being encouraging, yet not to the point of patronizing him. i really hope that worked out as i intended. still, if it came down to the wire, i would rather err on the side of caution and be gentler on him rather than pushing him to the extreme like i would for someone who was seriously training for competition.

an article somewhere on keyboards caught my eye recently. it was about these mechanical keyboards, which have a dedicated switch for each key, as opposed to the membrane thing that regular non-performance keyboards use. it sounded quite appealing, actually. my current keyboard is about 8 years old, and it's prone to dying when the computer wakes up from sleep mode. on an aesthetic level, the finishing has corroded off the metal-plated parts, and i don't even want to know how much dirt, grime and other weird things have accumulated under the keys. while it's not exactly necessary to change, i do wish i could get my hands on one of those shiny keyboards. actually, even if change was necessary, i don't have to go for something that high-end. this is really just a pure want. similar for my mouse. although the scroll wheel click doesn't work any more, it's nothing i can't work around, and cheaper options are always available. guess we'll see when (if) i'm comfortably ahead of my savings target, and/or when a special occasion that might help to justify the purchase pops up.

i'm beat. that queueing thing really drained me, to the point where i slept most of the day away in the student room. all i did today was work up one reaction, and set another one, which i'm going to settle soon. hopefully the second round of platinum synthesis goes as smoothly as (or better yet, smoother than) the first. and it's national schools for the next fortnight, which means that i'll be in school not as much. thinking whether i should do some night shifts or early morning shifts to keep to my research schedule. thankfully, most platinum reactions can be set and forgotten for a long while, so it's not like i have to constantly check in on them. aside from that, SJI/CJC training tomorrow, plus a dinner with some unpopular people. should be fun!

-random thought of the day: My OC replied!-

44.

that's the number of facebook friends i have (out of 382, so about 11.5%, and up from 20 at about 1:00pm) who have changed their profile picture to the black ribbon as i began this post. the number will probably go up over the next few days. if you don't know why people are changing their photos, you either don't have facebook or haven't tuned in to any form of news media today. the news was the first thing i saw when i checked facebook after waking up. and if i didn't find out from there, the radio stations departing from their usual programming to play sombre music would have clued me in immediately. so if you really still don't know what i'm referring to by this point, you're probably living under a rock.

obviously, the biggest piece of news today is the passing of singapore's first prime minister. although we share our last name and the first character of our chinese names, the closest i've been to him is probably passing by his house. and who knows if he was even home at that time? anyway. there's no denying that without him, singapore would be a very different place. and of course, while people have and will continue to question his methods and policies, i think that he must have thought that they were the best possible course of action at that time, given the circumstances. and even though some policies didn't quite work out as intended, or had other unexpected outcomes, it wouldn't have been easy to foresee ALL possible eventualities, especially as we weren't as knowledgeable as we are now. to quote something that dumbledore said, "I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger". sure it's easy to criticize now, but hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? i already have trouble deciding what to have for lunch...can't quite imagine the magnitude of pressure he faced when making decisions that would affect an entire country. and love him or hate him, there's no denying his contributions.

personally, i'm not really that affected. my mood today has been neutral, leaning towards negative from seeing the countless tributes. i'm not about to dance in the streets with champagne (though i do remember reading somewhere that someone was planning on doing that). neither am i going to pull a north korea and "convulse with pain" (wikipedia quote). life will go on, perhaps with a public holiday on this day in future years, perhaps not. i'm ok either way. but as i drove to school today (and as i suspect i will as i'm driving back after finishing this post), i looked around at everything i passed - HDBs, schools, hospitals, roads in good condition, streetlights, overhead bridges, greenery, shops - and felt rather fortunate/grateful...except for the traffic policeman standing on the overhead bridge with his speed camera.

that aside, another bit of drama seems to have gone down tonight. something involving a breakup, and someone with known suicidal tendencies going missing for a bit. everything seems to be resolved by now, which is good. too much drama for me to handle, really. while i would drop everything and go to be by my friends' sides if something like that happened to them, i'm grateful that my close friends are stable/mature enough so it's unlikely that i'll ever face such a situation. the thing that bugs me is that one of my friends IS involved, and i'm somehow indirectly responsible for that. if only there was a way to erase last december from existence, while still allowing me to change labs. since that's unlikely to happen, i guess the best we can do is live with what we have now. and reminder to self: tell this friend to step away for a bit. it's for the best.

had a pretty good lab day today...my large-scale reaction worked! problem is that the product is an oil, and thus it's quite difficult to remove the solvent, which is essential for getting the accurate mass and so that future calculations won't be messed up. spilled a bit while trying to dry it, but it's ok. my theoretical yield is about 15g, so i have lots to spare. also, another reminder to self: don't kay kiang too much and deviate too far from the published experimental procedure. i had the bright idea to add water to dissolve the product of another reaction (a hydrochloride salt). problem is, i didn't realize how difficult it is to freeze-dry water. hope things work out and i'll have a nice dry compound tomorrow. thankfully, i have like 10g of the previous intermediate, so that 10g can be converted in 2 rather high-yielding steps...which is good! just a waste of time, that's all. with luck, i'll have a lot of the linker by the end of the week, then the next challenge will be finding a way to link it to platinum. and to motivate myself, my first platinum synthesis succeeded! so happy. perhaps i should NMR it for purity tomorrow. problem is, i already have so little! at least i can make more, now that i know that i've succeeded once.

-random thought of the day: Keep going!-

Seems like things are looking up after that brief down period. the rest of the week went pretty well...made some significant progress in my syntheses...or at least i think it's significant. the ligand for my main project is slowly taking shape. just have to find out whether the second group was successfully attached to the amine. NMR is sketchy, so i'm hoping to schedule a mass spec on monday to give me some reassurance. once that second group is confirmed to be on, the last step is just to link it to platinum. it's so close i can almost taste it! of course, i may have to try a few alternatives, so i shouldn't get ahead of myself. still, i can't help but feel excited. the other synthesis is going decently. hopefully i made the anhydride successfully, because the acid alone won't link to platinum. otherwise, i'll have to recover the starting material and try again, which kind of sucks.

aside from monday, i've been pretty good at keeping the emo at bay, so that's another minor achievement. i was just thinking, that i shouldn't let myself get carried away by emotional matters. without going into too much detail, i have this friend, and i wish that we could be more than friends. but again, due to several reasons, that's totally off the cards. the odd thing is, it seems that this friend has somehow subconsciously become my benchmark for future potential someones. it's at this point where i'd like to remind myself that i've messed up with this friend once before, and damned if i'm going to make the same mistake twice. considering how badly i was affected when things went south the first time, and how long it took for us to be on talking terms again, i don't think our friendship could survive another hit like that. for that matter, i don't think i can, either. i must must learn to appreciate what i have now, and not risk irreparably damaging the friendship for the close-to-zero chance that something more might develop. simply put, the odds aren't in my favour for this particular case. at the same time, i think i will have a serious talk with that person soon. now that we are both a few years older, i think it might be easier to get some things out in the open...though i could be horribly wrong. we'll see. this is totally not urgent, after all.

training today was nice. the kids were tired out from a few consecutive days of training, so things were really really slack. sparred a bit, and it seems i can still hold my own against the juniors. got in a few nice throws, and got thrown nicely a few times too. then again, they were tired, so there's probably some bias in the equation. while blocking a throw, my foot got rubbed really fast against the mat, resulting in some mat burn and a blister. it's the kind of rubbing where you can feel the spike of heat generated by friction. the pain is all but gone, and the blister is still whole, not to mention kind of small. so i'm not going to poke it, touch it, or otherwise disturb it, and hope that it heals on its own and won't be a problem when i wear shoes for lab on monday. my shoulder also got slightly misaligned somehow...like the ball of the joint doesn't fit well in the socket. nothing serious, though. it'll probably click back into place by itself in the next few days.

with luck, my reactions will go well, and i'll have good news to report in the next post. i hope that i can at least successfully finish 1 out of 3 molecules that i have to synthesize before i go for leave to referee in national schools. would somewhat ease my guilt for taking leave, i guess. if i really really had to choose, i'd want at least my most important molecule to be successful, but i'll take whatever i can get. other than that, i hope that this upward trend maintains forever a bit more.

-random thought of the day: Know when to be content.-

Took a "me day" today to sort out some messes, both physical and intangible. somehow, it felt like i was in danger of losing control of my life. well...no. that's a bit extreme. but it did feel like the weight on my shoulders was becoming a little too heavy to bear. hopefully, this day of introspection helped to put stuff in perspective.

the physical mess refers to the car. i'd been meaning to clean it up for a while now, but kept putting it off. so, i finally took a big box down, and removed a whole bunch of receipts, magazines, outdated road tax and inspection notices, socks (yes, you read that right), and a few other random odds and ends. think i managed to take a couple of kg off in total. wish i could do that so easily for myself. also, i tried poking around to see if i could access the back panel of the stereo. you see, i've been meaning to find out what kind of connector links the ipod/iphone cable to the stereo. turns out it's not a simple USB, as my cousin thought. it seems to be a proprietary connector used by that particular brand of stereo. so i went on ebay, and decided to get one. USD 5 (about SGD 7), and free shipping. might as well, right? if i should be so lucky, it'll come before national schools. then, i can use my free morning (i took whole-day leave for the 6 days of competition) to go somewhere to get it fixed up, before refereeing/coaching in the afternoon. anyway. i tried all i could think of (short of brute force) to get access, but failed. good thing i didn't push it too far, because i was approaching it from the wrong side (passenger's side instead of driver's side), as a youtube video showed me. i think i'll just leave it to the professionals, despite having to pay a labour charge. after all, a labour charge is much more preferable to a cracked or broken dashboard.

and by intangible mess, i mean the mess inside my head. further to the last post, i think i've identified what's going on. if my assessment is accurate, the reason i've been feeling this odd sensation of depression/dissatisfaction is because i've not been making much progress in any/all aspects of my life. the metaphor i thought of is that i'm essentially running in place. people do things for a sense of progression, right? there was this article i read some time ago, about how purposeless work led to decreased motivation and suicides among prisoners-of-war. (background: these prisoners were made to shift a pile of rocks from one location to another. and once the rocks were all moved, they were made to shift them back to the original location. and so on so forth. eventually they just cracked due to the mindless work). the sucky thing for some aspects is, i'm not sure what i can do to make the situation better. for research, i just have to keep chipping away at it, using different reactions, protecting groups, etc. i'm sure i can make a breakthrough there soon. there are still several promising routes that i've not tried.

but for other things, like judo, i'm stuck. i did mention about how horribly the last grading went, right? i admit, there's no way i can outmatch the other examinees, most of whom are younger, more skillful, or both. it worries me for a couple of reasons, one legitimate, and one that's rather stupid. the legitimate reason is that i need second dan to qualify for IJF continental referee. although i still have a comfortable buffer time before exceeding the age limit, i want to get it ASAP. and that's because of the second, stupid reason. a lot of my juniors are getting their black belts, which means that i have to upgrade myself as well. the egotistical part of me wants to stay ahead, though i know it's not completely right/proper thinking. at the same time, fighting skills alone are not sufficient grounds for promotion. there has to be some standard in terms of theoretical knowledge. my impression is that the current SJF focuses on a person's fighting ability more so than their technical knowledge, which i think is not right. of course, there's inherent difficulty. kata is judged more "secretly" than fighting, because everyone can identify a good throw, but few people know what to look out for in kata. and personally, i think that the management has forgotten what it's like to want promotions. after all, most of them are holding 5th dan and above, so there's a limit to how much more they can progress. you might say this is sour grapes, and i wouldn't exactly disagree. after all, i wouldn't be facing this issue if i was a better fighter. but at the same time, i know that i can outperform a fair proportion of these fighters at kata and techniques. don't even get me started on how some people who have returned to the sport after a 30-year absence can get promoted one dan per year since their return. it's political, and not being mr. popular in the federation, i'm not expecting that kind of free promotion.

refereeing, too, is causing me some headache. i don't want to brag, or overestimate my own ability, but i do honestly think that i should be up for SJF A referee. the referee director told me that he nominated me for promotion last year, but the management rejected the nomination. apparently, they said i made too many mistakes during national schools. what kind of mistakes? wrong score? we were taught that differences in opinion are to be expected, based on each referee's unique angle and perspective. i don't know what else i'm doing wrong, or at least not doing right. i've made an effort to referee for all competitions (even during my suspension period), and to be honest, if i didn't care for refereeing, i wouldn't even fight to be reinstated! and the thing that really annoys me is that some of the people assessing me on both these counts (grading and refereeing) don't have the necessary qualifications! it's as if i'm asking an honours student to supervise another honours student in the lab! and i refuse to buy into the idea that "relationship" is a factor in deciding these issues. i don't care if it's my best friend or worst enemy...as long as they're deserving, i'd give it (whatever it is) to them. just like i was forced to do at IVP.

you see, due to the limited number of referees at IVP, we had to sometimes referee our own schools, or our friends from other schools. i don't care that much about NUS, since i'm officially not linked to the judo team any more. so, i didn't feel anything more or less about awarding penalties to them, or scores to their opponents, or vice versa, even. i did feel some heart pain disqualifying my CJC junior (from SMU) for diving. i didn't have a choice; had to be professional and all that. thankfully, he was understanding, and told me not to feel bad when i spoke to him after the event. i'm grateful to have juniors who can listen to reason, and who understand that i'm just doing my job.

i think that i have to remember this old saying - change what i can, accept what i can't change, and learn to differentiate between the two. for grading and refereeing, i will try whatever i can, even if it means making my case to the higher-ups. i just hope i'm not overestimating my own ability. and in the meantime, i guess i should also work on expanding what i can do. the fact that i at least won one bout last year shows that i'm still not beyond hope. and though i still feel horribly not at my best, i guess this will do for now. reminder to self: judo is not my entire life at this point. i still have to get my degree, and do a few other more important things. prioritize and focus, please.

-random thought of the day: Need to get the hang of credit cards.-

Lower blogging frequency should mean that i'm more productive in lab, right? since more time spent in lab = less time for blogging. doesn't seem to be the case, though. there is progress, just not as much or as significant as i'd like. if things went according to plan, i'd have my "prototype" molecule out by now, and it would be in the process of being tested for the expected reaction. yet, all i've done so far is find several ways NOT to synthesize my target molecule. but it hasn't all been wasted time...i've got a decent grip on syntheses involving platinum, which is good. i'm still no platinum master, but i'm improving. have to pick things up a bit faster since the last platinum master is planning on leaving within the month.

the past week has been kind of uneventful, except for the referee seminar last sunday, and dinner today. the seminar was a nice refresher. got updated on the various shido offences and accompanying gestures. all in all, it was useful. we'll see how much i remember at tomorrow's IVP, which is being held on the semi-offshore island of NTU. first refereeing stint in close to 8 months...hope i don't mess up badly enough such that it becomes noticeable.

dinner was with my previous lab group. we had the crystal jade XLB buffet at holland V. the 2-hour time limit seemed a bit more rushed than i remembered from 3 years ago. could be because we had more poeple this time, booked a more popular slot, and/or i got older and am losing sense of time. food quality maintained, at least according to my memory. all in all, i was stuffed by the end-time, and pretty satisfied...with just one exception. i had to detour to the car to get my EZ-link card, and the rest went ahead of me. so when i got to the restaurant, one of my friends called to inform me that they were there already. knowing that they were there, i headed upstairs to meet them. seems like i had inadvertently ignored a waitress/service staff, because she hit me on the arm to get my attention. i don't mean like a light tap...that i can handle. i mean more like a smack, which caught me by surprise. of course i wasn't hurt (how embarrassing would that have been?), but i was annoyed enough to exclaim, "so unprofessional!" rather loudly and stare her down a bit. as much as i try to be accommodating, sometimes things go a bit too far, as they did in this case.

i don't know whether this next bit is cause for worry or not, but i've been feeling a little...off. mentally, i mean. i don't think it's depression, or if it is, it's not a debilitating case. how do i explain it? it's like i'm unhappy, but over insignificant/unimportant things. even then, the description isn't right. these things are important, just not things that i have to deal with right away. and as a result, i've been a bit...moody? not exactly. just that when i have some downtime to myself, it turns into literal down time. maybe i'm thinking too much and creating problems for myself. i don't know. if i had to guess, i'd say that it's due to relationship issues. or rather, lack-of-relationship issues. hoping that it'll sort itself out soon, and/or that i'll gain enlightenment.

oh. my dad waived the CPF education loan repayment. i honestly am feeling quite conflicted. you see, it's a point of pride with me that i try to repay all my debts. and it's not like i can't afford the $300 or so a month. from a more practical point of view, the $300 or so comes out of my OCBC account via GIRO, which helps to fulfill one of the requirements for bonus interest. so that messed up my plans a bit. luckily, i thought ahead and have the credit card bill payment to take over one online transaction. and after the car loan expires in july, i've got something else waiting in the wings. go me for being uncharacteristically far-sighted! on the bright side, not having to pay off the loan is a pretty huge saving in the long run. there should be no reason for me to feel anything but happy and grateful, right? yet...here i am, feeling conflicted. maybe i need a hard shake to wake me up.

i should go off. need to sleep early to be up at SEVEN A.M. tomorrow to go all the way to NTU. hoping for a smooth day of good refereeing.

-random thought of the day: Going to get new safety glasses!-

One of the most telling signs that i'm overdue for a post is that i get irrationally and disproportionately upset over trivial things. that happened last night, so i don't think i can delay this post any more. the last post was close to a fortnight ago! no wonder.

the thing about not blogging for a (relatively, for me) extended period of time is that things happen and get resolved before i blog about them. and once that happens, they suddenly seem less worth talking about. in fact, i don't really recall any major events from last week, except being invited to a CNY dinner by one of the judo elders. the food was good (if a little excessive), and the company was nice. turns out that he has a godson, who was from SJI! not judo, unfortunately. how weird of a coincidence would that have been? especially since we're close enough in age that i would have met him before during training.

i mentioned that i was due to meet my weird friend. that meeting didn't go as nicely as i would have liked. for one, he was feeling under the weather. i am grateful that he still agreed to meet me despite not being in the best shape. unfortunately this time round, he felt a little distant. not sure whether it was solely because of the illness, or some other factors as well. i should trust him more, and not think too much. we'll see if this persists into the future. incidentally, he did a few more tarot readings for me. seems that all's well on the university and judo front, but my love life doesn't look all that rosy. well...as much as i don't want to offend, i think that the cards are more of a guideline than a prophecy. for instance, i could prove the cards wrong by messing my experiments up deliberately, and get myself kicked out during the QE. that would prove my point, that ultimately, we are in control of our own lives. of course i'm not crazy to that extent. just illustrating an example.

other than that, my credit card application went through! i really like the card design. well, considering it's a plain matte-finish silver card with a simple pattern, perhaps "design" is the wrong word to use. what i do like is that the information (card number, name, etc.) is printed? embossed? in black, unlike the more common silver. of course, silver on silver would look odd, so maybe that's why they did it that way. now all i have to do is change the PIN and i'm good to go. i was quite annoyed that the bank auto-enrolled me for the EZ-reload thing. considering that i don't even use an EZ-link card all that much these days, and even if i did, i would rather tie it to my debit card, or use my previous EZ-link card. at least the cancellation went smoothly, so that wasn't so bad.

while on the topic of cards, i kind of got cheated by the debit card. apparently, the card itself still offers the standard 15% petrol discount. the extra 4% came from vouchers or something that were given out at that time (i think?). whatever the case, the nice SPC lady told me that she could only give me 15% off. perhaps i should call the hotline to find out a bit more. makes me think that changing a debit card might not have been that good an idea, especially with the whole PA membership thing. but i suppose there are advantages too, like a better rewards scheme, and free NLB premium membership, among some other things which i haven't explored fully.

some interesting stuff happened this week too, most noteworthy being that i've been reinstated as a referee! so what happened was that the referee director set up a meeting between me and a vice-president of the federation. after an hour's talk, we agreed to resolve the issue then and there, by considering the past 7 months as suspension in-retro for refereeing at macau, though it still counts towards my active service time. something like that. and i also have his word that this suspension won't affect my future promotions. i hope this vice president is as straightforward and open as he makes himself out to be. i really don't want to play politics or cause more trouble, but i do have my contingencies in case anything goes wrong. let's just hope that i won't have to activate any of them.

for the japan trip, things are becoming more solid. plane tickets have been booked, and so has accommodation. on my part, i've to do some JR pass stuff, and apply for leave. i think it'll be a good experience, travelling with friends whom i know well, but not as well as my JC classmates. i just hope that i'm not making the wrong choice here. you see, normally long overseas trips can have 1 of 2 effects - bonding the people closer, or driving them far apart. given that these are judo friends whom i've known for coming-to 10 years (though there have been periods where i don't see them for months at a go), i'm placing my money on the first outcome.

my shoe split, on the outside edge of the right foot! noticed it earlier today as i was walking around in lab. adding this on to the cracked soles, it means that it's high time for a new pair. instead of going to queensway, i'm thinking of staying a little closer to home, and seeing what J8 offers. the world of sport there has a small selection, if memory serves. hope i'll find something suitable there. have to go there anyway, since i need non-holey black socks for the referee seminar and subsequent referee assignments. reminder to self: pick up a belt, too.

guess that covers the major happenings so far. next time, maybe i'll talk about what exactly got me disproportionately upset (or maybe not), and perhaps some other things which are more feelings-related.

-random thought of the day: Considering sleeping in school.-