I'm beginning to think that i may need some help. psychologically, that is. this thought was brought about by a bit of a freak-out episode i had yesterday, on the way back from lab. the reason for it was rather trivial, i suppose, and it was because my professor rejected the PR that i put in for chemicals which i need. i don't know why it was rejected, but i'm hoping that it was only because there was an error with inputting the company's name (somehow the drop-down list in the system didn't work), and not because he doesn't want to spend the money, or feels that it's not worth it. in the event that it's too expensive, i suppose i can cut down some quantities. but i shouldn't assume too much. have to ask him for the reason first before anything else.

writing is coming along ok-ishly. the enzyme chapter is basically finished, so that's about 20 to 25% of the work done. i'm just considering if i should split my preliminary work into 2 chapters, one for the initial proof of concept, and one for the synthesis of the prototype molecules. right now, the prospective chapter 2 looks really long. or maybe that's a good thing. should probably schedule a discussion with my professor soon. still have to ask him about applying for the fee waiver.

above all, i think i should remind myself that while this is probably the toughest thing i've faced so far, it won't be the toughest thing i'll ever do. and besides, things will pass with time. it's just that the outcome at the end of that time may vary. i won't lie, i'm afraid of being unable to graduate. but to be objective about it, i've never heard first-hand of anyone outright failing the thesis defense...not that i want to be the first. the worst i've heard so far was a re-defense in 2 weeks, and the candidate passed the second time around. guess i'll just have to see it through to the end. i've been in it for the past 4 years and 3 months, so i should be able to tahan another 5 to 8 months maximum. at least that's what i'm telling myself. just stay calm and do what i can, i think that's the best plan for now. not sure how calm i can stay, though. i've noticed that my breathing has been faster/shallower since yesterday. plus last night's sleep was not good. had yet another weird dream, though the contents elude me. one thing's for sure, i will need some recovery time between the end of this grad school journey and the start of the next one, be it work or JET program or whatever else decides to come my way. for now, i just have to keep it together and make progress every day. i'm sure that some way or another, things will work out.

seeing as how i'm so worried about thesis and all that, it's probably not exactly right of me to go and watch a movie. however, that's exactly what i did. caught thor: ragnarok at waterway point, and thinking about it, it's literally the first movie i've watched alone in about 2 years. and it was fine. thanks to my experiences growing up, i'm pretty ok with being alone most of the time. although i was kind of reminded why i don't watch movies in cinemas all that often, because with the advent of smartphones with big bright screens, some idiot will inevitably be checking messages or doing stuff on their phone in the theatre. unfortunately, the idiot this time round was seated in the same row as me, so i saw that stupid white glare out of the corner of my eye. i don't get it. you paid good money to watch the show. why aren't you WATCHING it? if something was that important, like if you were expecting an urgent call, maybe don't buy the ticket? or step out of the theatre to look at your phone. i think it's basic courtesy. if cinemas were to implement a mandatory phone surrender policy, i'd definitely go for it. maybe i'm better off streaming the shows at home.

the movie itself was nice. marvel is really raising the bar with each new movie. good balance of humour, drama, action. i enjoyed the storyline too, and was a little surprised at the direction they took. without giving away any spoilers, i'll just say that i'm happy they took some elements of the secondary storyline without bringing over the main conflict. that would have been messy and difficult to resolve. definitely worth a watch in the cinema, and bonus points if you don't meet any morons using their phones.

next week, my broad goal is to get the writing for the preliminary work chapter done. bonus if i can finish the supporting info too. have to make some more compounds for my postdoc to test as part of the additional work on the enzyme project, but that shouldn't be too difficult. above all, need to have a chat with my professor. i hope our wavelengths are somewhat in tune. and most importantly, i have to remember all the mental training that i had, and put it to use.

-random thought of the day: I can do it!-

Since I'm currently stuck at the Honda service centre waiting while they replace the car's airbags (Honda did a voluntary recall), I thought I might as well write a short post to record and recount another weird dream. In this dream, the ex and I were at my previous place in bishan, having a wedding ceremony. The weirdest thing was that I saw it from a third-person perspective behind and above the crowd. I think I even said "I do" before changing my mind when the officiant asked if I was sure. This next part is fuzzy, but I believe the shock woke me up. And when I went back to sleep, the ex had been replaced by the person from final fantasy 14 whom I find attractive and kind of like. That was it, I think. The last image I have is of us holding hands.

It really puzzles me, what these dreams mean, or if they mean anything at all. If I were to guess, I'd say that it's telling me to take a shot with the new person. Not optimistic about it, though. The distance thing is potentially a big issue, plus based on our conversations, it seems that this person is wanting to focus on their work for the near future, at least until next February. It's a good thing, seeing as how I have to focus on my work too. Maybe I'll just confess to them after submitting my thesis. Should it turn out positively, I'd actually be dating an artist! So help me if I was asked to attempt drawing something. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves...thesis first.

Went for my lab friend's thesis defense yesterday. he presented well enough, and passed. out of the five of us who went on to do grad studies, two have successfully defended their theses, one has submitted and is waiting for his defense, while another guy and i are still in the midst of things. it's not a competition, of course. i do wish that my progress was faster, though. to digress a little, i remember learning earlier in the year that not everything is a zero-sum game. there usually are ways to work towards a win-win situation. let's just take my experience in undergrad as an example. we used to hang out with this one guy in years 2 and 3. he was/is ridiculously smart, but quite secretive about his results. i also remember that there was a running joke where he wanted to push anyone who did better than him in front of a bus, though my memory is fuzzy on the details. anyway. he's ok to be around, but i wouldn't consider us to be close friends. my impression of him is that he doesn't seem that willing to help people if there's a chance that his help enables them to do better than him. i could be mistaken, but that's just an opinion. conversely, the chemistry guys to whom i'm closer are ready to explain concepts if i don't understand, and i'm willing to do the same for them if i'm able. i think that sticking together through undergrad and grad school really helped boost us all on a whole. i wish someone would help me write a passable thesis, but let's not ask for the heavens.

midway through my friend's defense, i started to feel a little bit of panic. i'll be in his shoes within the next 5 to 8 months! i'm actually quite looking forward to getting out of NUS...it's been too long already. but the only things standing between me and my freedom (and degree) are the thesis and defense. i've more or less finished one chapter already, what's left is just some formatting and proofreading. that leaves 3 chapters to go. with the data i have now, i can write about 2.5 of those 3 chapters, with the last 0.5 chapter being evidence that i made the damned compounds. and since i'm out of drugs (pharmaceuticals, not illegal narcotics), i'm writing while waiting for the order to be approved, processed, and shipped to the lab.

there's been an update of the employment situation. it seems that the other professor no longer considers me a potential candidate, probably because of the administrative restriction (i'm not yet eligible for a postdoc position). well, it kind of sucks, but there isn't much i can do in that aspect. i had a quick chat with my friend, who suggested that i ask for a fee waiver for the upcoming semester. it's something that will probably need my professor's support to push through, so i'll have to talk to him about it soon. actually, i'm not that worried about not having an allowance, because i can control and minimize my expenses. it's paying the school fees that will really kill me, because that's a fixed (and expensive!) sum. hopefully things work out.

i attended a secondary school old boys' dinner in honour of an ex-principal, who turns 90 this year. i was never under his charge, considering his tenure as principal began and ended before i was born. nevertheless, i met him at the weekly turf city gatherings, and had the pleasure of chatting with him occasionally. it really stuns me, my seniors' care and respect for him. some will even drive him home every saturday, while others occasionally cover his overseas travel expenses. quite amazing. there are maybe only one or two mentor figures for whom i would go to such lengths, i think.

another benefit from attending the dinner was the sense of community. i realize that the grad school journey is quite lonely, because nobody except maybe your professor understands your work as well as you do. like even among the chemistry guys, we offer each other quite generic suggestions when faced with a problem in research, unless the problem lies within our field of expertise. even groupmates in the same lab may not be too familiar with your field of work, considering that everyone has their own projects to worry about. and to compound the effects of loneliness, we're often faced with failure. it's a really unhealthy combination! so it was heartening that some of the seniors were offering words of encouragement at the dinner. i even had a quick chat with a retired chemistry teacher, and shared some of my research with him. although he's in his 70s, he managed to keep up just fine. the gist of what he told me was that previously, study followed a "T" model, meaning broad basic knowledge, but deep knowledge in one particular area. to keep up with the times, the model had to evolve into the greek letter pi - broad base, some additional knowledge in one area, and extensive knowledge in another. guess it's true, no man is an island. good to be reminded that my network is still there.

on the topic of old boys, has your opinion of someone you respect ever been lowered? gosh, that was an awkward sentence. i guess another way to say is it, has your respect for someone ever been diminished? i find that that's happening with my previous coach. i've written about him here and there previously, and i'm not sure if i've told you all that he still owes me around $500 in coaching fees from when i was his assistant in 2011. i've asked a couple of times over the next few years, and he keeps telling me that he wants me to give him a time sheet. i remember that our agreement was to split the fees 50-50, so i would have thought he would just divide the amount by two and give my half to me. but it could also be argued that i'm lazy and not willing to provide documentary proof, so fine. what really made me doubt his character was when a mutual friend told me that he (the coach) borrowed money to the tune of a couple of thousand dollars from another old boy, and didn't/wouldn't return it even after a few years. the debt is still outstanding, as far as i know. i can't verify the story, since i heard it from someone else, and i'm not about to ask the parties involved...so there may be inaccuracies in what i know. but still, no smoke without fire, right? and he hasn't been going to the old boys' gatherings or dinners for a few years now, so the signs tally. the thing that really makes all this ridiculous is that he comes from a rich family. we're talking at least tens of millions combined net worth by my estimation. i don't understand it, but well.

guess that's enough blogging for one day. don't exactly remember why i prompted myself to write about wealth. for the moron driver, i'm taking it to my MP. hopefully something comes out of it.

-random thought of the day: Pineapples are hard to peel/skin!-

Realized that my phone plan is due for recontract soon. actually, the option to recontract has been available for a while, according to the ex. feeling the need to save money, i went looking around all 3 telcos to see what each one offered. but before i do that, let's talk briefly about another decision i have to make - namely, standard plan, or SIM-only? as you may be aware, most (all) standard plans allow you to purchase a phone at a discounted rate. that's because the cost of the phone which you didn't pay upfront is factored into the monthly payments of the phone bill already. SIM-only plans cost about half the amount of a standard phone plan, because the consumer is not eligible to get a new phone at a discount. that's fine with me, since my current phone is working well enough. there's one disadvantage of a SIM-only plan though, which is that i cannot trade my current phone in to offset some of the cost for a new phone. and the longer i hold on to it, the more its trade-in value depreciates. i think let's compare the three telcos based on their normal plans, as well as their SIM-only plans. for reference, i am looking for about 3-5gb of data, some talktime (i don't think i even hit 60 minutes in a typical month), and some free SMSes (grabhitch reasons). for the normal plans, i will be looking at getting a samsung note 8, 64gb. let's start with normal plans, then.

starhub (the carrier i'm currently on) offers the note 8 at $789 on their xs plan (including $110 off for their 11/11 promotion). that's the closest analog to the plan i have now, which is 150mins talktime and 3gb data (bumped up to 5gb and 1000 free SMS due to youth benefits when i signed up). the xs plan offers 200mins talktime, no free SMS, and 3gb data. i expect that the unlimited weekend data which this new plan offers will offset some of the 2gb that i'm going to lose out on. the price is $48 per month, and an additional $10 charge for activation or something. factoring in GST, the total i can expect to pay over 2 years is...$2087.

m1's mysim^e40 plan offers more attractive terms, like 100mins of talktime, 100 free SMS, and 5gb of data, all for $40 a month. the SIM card fee of $37.50 (which i have to pay because i'll be switching telcos) is waived, too. the downside comes in the form of their note 8, which is going for $958 bundled with this plan. total cost here is...$2052.

singtel's closest equivalent is their combo 2 plan, with 200 mins of talktime, 1000 free SMS, but only 2gb of data, for $42.90 a month. the next step up would be combo 3, unlimited talktime and SMS, and 3gb data, costing $68.91 a month. incidentally, when the telcos say "unlimited", they don't really mean it. they cap it at 10000 minutes and 10000 SMSes. though to be fair, you'd have to bo constantly on the phone 24/7 for almost a week to use up 10000 minutes. and assuming whatsapp messages were SMSes, i needed almost 2 years to burn through 4 months' quota based on messages to the ex. then again, it may take longer, because only SMSes you send are charged. receiving them is free. anyway. the note 8 costs $998 with combo 2 and $598 with combo 3, bringing the total costs to...$2169 and $2409 respectively. based on the plans offered and the cost, singtel is out immediately.

moving on to SIM-only, i won't factor in the cost of a new phone, because i won't be getting one. most plans are contract-free, though there is an option to go for a 12-month contract, usually with additional benefits, like more data. starting again with starhub, their xs SIM-only plan is basically the same as the normal plan, except that signing a one-year contract doubles the data to 6gb. the calculation here is more straightforward. at $24 a month, the total i'd pay after a year is $308 (after GST). even adding the trade-in value of my phone (assuming it becomes worthless), that's a total of $508.

similarly, m1 has the mysim(3) 20 plan. 100mins talktime, 100 free SMS, and 2 or 5gb of data depending on whether you sign the one-year contract or not. either way, the plan costs $20 per month, bringing the total to $256 per year. price after phone depreciation is $456.

singtel has rather confusing offers, and this is just from a cursory glance at their site. their no-contract plan comes with 3gb of data, that's it. i definitely won't be going for that. for 12 months, you get 150mins talktime, 500 SMS, and 3gb data + 2gb singtel wifi (whatever that is). price is the same as m1, so $256 and $456 again.

if i were to buy a phone, i would probably go for m1 or starhub. the difference in cost is $35, which over 2 years, is about $1.50 a month. based on logic and economics alone, i guess m1 would be the obvious choice. but my heart still tells me to go with starhub over m1, for reasons upon which i will elaborate later. however, if i was going SIM-only, the toss-up would be between m1 and singtel. among those two, singtel might actually win, provided i find out what on earth singtel wifi is. although i just remembered that m1 has this data passport function, which allows you to use your local mobile data overseas (for a fee, of course).

so, why would i choose starhub over m1 in the former case? well, i'm currently with starhub already, and my billing is settled by GIRO. so there's the factor of existing convenience, plus the thought of added hassle to redo billing arrangements if i change telco is a minor annoyance. on top of that, m1 is the only telco out of the three that i recall experiencing a major service outage in the last 5 years. singtel has had an outage too i think, but for like, one morning. so far, starhub has been the most consistent in my impression, though their 3g network sucks for games (pokemon go was painful on 3g).

all things considered, it looks like i may move away from starhub. think i'll go down to waterway point this weekend and find out more. oh! another possible disadvantage is that i may not be able to switch telcos so quickly. though early recontract is not an issue with starhub, it might be with the other 2, since my contract only expires on 17 december. on the bright side, it gives me about a month to get more info and evaluate my choices more carefully too. prompt for the next post: wealth, and maybe an encounter with a driver who's a moron of epic proportions.

-random thought of the day: One chapter 70% complete! Just need to stick the figures in and dig up more references.-

Horrible start to the work week. the paper was rejected by the journal, with the reviewers giving generally negative comments. a brief discussion with my professor has enlightened me to the fact that he will not be submitting an amended manuscript to the same journal for re-review, and i'm fine with that. it seems that the plan now is to do what we can to address the reviewers' comments, and submit it to a journal with a lower impact factor. to be completely honest, i don't care too much which journal the paper ends up in, as long as it's of some decent repute. having a - any published work matters more to me.

am also starting on thesis writing. after reading some of my seniors' theses, i really wonder how i can do this. assuming there are 200 pages total, of which maybe 20% are set aside for lists and supplementary data. that means i still have to fill 160 pages with meaningful content. if i write 3 pages a day on average, that will take...54-ish days, which if i count starting from today, will be until early to mid-january next year. i really don't know. but if so many of my friends and seniors have done it before me, there's no reason why i can't do the same right? oh wait. there is a reason. outstanding lab experiments, and "outstanding" not in a good way. i guess what i can do is write up what i have so far, then continue filling in the blanks as experimental results come in. actually it probably isn't that difficult, right? i mean, i'm sure that everything i've written here since 2003 until now will fill 200 pages (times new roman size 12, double-spaced) easily. it may perhaps extend to even 500 to 1000 pages. well, better not lose any days. time to get my 3-page minimum in.

-random thought of the day: Herbs and spices are amazing.-

Financial stress is probably the cause of my latest weird dream, which is the scariest one by far this year. in it, i was at the beach or something, celebrating some event. a cousin's birthday, perhaps? the ex showed up, and wanted to get back together with me. i guess that should have been my first clue that it was a dream. but anyway. that's where things got weird. and by "weird", i mean "creepy as hell". the dream turned into a stalker-type thing, where the ex was hunting me down and refusing to leave me alone...even getting in bed with me and attempting some M18 stuff. in retrospect, that was clue #2. i wonder about the root cause of this dream. assuming that other people's thoughts and dreams have no power to affect my own, does it mean that i subconsciously want the ex to come back to me? or am i projecting my subconscious desire for the ex onto them, and switching the roles around? or perhaps i've just been deprived of physical intimacy for too long. i don't know.

so, financial stress. here's the current situation. my funding expires soon, and by that i mean my last pay day should be next month. if i do get one in january, it's just a bonus (and will probably be prorated). my candidature expires next may, though my personal goal is to submit the thesis by march. aside from the 3 to 5 months of working for free, as my professor has said that he doesn't have money to fund me, there's the other issue of school fees. a full semester's fees runs around $3700, though if i submit before 30 march, i'll only have to pay half of that. so far, i've worked out 2 options, which i will discuss in detail below.

option 1 is to seek employment with a different professor. this professor taught me in undergrad, so there's some existing rapport there already. there are a couple of snags, one of which is that he's hiring for a research fellow (postdoc) position, which means that until my degree is confirmed, i will be drawing reduced salary. that's still a minor issue. a more major issue is in the timing. he has to finalize the hire by january latest, which means starting paperwork in december. that leads to another timing issue, because i don't know when i can wrap my current experiments up and officially transition to his lab. it would be unfair to him if i was taking his money but not working in his lab. he says he's ok with about a month's overlap, but i would want to avoid that as far as possible. i don't have a good estimate of the timeline, which sucks. and the hire will be based on a one-year contract, which means that i have to stay in NUS until early 2019. i've had his chemistry explained to me, and i think i can adapt to it. it actually seems reasonably similar to whatever i'm doing now, perhaps maybe even a little easier. on the flipside, a major major plus point is that if i'm employed within NUS, my school fees are waived, which reduces my expenses even further.

the second option is for me to seek employment elsewhere. the first (and only) thought that comes to mind is tuition, either at a centre, or private. thankfully, one of the chemistry guys has a foot in the industry, and i've told him that i may need his help to source for assignments. depending on how much time i'm willing to devote to tuition, the takings will probably be around $40 to $80 per day. like the previous plan, it'll also be a one-year deal to avoid disruption to the students. the advantage is that i have slightly more flexibility, but that's a downside as well, because the amount i earn is proportional to the amount i work. maybe i'll just think of tuition as a way to cover my school fees. if i take this route, there will be less time pressure, and i can basically start work immediately. apart from the lower earnings, the other downside of this is that i probably will have to delay my plan to resume training at genesis. tuition classes have to be after school for the kids, and that means they're typically held in the afternoons and up to the nights. that completely overlaps with the gym's opening hours, not to mention the distance from the gym to the tuition centre.

logically, the decision would be to go with option 1. there are significantly more and better pros. but the single con is the biggest among all of those i've weighed. if i'm unable to finish my lab work in time, i may have to work nights or weekends. the former would mean that the gym plan goes out of the window anyway, while the latter means that i only work 2 days a week, potentially dragging it out even further. one of the chemistry guys (also the guy who told me about this job opening) thinks that i should go for it. he says it may be possible to work concurrently in 2 labs, setting up reactions in both places and running back and forth. my potential employer says that perhaps a compromise can be reached, but i personally don't want that to last too long. it's unfair to him. a couple of my lab friends are taking the opposite stand, and telling me that i shouldn't go for it. their reasoning is that my current reactions may not go smoothly, and then i'd be stuck with promises that i can't fulfill. i can see their perspective as well, which is why i haven't committed to the professor yet. i told him that i'd update him in december, and we'd see how things go from there based on my research progress then. perhaps there is a middle ground, in that i seek employment with the professor after i'm certain that my current research is approaching its end-point. while that potentially means that i still have to pay school fees, at least the higher salary will be more effective in offsetting the fees.

stressful stuff aside, i've begun food prep again. it was derailed by the surgery and general laziness. i spent some time during my sick leave to do calorie counting - something i was never too inclined towards. i've got a plan, and it seems that my purchases today were slightly off the mark. i figure it'll get better with practice and as i do this more frequently. based on the calculated quantities, i bought a lot less stuff than i did previously. good thing i suppose - saves me some money too. also, i've bought, received, and used the anova cooker. made eggs, salmon, and steak so far. i must say that i'm impressed. the results are consistent, and compared to conventional pots-and-pans cooking, there's like 80% less washing up to do. only thing is that this method wastes ziploc bags like you wouldn't believe. of course, i could wash the bage, but i've yet to properly assess if it's worth the trouble.

yesterday, i attended the wedding of my third paternal uncle's youngest son, ie. my cousin. with him being married, 10 out of 15 of the kids in the same generation on my dad's side are married. if we consider both sides, that number becomes 15 out of 22. not that surprising actually, since i have cousins whose ages are closer to my parents' than mine. but that's a story for another time, maybe when i do decide to go through with operation family tree. anyway, this cousin is a doctor, and he married one of his colleagues. i think i saw the bride for the first time yesterday. as you may guess, i'm not too close to the cousins who are more than 5 years older than me. i kind of worry that this issue will manifest itself again in the next generation, as i have nephews and nieces in their 20s, some in their teens, and some whose ages are still in the (low) single digits. i don't know. one thing that heartens me is that the nephews and nieces who are closer in age are keeping in close contact with each other. one of them told me that they meet up almost every week. and one of my nephews is now studying medicine in NUS! yet another reminder that i'm getting old. and this nephew knows one of the judo people too. the world is really incredibly small. maybe when i have more time, i'll list down all the coincidences within my friends and family alone. it's really quite ridiculous.

another cousin (the one i'm closest to) just gave me some big news yesterday at the dinner. i don't think it's my place to steal his thunder and inform the whole world, but you'll probably be able to guess it if you put the pieces together. it's quite exciting! i've told my cousin-in-law that i'll make myself useful if she needs an additional pair of hands...and i suspect/expect that she will in the next year or so. maybe the breakup was someone's way to free up my time for research and all that. in the grand scheme of things, it was for the better, which is basically what i told some of the chemistry guys with whom i had dinner last week. i still wonder about that dream, though.

-random thought of the day: Stop burning the onions!-

Been nursing a bit of a headache since last night. it was brought on by my allergic reaction to dust, interestingly enough. a typical reaction usually involves my nose running, but it would stop after a shower. the fact that a headache developed showed how bad it actually was. the reason for the dust was that since i had some time on my hands with the sick leave, i decided to spend yesterday finishing up the sorting and tabulation of the force of will cards (for easier sales), and cleaning my room. it seems that i was overdue for such an intensive clean, because i ended up with 6 bags of trash and a ton of dust, as you may have guessed from my allergy being triggered so horribly. still, i must admit that there was quite the sense of accomplishment after the job was done. kind of forgot how therapeutic cleaning can be, provided that i have the time, mood, and leisure to do it to my satisfaction.

the healing process is coming along nicely too. i'd been back to the hospital for a checkup earlier in the week, and the doctor says that there's no infection, and everything looks good. i had briefly wondered whether the headache might have been due to the wound becoming infected, but i rationalized that if infection would occur, it would occur locally at the area first. that area is quite far from my head, so no...it probably isn't due to that. the stitches are still on, though, which is a minor inconvenience. the doctor says they'll fall off in the next week or two (i'm hoping sooner than later), but i should be ok to resume normal life (including exercise) by the end of this week. i'm not too sure that i want to exercise while the stitches are still in, partly because i'm afraid of tearing them, and partly because i'm not too inclined to have all that sweat and grime accumulate in that area. well, it won't be long, i guess.

during this period of downtime, i've also been thinking about how to optimize my life. somehow, this period of rest has made me feel like i have more hours in my day, ridiculous as it sounds. and i figure it's just a process of fitting all the blocks of activities in, and deciding on a good start/end time to my day. the additional conditions are that i'd like to avoid heavy traffic and ERP, go to the gym in the evening, maybe have a day a week to do meal prep. i spent some time doing calorie and macronutrient counting, and realize that i need less food than i thought. i also realized that it might be more convenient (and cost-efficient) to get meat wholesale. plus, they deliver if i buy more than $150 worth. i figure i can buy enough for a week or two at a time; my freezer should be cold enough. i can get fish whole from NTUC, as well as vegetables, which i think i might cook a little differently. will probably still pressure cook carrots and cabbage, but broccoli doesn't need such intense cooking. will also expand the scope of vegetables; i hear spinach is good. i should also mention that i'm getting an anova immersion circulator. i figure it'll be fun to play with. i've got some props for sous vide cooking already, namely ziploc bags, a blowtorch, and a metal rack.

oh, back to talking about slotting stuff in my day. if you've known me for any period of time, you'll know that i'm really really not a morning person. and yet, the arrangement that seems to make the most sense is to reach the lab around 6:30 to 7:00am, work until about 4:30pm, go to the gym, do some shopping or errands after working out, then head home and sleep. let's work backwards. if i want to reach the lab at 6:30am, i'd have to leave the house at 5:45-ish am, which means waking up at 5:00am. and if i want 8 hours of sleep, that means sleeping at 9:00pm the previous night. i don't think i've slept around 9:00pm for the past...8 years, unless i was sick or pulled an all-nighter the previous night. it would also probably mean giving up most of my social life during the weekdays (not that there was much to begin with), but things like going for dinner with the chemistry guys or other groups of friends will require planning around.

an interesting job offer opened up. it seems that another professor is looking for a research assistant, and a main criterion is synthesis expertise. that's something which i have. at first glance, it seems to be the perfect solution...it's all within NUS, and the pay should at least be comparable (hopefully more). the one snag i foresee is that this prospective employer is doing research that overlaps very little with my current area. so i imagine that if this does go through, i'd find myself juggling projects. if so, maybe i might need even longer hours in school...or i could be more efficient. after all, it's not how many hours you spend, but how you spend those hours. we'll see. i don't even know if this will materialize, because i still need my professor's permission.

well, i guess that'll be it for now. have to meet my cousin (who's also the agent for my hospital insurance) to go through the claim for the pre- and post-surgery consultation, and then i'm going to the chinatown area to sell the trading cards which i bought previously in an attempt to find more common ground with the ex. hopefully they're worth something. even if it's 10 cents per card, i'll still rake in about $250. maybe that will cover the immersion circulator. and i figure that i should break out a new notebook/planner. bought it a couple of years back, but never got round to using it. perhaps it's time to start.

-random thought of the day: Take small steps.-