First-ever post from Japan! Didn't blog the last time I was here because our itinerary both started and ended late. This time, we're getting an early start to the day, and hence, also a somewhat earlier end. And since I didn't bring my laptop, I'm obviously blogging from my phone. The proper caps should have clued you in.

Ironically, I'm not going to be saying much about Japan yet. That'll happen when I get back to Singapore, and have had enough time to organize everything in my head. Instead, today's post is going to be about that person from the previous post.

Between then and now, we've had a few more conversations over Skype. Today's conversation was rather heavy, in the sense that this person told me that they weren't ready for anything beyond friends, and to keep everything casual. I suppose I can do that, but the thing that scares me is that I can't be the only one to recognize a good person, right? If I've seen such qualities in someone, someone else must have seen those same qualities in the person! I just wonder whether I'll be too late, or pushed aside. I suppose what I can do now is not think too much, and as much as I hate to have to do it, prepare for disappointment. I don't know. I'm tired and should probably sleep. Clarity might come in the morning.

Due to being busier in school from the change in labs, and also partially because of the residual negativity from last december, i haven't really been focusing on the relationship aspect of my life for the last 6-ish months or so. but over the past couple of weeks, i've kind of taken a plunge and "met" someone online (take a quick judgement break here if you need to). "met" is in quotes because we've not physically seen each other yet. we've been talking back and forth sporadically, leaving messages for each other since the platform doesn't have a dynamic/live chat function. earlier this evening, we finally moved to skype (just text chat only), and i must say, it was like talking to myself. not because the other person was unresponsive, but because we were so scarily alike! if i didn't know that science and technology wasn't advanced enough, i'd have said that it was like talking to a clone of myself, or me from a parallel universe. even then, clone-me and parallel-me might not even come close, because of the random nature of how a person's character is shaped due to environmental influences. but there's no better way to put it...none that i know of, at least. anyway, bottom line is that we clicked really well, and that leaves me optimistic for future developments.

at the same time, i should temper my excitement with a reality check. bearing in mind that we have yet to meet in person, the face which we've conjured up to associate with each other's screen name may (and most likely will) be completely different from reality. and as for us clicking so well, it might be that we're still more cautious, exploring the limits of what's safe for conversation and what isn't. seems like pretty much nothing is off-limits, based on today. it's refreshing, to meet someone so candid. it's also a far cry from all the lies, secrets, and behind-the-scenes ministrations and manipulation that happened during the december thing. i really think that even if we don't end up together, we can be good friends. but that's what i said last time about "advisor" too, and we haven't been in contact since that meeting at starbucks in january. so, who knows? but this time, i'm way more hopeful. this new person is all about honesty and clarity, which is the polar opposite from tact and indirect allusions. i like it! the only mild annoyance is that i look like an idiot from the stupid goofy smile that comes across my face every 10 seconds or so. and guess what? it's happening to the other person too!! that's a good sign if i ever saw one. guess i should focus on being realistic, and not build this person up to be greater than they are. at the same time, i should manage my expectations and accept that things still have the potential to go awry. but i suppose it doesn't hurt to look on the bright side, as long as i remember that the dark side still exists.

on a related note, i was just thinking how i would know when i'd found the right person. most people will tell you that it's a feeling you get, or that some action that this person does will make you realize that they're THE one. for me, i think that while those are possible/feasible indicators, the one that i thought of, and that i think would apply especially to me, is that i would know someone is the right person when i wouldn't hesitate to let them meet my closest friends, meaning the chem kids, my JC friends, and a couple of secondary school friends. with "person", i somehow felt reluctant, which should have been another indicator that nothing would come out of the whole thing. but let's not dwell on that. this person, however...definitely not now, but if this upwards trend maintains, maybe by the end of the year? once again, reminder to self not to set any goals. just let things happen and go with the flow.

because our chat was really enjoyable, none of us wanted to end it...until the other person finally gave in to fatigue and called it a night. the whole thing lasted about 3 hours! best part was that there were very few lulls in the conversation, and when they occurred, they were short. i haven't chatted with one person continuously like this for such a long period of time since MSN messenger was taken offline! an unfortunate consequence is that i'm set back 3 hours for packing my stuff, which i haven't started on yet even now. not smart. guess i should do it before sleeping tonight. that sounds feasible.

-random thought of the day: Airport in less than 24 hours!-

Whenever bad things happen, i always try to remain optimistic. a particular motivational speaker says to see the humour in every situation. sometimes it works for me, most times it doesn't. i find that that requires more positive thinking than i'm capable of at the point when bad things happen. so i'll settle for seeing the silver lining in the stormclouds. that usually works out decently enough.

today, that ability REALLY came in handy. first, a short digression. recently, like in the past few weeks, i've noticed that my driving has become somewhat less steady. it's like i'm not making snap decisions quickly enough, or misjudging certain distances. i thought driving skills only improved with constant use!! maybe i exhausted my good driving karma or something. anyway, i did something really stupid. and i mean REALLY stupid. newbie driver kind of stupid. you know those HDB multi-storey carparks, where you go straight, then up a slope, then straight again, up again, etc. etc. until you find a lot? well, while turning to go up one such slope in one such carpark, i accidentally whacked the car's bumper into a pillar at the side of the ramp. don't ask me how it happened; i don't know myself. i've parked at that carpark more times than i can remember, and i've even parked at more challenging carparks (novena square and TTSH come to mind) with no problems. anyway, the result is that my front bumper now has a pretty long scratch running down vertically, and the sides have deformed and flared out. i managed to push them back into place, but there's nothing i can do about the scratch. so, since it's gotten to this stage, i figured that it was time i changed the bumper outright. thankfully, my car enthusiast friend had car plans for the afternoon, so i tagged along to his preferred workshop to see what they could do for me. turns out that they can replace the entire bumper for me, and spray it so that it matches the rest of the car. bumper costs about $200+, spray-painting costs another $200+, leaving my wallet severely impoverished. ordinarily, i'd be able to tank it better, but with a significant amount of money sunk into the japan trip, my finances are a tiny bit tight this month. that's not to say i can't afford it, but i'll be stretched a little thin. well...nothing to worry about. i'll definitely be able to survive until next pay day. just hope that my headlights are ok from the collision, and that there won't be additional cost from having to get them fixed. thankfully i didn't go back to kah motor to do the job. when i scratched the bumper the first time, i asked them how much a replacement would cost. they told me that all in, it would set me back about $900. i imagine that the parts are the same, and the process is identical. so why is the service centre charging me almost double!?? ok, maybe the workshop uses second-hand parts. assuming the labour costs remain the same, does a brand-new bumper really cost $700+? i doubt it. so, i've more or less decided not to go back to the dealer for this kind of repairs.

and since i was set on getting the bumper replaced, i decided to do up a new license plate as well. ok, i'll admit it. this is purely cosmetic and somewhat of a waste of money. but i figured since my friend knows the workshop, and since we were there together, and since our schedules don't often align like that...why not? the key difference between the old license plate and the new one i commissioned is that the new one has all the characters on the same line. the old one has the numbers and last letter below the 3 starting letters. it's supposed to be more japanese in style, but somehow i like everything in one line. i think a thinner/narrower license plate looks nicer. so that's a bit more money wasted. nevertheless, i'll make it through the month ok.

coincidentally/interestingly, someone up there must be looking out for me. every time i've messed up with the car, i'm always sent a reminder that it could have been so much worse. i dropped my friend's friend off at another workshop for him to collect his car. and as i was leaving to go back to bishan, i passed a tow truck which was towing a car that had had its front totally smashed in, probably due to a high-speed collision/accident. if the car had sustained that kind of damage...i'd probably just cry. even more so since i'd just finished paying for the car. it was a nice (well, not nice-nice, but you know what i mean) and much-needed dose of perspective. can't help but feel heart-pain for that car's owner...unless s/he was the moron who was responsible for the accident in the first place.

a few posts back, i wrote about how i didn't really have anyone to rely on. emotionally, that may still hold true, but 2 friends really really came through for me today. the first one is the aforementioned car enthusiast friend, who basically calmed me down, told me what to do, introduced me to a solid workshop, and was there for me from start to finish. without him, i might have had to wait until after japan to get it fixed. but thanks to him, i'm going to be leaving the car in the workshop for the 10 days that i'll be away. this is good because (1) i won't experience any car downtime, and (2) they'll have ample time to fix it up. the second friend's contribution is no less valuable...he's offering me about an hour or two of his time, and his services to drive me to the airport on monday night. perhaps i should go through the plan here; that might clarify things. before this unexpected development, the plan was to leave the car in school and take a taxi or train to the airport, or in the best/worst-case scenario (best for me, worst for whoever i asked), ask someone to send me there. i wasn't intending on doing that unless i was desperate. thanks to my screw-up, the plan became slightly more complicated. i'll go to lab like normal on monday (not going back tomorrow any more), where i'll clean up my area and print the necessary stuff i need for japan, then leave lab around 6:00pm or earlier to beat traffic. i'll then go to ubi, first to pick up the license plate, then to the workshop to drop the car off. reminder: take cashcard, ATM card, and other assorted valuables. not that i don't trust the workshop staff, but it avoids misunderstanding. i think they'd make me take everything anyway if i forgot about it. my friend will then drive down to the workshop to meet me, and we'll set off for the airport, where i plan on buying him dinner or something as thanks. if all goes well, and accounting for traffic, i should reach the airport at 9:00pm latest, an hour before the scheduled meeting time. sounds good, right? here's hoping everything goes according to plan, and that i don't forget anything. the last thing i need is to inconvenience my friend by asking him to drive me back home, or worse, back to school to pick something or another up. sounds good. so yes, i'm once again reminded that there ARE people looking out for me, and who are willing to come to my aid. i'm also reminded that these people care for me, and that i should be a bit less hesitant to ask for help when i really need it. does my heart good to know that.

instead of going to lab tomorrow, i'll devote the extra time to packing. worst case is the packing will spill over to monday, and i'll go to lab late. i think i have things under control for now. just have to remember to take some stuff up from the car for packing. i can do this!

Normally, i'm not one to celebrate festivals. even CNY, the biggest event in the chinese calendar, is practically a non-event to me. but yesterday, my professor brought home-made dumplings to celebrate the dumpling festival aka. the dragon boat festival aka. duan wu jie, which is today. apparently, his mother is still active in the kitchen, and based on what she's cooked for us so far (chicken curry and the aforementioned dumplings), her skills are impressive. it's a very minor quality of life thing, and he's not obligated to do any of this for us. but i'm really happy that he did. i haven't had homemade dumplings in more than 10 years! in contrast, the most festive thing my old professor did was red packets during CNY. it's still a nice gesture, but somehow it feels less personal. then again, he doesn't have relatives in singapore. well...the past is the past.

actually, on the topic of the old lab, it seems that i'm going to have a publication from there! nothing that big, just something in tetrahedron (a pretty low-impact journal), and as either third or fourth author, which reduces my "value" in (and apparent contribution to) the work even further. can't say i really contributed that much to that project to begin with (like one compound for a catalyst and proofreading of the paper), but i guess that any-numbered author in any publication is still better than no publication. and i suppose it's the only tangible thing i can show for my 3 years there, aside from the organic synthesis skills and knowledge of the NUS safety system, of course. but those aren't really tangible, are they? well i guess they kind of are, when i have to apply them to make a compound, or get the lab through a safety audit, for instance.

my current research is looking up. found a synthesis route which gives much better results. in fact, i've got part of the molecule attached to platinum! but i'm still not that close to the finished compound. you see, the entire compound is made of 3 parts: part a, part b, and platinum. my previous synthesis routes all focused on linking part a to part b, then adding platinum in the last few steps. this new route involves adding part a to platinum, then adding part b at the end. i don't anticipate too many problems, although i just thought of something that might complicate matters. well...we'll see how that goes. if this method doesn't work, i have another idea which i think has potential.

before all of that, though, i'm off to japan! or i will be, come this monday night/tuesday morning. it's resulted in me not having much mood for lab work these past 2 days. in fact, i've only set up some simple reactions, which i'll work up on monday before flying off. and although the flight is something like 60+ hours away, i still have a pretty long to-do list for the trip. first item: find passport. i know it's in 1 of 2 plastic boxes. just cant remember whether it's the box at home or in the car. should be easy enough to locate. second item: pack. as of now, the only packing i've done is to roughly know what i should bring, and to get the suitcase ready. at least i have most of today and tomorrow free, so i don't anticipate any major problems. other less important things on the list include getting a haircut, sending a pair of jeans for alteration, tidying up my lab space...all of which i should be able to finish before leaving. as another reminder to myself, i have to take my earphones and power bank (with relevant cables) from school.

you know, i'd said before that a major lesson which i learnt from my grad trips is not to travel with someone about whom you have the slightest doubt. i don't necessarily mean integrity/character (though why you'd travel with a dishonest person escapes me), but rather, i mean if the person in question is difficult for you to get along with, or if their travel objectives are vastly different from yours. unfortunately, i foresee such a potential issue on this trip. ordinarily, if it was just me and this other person, i'd find a way to siam from the trip, but the thing is, another person who i think would make a great travelling companion (and with whom i'd like to spend more time) is also going along, and this pro significantly outweighs the con. or i could be biased. i've never been able to be fully impartial about decisions involving this second person. not because i don't like this person or anything, but perhaps because i like this person a little too much. but that's a whole other (long, painful) story in itself.

got a piece of really good news in the mail a few days back. i'm all paid up for the car! my financial burden isn't getting any less, though, because i'm setting aside the same amount of money for savings/investment purposes. my financial advisor is a friend from undergrad days, and we're close enough that i trust him with some details of my life which are not known to many other people. i'd even trust him to drive the car for me if i'm somehow unable to. so i think my money is in good hands. besides, unless my friend really sucks at his job (which i'm pretty sure he doesn't), i'm more or less guaranteed the capital back at least. so i'm not too worried. anyway, i figure that some savings is good. looking at my bank balance over a few months, i actually don't save that much! or might be because of this japan trip, i'm not sure. so i guess that forcing me to save this way can't be too bad for me.

this same friend is also my insurance agent, and i was also settling some insurance stuff with him this past week. i realize that i should have done most of this stuff earlier. like for investment, the plan is for a set number of years. so the earlier you start, the earlier you get the full sum of money back. and the younger you are when you start insurance, the lower the annual premium. of course, the balance here is that you're likely to have insufficient capital/funds when you're young. for me, i think i should have started all this in army, when i was getting some form of income. might have been tough during undergrad, and i might have had to give more tuition, but i think i would have managed? who knows? well, better late than never, right?

going off on a tangent here, discussing insurance stuff can be quite morbid, which is why i think that it's important to be comfortable with your agent. thankfully, i am. so we were discussing the policy, and the general style of the conversation was, "so if i die at XX years old, i'd have paid up $YY in premiums. and since my policy is worth $ZZ, that means that i would earn $AA, which translates to BB% returns per year!" it's quite a wrong way of looking at things, and definitely the wrong way to make decisions, since you shouldn't be investing in your own death, and you don't get to use the money anyway. but it's just interesting. i remember during this motivational camp thing that my aunt signed me and my cousin up for at the end of primary school, the speaker asked us to write down how much money we thought we were worth. a fair few of the participants wrote down "priceless", which the speaker took at face value to mean "no price", or $0. if i'd known my chemistry at that time, i would have asked for a mole of $1 coins. actually, a mole of 1-cent coins would work already. in hindsight, i was stupid enough to fall for their scare tactics. should have realized that there was no way they would have harmed us. interestingly, there's this rule on insurance policies. in the event of a suicide, the company will still pay out, provided that the suicide happened at least 13 months after the commencement of the policy. the logic is that since (successful) suicide results in death, the company will still pay out. but they imposed a time frame in order to stop people making rash decisions. never knew that. i was under the impression that in general, insurance policies didn't cover suicide. of course, this 13 month thing may not be applicable to all companies or all policies. check before you plan to kill yourself. no, i'm kidding. don't kill yourself.

have a lot of stuff lined up this weekend! most of it is japan-related, some not so much. still trying to fit everything into these 2 days. in no particular order, i have to:
get a haircut
get a pair of jeans altered
go down to expo to support my friend at this anime convention thing
go for judo
go back to lab to print stuff and tidy my place up
send my new minion some references
PACK!!!

due to the various fixed times of some of these events, i'll have to do some stuff today, others tomorrow. more or less have a rough plan in mind, just have to set it into action. that starts with going for a shower in a few minutes, and leaving the house.

-random thought of the day: Have I been more irritable recently?-

Lying seems to be a somewhat necessary evil in today's society. then again, i suppose it boils down to how one defines what a lie is, eg. can withholding the truth count as lying? you know the whole court thing...the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. and what about white lies? or even "black" lies with good intentions? example: more than 15 years ago, my maternal grandmother was dying of cancer. my aunt tried to keep it from her so as to keep her spirits up. unfortunately, she was within earshot when the doctor mentioned the C-word. even more unfortunately, although she didn't understand english, the C-word was one of the few english words she did know. when she questioned my aunt about it, my aunt thought quickly and told her that she had misheard, and that the doctor was saying to "cancel" something or another. i'm under the impression that she bought it in the end. and i don't know why that story stuck with me until now.

anyway, that was just an interesting/fitting anecdote to illustrate a point. my personal stand is that if a lie will not significantly affect the other person, and/or if it's done with the other person's best interest in mind, it can somehow be excused. of course, this is an extremely subjective thing, depending on what exactly the lie is, what the possible negative outcomes are, and how the other person feels about being lied to, and the liar's assessment of "best interest". although i don't quite like it myself, i do acknowledge that it's necessary sometimes. though if given the choice, i'd rather hear the truth and work towards an acceptable solution from there.

the one thing i don't quite like is being caught up in lies, or when i can see the plot holes. this extends to when i lie on others' behalf, as was what i had to do on tuesday, and is also the main topic of this whole "lying" theme. so here's what happened. yesterday was my friend's one-year anniversary with his girlfriend, and he wanted to surprise her by getting her flowers. so we went down to thomson plaza on monday to place the order, which was to be collected the next evening. as there was a chance that he might have to work overtime, i volunteered to pick them up on his behalf if something cropped up. something did crop up, in that the girlfriend wanted to meet him for an after-work date. so i went to pick the flowers up and drop them off at his place. but nobody answered the door when i got there, hence i had to call him to get someone to open the door. the girlfriend picked up on it, and as such, he called me back to prove that nothing suspicious was going on. don't know if she made him call, or if he volunteered, but that's not important now. i was a little surprised that he called me back to ask what i was doing at his house, but fortunately, i didn't drop the ball, and made up something about leaving my credit card behind after our vesak day stayover. i admit, it took a while for the pieces to click together (helped greatly by his vocal cues and word usage/prompts), but thankfully i didn't give anything away before everything clicked.

so here's the main issue. was it right for me to lie? i'd say yes, because it's nothing harmful, and nobody was in any danger of getting hurt. but if it really was ok, why did i feel so annoyed at that time? i think i felt frustrated because it took me too long to catch what was going on, and if i had messed up, i'd have ruined the surprise. it was a lot of stress at that time, considering i had to think on my feet! and i'm not that good a liar. i mean, i can omit facts in conversation and appear perfectly normal. but asking me to lie usually doesn't end up well.

expanding on this point a bit, they're in a relationship! call me old-fashioned or whatever, but i think that there should be no/minimal secrets between a couple. i find that this kind of thing isn't worth hiding. it's so easy to misunderstand something if someone's acting sneaky or suspicious. i think my future partner (if any) will find me incredibly boring/unromantic. the thing that scares me a bit is how easily the girlfriend tells this kind of lies. like for the birthday celebration, which was supposed to be a surprise for my friend. she could be confirming some details with me, when my friend would try to find out what we'd been talking about. she'd then smoothly throw him off the path with a perfectly believable story. and it was done so naturally! i hate to think the worst of people, but i really hope that she uses this "talent" for hiding good stuff only.

in more mundane news, my reaction worked! just hoping that it links to platinum successfully, and/or that the deprotection works. funny thing is that i've done the same exact deprotection on another molecule that's very similar to this curent one in terms of structure. yet, this one was only partially deprotected under the same experimental conditions. guess i have to add more acid and leave it for longer. if things go well, i should have the compound of interest tomorrow. it's been a long time coming, but i think i finally see some light. fingers crossed!

-random thought of the day: 2 weeks and a bit to Japan trip!-

People generally do things that they like in their leisure time, right? having to go to work/school is one thing; living in today's society requires it. but when given time to oneself, i think no rational person would do things that they dislike. which is why i found it strange that we suffered through mahjong last night/this morning. it was due to a combination of factors, actually...some of which i was responsible for, others not so much.

perhaps it would be better to break down what happened first, just for some perspective. it was the usual 4 players, my friend, his girlfriend, their friend (who i think can now be considered my friend too) and me. so what happened is that the 2 other guys had ridiculous luck. we're talking like they cleaned both me and the girl out. she had it worse though, she was at like -$30+. i was probably around -$10 or 20+. but anyway, the combination of being unable to get any winning hands, and reading an SMS i got earlier (which i'll elaborate on later) put me in quite a mood. as a result, i don't think i was very good company, and the other friend picked up on it, and got annoyed. through various messages being passed, i came to know about it.

here's where i should probably clearly define my mahjong policy. i only ever play mahjong with friends, like i have to know at least one person at the table reasonably well. and while my goal remains as trying to win (or at least not lose), the fact that i'm playing with friends means that i will moderate my winnings. for instance, if i'm really really up, i'll do stupid things like not game off someone who's really down, or try to zi mo to win. and when it's time to settle the money, i'll round my winnings down to the nearest dollar, $5, $10, or whatever it takes to make sure that nobody loses too much. of course, i can't and don't expect others to do the same for me. however, it seems to me that my friend's friend's style involves going all out to win as much as he can from us. it's a bit mercenary i guess, and i'm not quite comfortable with that. even then, i have to concede that not only is he a good player, his luck was really good last night. i suppose that there's no stopping some people when they're on a roll. for me, i'm prepared to lose money; i know i can't win all the time. but no matter how prepared you are, i think that the sian feeling will kick in when you're down more than you'd expected/predicted, on a (long) losing streak, and people keep beating you to completing a winning hand. that's even more so when your hand is worth a lot, while their winning hand is of much lesser value. yes, it's mahjong strategy that if you're caught between 2 potential winning hands with no chance of winning yourself, you'd rather let the less valuable one win. i'm not saying it's wrong. i'd do the same if the roles were reversed. can't help feeling frustrated, especially when it happens a few times in a night, and when that big hand would have helped me to recoup my losses.

to think i just blogged about my improved mahjong behaviour 2 posts ago! really proves what they say, "lang si buay sai oh loh eh" (translated from dialect: people cannot be praised). as a result, i think mahjong might be off the cards with that group of friends from now on...unless we can find a few replacement people, or split the parties who are likely to get into conflict into different groups. definitely different groups for me and that guy. he's decent enough, i can't really complain about anything regarding him. but somehow, i think that assuming that there had even been a chance for us to become acquainted (eg. same university, same company), i wouldn't make friends with him on my own accord. consequently, we wouldn't even be friends right now if we hadn't been introduced by the few friends that we have in common. maybe it's just a case of mismatched/conflicting personalities, or "puay ji buay gam" (incompatible eight characters).

now, on to the text message. apparently, my junior (who stood me up a few saturdays back) was resourceful enough to come searching for answers here. so that's good-ish i guess. the not-so-good-ish was that the junior sent me an SMS saying "i'm sorry". hear me out before you go all, "how can apologizing be bad/not-good!?". i don't remember when/where i came across this thing which states that a "proper" apology should consist of 3 parts: (1)taking responsibility for the action, (2)acknowledging that the action was upsetting to the other party and understanding why that is so, and (3)offering restitution (i'm not sure that i'm using the word correctly). to rephrase it, the 3 parts are: (1)yes, what i did was wrong. (2)this is why i was wrong. (3)how can i make it better? anyway. i'm normally not much of a stickler for this kind of stuff, since i rarely run into things that make me angry. annoyed, sure, like if someone borrows my pen without asking, or bumps into me accidentally. i'm perfectly ok with accepting a simple "sorry" in such cases. also when the thing is due to factors out of a person's control, eg. sorry i'm late, the train broke down. that's all fine and well. but for this case...no. not so much. i guess i'm a step closer to understanding why one of my friends refuses to forgive another of my friends for something he did in year 2 undergrad. that was something like 4-ish years ago.

right. bedtime. long weekends are typically used to rest and recharge, but i'm currently feeling as tired as if it was a regular monday. must he due to not sleeping much after mahjong. well, have to make up the hours somehow, like sleeping now, for instance.

-random thought of the day: Is it that easy for relationships to be compromised?-