On to part 2! before i go into talking about the relationship, i want to very briefly mention some happenings in the judo world. as you know, i have more or less removed myself from it, but snippets of my friends' involvement still show up in my facebook feed. first, the MMA gym has relocated due to financial reasons. instead of being on its own premises, the owner now has to rent a place. it's caused some logistics issues, and one of the solutions was to no longer run judo classes until further notice. i can't blame anyone for this, it's just one of those decisions that had to be made. but i digress. looking at my friends' updates, i felt a slight twinge of...jealousy, i guess. some of the junior referees who have been refereeing for shorter than i had been (even after factoring my unjust suspension) are being promoted to grades higher than i was at my resignation. i'm not saying that they're undeserving. i'm saying that i don't think i'm worse than them, so why was my promotion withheld? i was assured that my suspension would not affect chances of promotion, but as you can see, it obviously did. i refuse to buy the story that i am (was) of substandard skill and ability, because if i was at that point, at least 80% of the referees at my grade were too. it's times like these that i have to remind myself that anything and everything only has as much value as you ascribe to it. since i'm effectively withdrawn from the judo world, this news shouldn't affect me. and yet, it does. maybe, just maybe, i should attempt a comeback. not right now, of course; the timing has to be right. like once i'm out of NUS, and once the leadership changes.

right, got that out of my head. now for relationship news. we followed up the serious talk from 2 posts ago with another one on the saturday of that week. somehow the date wanted to go to the botanic gardens. at that point, i was thinking like maybe it's come full circle, we'll end where we started. we had dinner at relish, located at cluny court. they're famous for burgers, and although i can't remember exactly what i ordered, i know that it had blue cheese, and that i liked it. we had a walk after dinner, and settled down by the lake for part 2 of the talk. cutting a long story short, the date agreed to being a proper couple, and shared some more of their insecurities with me. to be honest, i found them rather silly. that's not to say that they're unimportant, but they're of very little issue to me and i don't quite see why the date was/is worried to that extent about these things. having said that, it's important that i treat these concerns seriously and do my best to make the date feel less conscious about them.

now that we're "officially" together, perhaps i should change my form of address. after all, we aren't just dating any more. maybe "the partner"? let's give it a go. so since that talk, there's been some concrete action on the partner's end, to advance in our relationship. the most tangible one is that we've had a couple of staycations already so far, and have one more planned on the weekend after national day. i think it's a good step forward, though i also acknowledge that we can't be doing this all the time. we'd go broke! other than that, it's been the usual routine of weekly weekend dates, with some weekday dinners thrown in too. i've noticed that the partner has been wanting to go to more touristy locations - night safari, bird park, science centre, SEA aquarium, to name a few. personally, i'd be just as happy with something less...adventurous (and expensive). of course, there are still some areas for improvement on both our ends, like my (lack of) punctuality, for one. right now, i'm maybe about 85% sure that the relationship will work out. i hope that percentage goes up with time. in the event that reality doesn't match expectations, i hope i know when to stick it out, and when to call it quits.

i think that's all i've got for now? yes, that should more or less cover it. have to go shower up, the partner suddenly invited me over for dinner, and i'm not one to turn homecooked food down.

-random thought of the day: Lazy Sunday.-

Realized that i am about 2 days away from missing my self-imposed minimum of one post per calendar month, so here i am. as you might expect, a lot of stuff has come and gone, but i'll do my best to blog about everything i remember and insert my thoughts and feelings wherever appropriate. it might be longer than usual...or it might not, depending on my mood as the post (and the night) goes on.

lab work has been mildly stressful. and my mildly, i mean majorly. so here's the situation: my candidature is due to expire around end-may next year. that's something of which i was aware. what caught me slightly by surprise was that my scholarship ends this december, and not along with my candidature as i'd previously thought. this means that in the worst case, i won't be earning money for 5 months. actually no. that's the second worst case. the extreme worst case is that i finish with a master's, but my professor told me not to even think about that. it also explains why he wants me to submit my thesis around december. another reason for that is because he's going on sabbatical for the first half of next year, so he won't be in singapore to provide guidance and such. all things considered, it would be best for me to submit and leave ASAP. and here's the second problem: i'm not sure if i have enough content. my enzyme side-project is more or less about to wrap up already (funny how i've been saying that since the start of june), pending one more result and one more assay. but that's just going to be one chapter out of a minimum of five that i'm supposed to have. i can't help but think that my linker project might have been a bit too ambitious. so far, even simplifying the structure of the final complex doesn't seem to be working. well...there's enough time to turn it around, i think. definitely need to work even more closely with my professor in the coming few months.

as you may recall, i've been doing grabhitch for a while. almost 2 months, i think? the experience has been good in general; i'd say 95% of my passengers are nice. some are willing to engage in conversation, others not so much. but that's fine. i'm pretty neutral about whether the passenger wants to talk or not. and you really do meet all sorts of people. just to give a few examples from the past 2 days alone, i picked up a make-up artist and a surveyor (also my first-ever double hitch!) who were both going to mediacorp. after some light conversation and finding out each other's occupations, the surveyor mentioned that she was getting married next year, and wanted to engage the make-up artist's services for her big day. amazing how connections can be made like that. on the other end of the spectrum, there was this horribly self-centred/spoilt poly/NSF/undergrad kid i picked up last night. for starters, he was waiting for me just in front of a traffic light. of all the places to wait for a pickup, that is probably the stupidest. especially if the leftmost lane is a go straight/turn left lane, as it was at that location. first thing he did was try to go for the back door. instant negative impression. it irks me when people go for the back seat immediately. and i've found an easy way to prevent that behaviour - lock the back doors. i laugh internally every time someone pulls on the door handle in vain. anyway. next negative point was that he didn't respond to anything i said, and stuck his earphones in his ears immediately. tell me, is that stuck up or what? the drive was silent (not that i minded) and not being familiar with where he lived, i drove past his condo. only then did he say "you should have turned in there". i stopped at the roadside and wanted to let him alight since it wasn't too far. he then followed up with "aren't you going to drop me off inside?" my goodness. ended up i did a u-turn and went in. horrible experience. in contrast, today's hitch rider was much more friendly, and the journey was much more pleasant. we're the same age, and he was telling me about his JC days. he got into AJC, which he told me was boring as hell. good thing my appeal in didn't succeed. he was also extremely punctual, and easy to talk to. and above all else, he saw the queue of cars at his destination, and offered to get off at a place that would be convenient for me. i would pick him up again in a heartbeat.

one thing i'm starting to notice over the past week is that more and more people are lying about the number of passengers. for those who are not aware, the grab app (for grabhitch, anyway) lets you specify date, time, location of pickup, as well as number of passengers and any additional remarks, like if you have luggage and need additional space. i usually only take bookings with 1 passenger, because more weight means that the car burns more fuel. and i believe most drivers do the same thing. so, some people have attempted to secure bookings by indicating that there's only one passenger for pickup, and when the driver calls or messages, they go "oh by the way, there are two people. i forgot to change the setting". the worst one i got was "oh there are actually 2 people, and a 32-inch TV". as a rule of thumb, i reject everyone that tries this trick. if you genuinely forget, go edit your booking. just earlier today, after dropping off the nice guy, i continued with a second hitch. one person pickup, as usual. when i got to the block, two people approached the car and tried to get in. lucky my back door was still locked. the one who made the booking apologized and asked if i could just give them a hitch anyway since it was a short distance blah blah. i refused because at no point before this did she mention an additional person, even during our short SMS exchange. i guess she was hoping to get me there, and since i would already be at the location, i'd just decide to get it over and done with. nope. other drivers may have given in, but i can be guai lan if pushed. i have half a mind to report her to grab for wasting my time and my fuel. all things considered though, grab is still quite enjoyable. most passengers are reasonable and even-tempered, and the good more than makes up for the bad.

gymming has been progressing nicely. there's been positive results, in the sense that i'm using heavier weights, and that my body fat percentage has dropped since i started. granted, there's still a long way to go, but i figure i should celebrate some small accomplishments. the biggest hurdle in my way currently is diet. have to be a bit more strict about the quality of food that i'm getting, as well as the quantity. the interesting thing i learnt is that while it's not healthy to overindulge in unhealthy food, it's also not entirely good to cut your favourite not-so-healthy foods out. everything in moderation, that seems to be the principle here, as it is for most other things in life.

that'll do it for part 1. took longer than i expected. next will be a huge update on the relationship. spoiler, it's still intact.

-random thought of the day: Feeling conflicted about morning dates.-