Feels like i've aged about 6 years in just as many days. issues with the date are still hanging in the air, but i'll get to that later. i want to mention a few things that happened.
saturday was my first personal training session. the trainer had already made a bad impression, by changing the time of the session the night before. he tried to make it earlier at first, and when i didn't reply (because i didn't see it in time), he changed it to a later time instead. not having much to do on saturday, i followed his timing. the session itself was...not enjoyable, which is normal, i guess. they had me do a whole-body analysis thing, involving that special machine that sends electric current through your body. he took a look at the data, and filed it away. i would have thought that he would at least discuss it with me, or tell me what to aim for, or something. to be fair, he did share some stuff when i asked him about it. but still...not professional enough, i think.
the session then began, and he showed me a set of movements, then asked me to do the exercises. no further elaboration, like number of reps, time limit, or anything. not very effective instruction, i think. and to make things worse, something which he told me contradicted what the instructors at the previous gym said, and what I thought made sense. one of the movements i was supposed to do was kettlebell swings. no big deal, done them before. but what this trainer told me is that i should feel the strain in my lower back. the previous trainers all said to protect the lower back, and to feel the strain along the hamstrings instead. and based on my knowledge, lower back injuries can occur from strain and poor posture. so i was rather skeptical, but did my best. well...one thing's for sure. this guy isn't worth $70 an hour. i think that i made a mistake by not asking for his qualifications before signing up. but well...it's a learning experience that i can afford.
also on saturday, one of the minions from the old lab asked me out for dinner at hillv2. it's a shopping mall-cum-residential development in the hillview area. funny how those seem to spring up around there, like the one in bukit panjang where one of my friends is staying. anyway, this junior graduated and is now a teacher. we ate at kinsa sushi, which is a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant that offered other ala-carte items too. the food was decent enough, but the quality didn't justify the price. the one thing that caught my eye was the century egg chawanmushi, which was regular japanese-style steamed egg topped with a century egg sauce. expected as much. would be too much to have the whole thing made of century eggs. over dinner, we caught up with each other, and shared a bit more about our lives. he went through a bad breakup in june, and has been slowly recovering. he also said that he's trying to reconnect with people, and perhaps on a deeper level. i don't know. i don't feel particularly closer to him after the dinner, but then, it was just one meeting, and after 2 years, to boot. well, i think that it was nice of him to reach out regardless. also shared a bit of my own relationship issues with him, and while nothing conclusive came out of it, i think it was somewhat of a relief to share.
most of sunday afternoon was spent in lab, where i helped a friend run HPLC purification, and did some other small tasks, like cutting TLC plates. still don't understand how my student can get such large flakes of silica falling off, when all the plates i cut turned out perfectly. guess that's the difference of an additional 2 years' research experience. on the topic of my student, he's frustrating me just the very tiniest bit. don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, willing to learn, and hardworking as well. i have no regrets agreeing to supervise him. it's just that sometimes, he doesn't think through everything in detail, and also makes some careless mistakes. thankfully, all his mistakes so far have been minor, and are recoverable from with some additional work and trouble. thankfully, his progress is decent. if all goes well, his synthesis will all finish before the end of the year, and the second half of his honours year will be spent doing bio testing.
after the half day in lab, i went back to the bishan house to make some decisions about some stuff that was left behind. turns out i still needed to take 2 bowling balls and a couple of plastic bags' worth of random things. the house had been empty for about...3 to 4 months? it felt more foreign, somehow...as though it wasn't the same place i grew up in. but well...it's a chapter that's more or less closed, i guess. i will miss it and think about it occasionally, but what i have now isn't bad either - except for the increased travelling time.
i've been thinking on and off about getting my own place in the future. considering that i don't intend to get married, that kind of limits me to smaller HDB flats and private housing. for HDB, i have to be at least 35 years old to apply. no problem, because i'll need some time to accumulate the money. doing a cursory check shows that a 3-room flat typically goes for about $300 000. assuming i can't get any housing grants, that's $1000 a month for 300 months, or 25 years. and i'm not even counting interest yet! browsing the HDB website has shown that i may be eligible for some form of grant, perhaps up to about $50 000. and somehow, their worked examples show that the money can be taken entirely from CPF. don't ask me how, but apparently it's possible. as for the private housing route, a condo unit goes for anywhere between $500 000 to more than a million dollars. not sure if i'll ever be able to afford one of those. but well, if the right offer comes along at the right time, why not? or if i'm lucky enough, my future job will provide employee housing. who knows? at any rate, it's still a bit too early to be worrying about housing, i think. i'm nowhere near financially independent yet. or perhaps that's all the more reason for me to be worrying?
monday was a horrible day. there was nothing for me to do in lab, as my products hadn't finished drying yet. and even if there was, the issue with the date was still weighing on my mind and affecting my concentration, so i wouldn't have been of much use, either. and to make things worse, my professor sent me an incredibly difficult paper to review. it was difficult because it was almost completely out of my research area. the paper was about the development of new internal standards for capillary electrophoresis, and just about the only thing my research had in common with it was that we both use cisplatin. so, i decided to take off early and digest the paper at home. went to rivervale mall too, to get a haircut, slip in a workout, and buy groceries. yes, i decided to do the meal prep thing after all. it's increasingly starting to make sense, especially since the canteen is so crowded, and i have easy access to a microwave in my pantry. bought a whole load of vegetables, a chicken, and some other meats to make my go-to soup/stew dish. total price was $35 exactly. that was split into 6 lunchboxes, with some ingredients left over. works out to less than $6 per portion. not bad. i think that i needed such a distraction to get my mind off things. chopping up vegetables was quite therapeutic. and i had fun blowtorching a yellow pepper until the skin turned black and burnt. was also my first time slicing up a whole chicken. i can handle fish well enough, but chicken was an unfamiliar experience. quite weird that for all the chicken i've been eating, my knowledge of chicken anatomy still isn't up to standard. maybe i'll just buy chicken parts next time.
nothing remarkable happened yesterday, which brings me to today. it's day 6 of radio silence between me and the date. i've talked to my taiwanese postdoc friend about it, and he did offer some new perspectives, as well as advice. one thing he suggested was that i message the date. if i know the date well enough, any from of pushing on my side will cause them to back away even more. but having said that, i can't exactly keep waiting indefinitely, can i? my internal compromise is that if there's still nothing heard, i'll send a message on friday night or over the weekend. hope that will be time enough. i have a lot of thoughts about the relationship so far, about best- and worst-case scenarios, and even some deeper analysis. but that will have to wait for another post. don't think i have the mental capacity to write about that now.
the one bright spot in my week so far is that i have a dinner appointment tomorrow, with my scary JC friend! even though she just came back from japan last week, we're going for sushi. she said she didn't mind, so why not? and one of our mutual friends from JC is coming along too, at her invitation. they were in the same class or neighbouring classes, i forget which. for me, i knew him through judo. in the 10 years between then and now, i don't think we've ever met up. i'm mildly nervous, odd as it sounds. well...let's see how things go tomorrow.
saturday was my first personal training session. the trainer had already made a bad impression, by changing the time of the session the night before. he tried to make it earlier at first, and when i didn't reply (because i didn't see it in time), he changed it to a later time instead. not having much to do on saturday, i followed his timing. the session itself was...not enjoyable, which is normal, i guess. they had me do a whole-body analysis thing, involving that special machine that sends electric current through your body. he took a look at the data, and filed it away. i would have thought that he would at least discuss it with me, or tell me what to aim for, or something. to be fair, he did share some stuff when i asked him about it. but still...not professional enough, i think.
the session then began, and he showed me a set of movements, then asked me to do the exercises. no further elaboration, like number of reps, time limit, or anything. not very effective instruction, i think. and to make things worse, something which he told me contradicted what the instructors at the previous gym said, and what I thought made sense. one of the movements i was supposed to do was kettlebell swings. no big deal, done them before. but what this trainer told me is that i should feel the strain in my lower back. the previous trainers all said to protect the lower back, and to feel the strain along the hamstrings instead. and based on my knowledge, lower back injuries can occur from strain and poor posture. so i was rather skeptical, but did my best. well...one thing's for sure. this guy isn't worth $70 an hour. i think that i made a mistake by not asking for his qualifications before signing up. but well...it's a learning experience that i can afford.
also on saturday, one of the minions from the old lab asked me out for dinner at hillv2. it's a shopping mall-cum-residential development in the hillview area. funny how those seem to spring up around there, like the one in bukit panjang where one of my friends is staying. anyway, this junior graduated and is now a teacher. we ate at kinsa sushi, which is a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant that offered other ala-carte items too. the food was decent enough, but the quality didn't justify the price. the one thing that caught my eye was the century egg chawanmushi, which was regular japanese-style steamed egg topped with a century egg sauce. expected as much. would be too much to have the whole thing made of century eggs. over dinner, we caught up with each other, and shared a bit more about our lives. he went through a bad breakup in june, and has been slowly recovering. he also said that he's trying to reconnect with people, and perhaps on a deeper level. i don't know. i don't feel particularly closer to him after the dinner, but then, it was just one meeting, and after 2 years, to boot. well, i think that it was nice of him to reach out regardless. also shared a bit of my own relationship issues with him, and while nothing conclusive came out of it, i think it was somewhat of a relief to share.
most of sunday afternoon was spent in lab, where i helped a friend run HPLC purification, and did some other small tasks, like cutting TLC plates. still don't understand how my student can get such large flakes of silica falling off, when all the plates i cut turned out perfectly. guess that's the difference of an additional 2 years' research experience. on the topic of my student, he's frustrating me just the very tiniest bit. don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, willing to learn, and hardworking as well. i have no regrets agreeing to supervise him. it's just that sometimes, he doesn't think through everything in detail, and also makes some careless mistakes. thankfully, all his mistakes so far have been minor, and are recoverable from with some additional work and trouble. thankfully, his progress is decent. if all goes well, his synthesis will all finish before the end of the year, and the second half of his honours year will be spent doing bio testing.
after the half day in lab, i went back to the bishan house to make some decisions about some stuff that was left behind. turns out i still needed to take 2 bowling balls and a couple of plastic bags' worth of random things. the house had been empty for about...3 to 4 months? it felt more foreign, somehow...as though it wasn't the same place i grew up in. but well...it's a chapter that's more or less closed, i guess. i will miss it and think about it occasionally, but what i have now isn't bad either - except for the increased travelling time.
i've been thinking on and off about getting my own place in the future. considering that i don't intend to get married, that kind of limits me to smaller HDB flats and private housing. for HDB, i have to be at least 35 years old to apply. no problem, because i'll need some time to accumulate the money. doing a cursory check shows that a 3-room flat typically goes for about $300 000. assuming i can't get any housing grants, that's $1000 a month for 300 months, or 25 years. and i'm not even counting interest yet! browsing the HDB website has shown that i may be eligible for some form of grant, perhaps up to about $50 000. and somehow, their worked examples show that the money can be taken entirely from CPF. don't ask me how, but apparently it's possible. as for the private housing route, a condo unit goes for anywhere between $500 000 to more than a million dollars. not sure if i'll ever be able to afford one of those. but well, if the right offer comes along at the right time, why not? or if i'm lucky enough, my future job will provide employee housing. who knows? at any rate, it's still a bit too early to be worrying about housing, i think. i'm nowhere near financially independent yet. or perhaps that's all the more reason for me to be worrying?
monday was a horrible day. there was nothing for me to do in lab, as my products hadn't finished drying yet. and even if there was, the issue with the date was still weighing on my mind and affecting my concentration, so i wouldn't have been of much use, either. and to make things worse, my professor sent me an incredibly difficult paper to review. it was difficult because it was almost completely out of my research area. the paper was about the development of new internal standards for capillary electrophoresis, and just about the only thing my research had in common with it was that we both use cisplatin. so, i decided to take off early and digest the paper at home. went to rivervale mall too, to get a haircut, slip in a workout, and buy groceries. yes, i decided to do the meal prep thing after all. it's increasingly starting to make sense, especially since the canteen is so crowded, and i have easy access to a microwave in my pantry. bought a whole load of vegetables, a chicken, and some other meats to make my go-to soup/stew dish. total price was $35 exactly. that was split into 6 lunchboxes, with some ingredients left over. works out to less than $6 per portion. not bad. i think that i needed such a distraction to get my mind off things. chopping up vegetables was quite therapeutic. and i had fun blowtorching a yellow pepper until the skin turned black and burnt. was also my first time slicing up a whole chicken. i can handle fish well enough, but chicken was an unfamiliar experience. quite weird that for all the chicken i've been eating, my knowledge of chicken anatomy still isn't up to standard. maybe i'll just buy chicken parts next time.
nothing remarkable happened yesterday, which brings me to today. it's day 6 of radio silence between me and the date. i've talked to my taiwanese postdoc friend about it, and he did offer some new perspectives, as well as advice. one thing he suggested was that i message the date. if i know the date well enough, any from of pushing on my side will cause them to back away even more. but having said that, i can't exactly keep waiting indefinitely, can i? my internal compromise is that if there's still nothing heard, i'll send a message on friday night or over the weekend. hope that will be time enough. i have a lot of thoughts about the relationship so far, about best- and worst-case scenarios, and even some deeper analysis. but that will have to wait for another post. don't think i have the mental capacity to write about that now.
the one bright spot in my week so far is that i have a dinner appointment tomorrow, with my scary JC friend! even though she just came back from japan last week, we're going for sushi. she said she didn't mind, so why not? and one of our mutual friends from JC is coming along too, at her invitation. they were in the same class or neighbouring classes, i forget which. for me, i knew him through judo. in the 10 years between then and now, i don't think we've ever met up. i'm mildly nervous, odd as it sounds. well...let's see how things go tomorrow.
-random thought of the day: Listless.-
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