Counting today, there are almost exactly 4 days until the defense. well, 4 days and 58 minutes as of this post, but who's keeping track? i've made a new powerpoint presentation with a simpler background, slightly fewer slides, and a drastically reduced word count. the plan is to go through 55 slides in 40 minutes...not impossible, considering about 5 slides are just titles, section headings, and "thank you". removing those from the equation, i can spend an average of 40 seconds per slide. still have to put the finishing touches on in terms of chemical structures and citations by today, then begin rehearsing latest tomorrow. that gives me time for refinements over the weekend, too. was contemplating writing a script or having index cards with key points, but if my previous experience holds true, the tension/anxiety will make me end up not looking at my notes while presenting. so i think it's better for me deliver my talk without making furtive glances down at my hands (or mentally reminding myself to do so), which should be gesturing most of the time anyway. and speaking of rehearsals, i need to find somewhere quiet, where nobody can hear me. considering asking a few friends for favours, but we'll see. it's not really feasible to rehearse at home; too many people. alternative is to find empty classrooms at work during my free periods.

on the topic of work, (everyone else in the company and) i got an email from the CEO yesterday. it was his end-of-year message thing, which comes a month earlier than expected as the academic year for the learning lab is from december to november. without disclosing any information that might be confidential, let's just say that i gained a new appreciation of the sheer scale of the operation. it's no NUS, but it's definitely impressive in its own right. and my first paycheck came in! time to start paying off some debts. the sum is a little lower than what was agreed upon due to them paying less for the first 2 weeks, which were considered as a training period. it should be normal from next month onwards. i still find it a little unbelievable that they're willing to pay me just to show up at their office and stay there for 8 hours, class or no class. of course, that's the best-case scenario. the worst case is rushing for consecutive classes between distant venues, but that hasn't happened yet, and i'm grateful for it. my work schedule for this weekend is still blank, but barring any last-minute emergency cases, i should know by tomorrow if i'm scheduled to teach or not.

well, i guess that's all for now. got to go to the gym, post out an item for a carousell buyer, and get groceries...not necessarily in that order, but we'll see how events unfold. should be able to finish all that by 3:00pm. then, it's back to working on slides until whenever, and maybe final fantasy at night. did i mention that we cleared the third fight? we actually beat it for the first time last week, and once more this past tuesday, so i'd say that it's good progress. we're currently up to the end of the first phase of section 1 of the fourth (and final) fight. with luck, we'll clear that by the end of the year. but let's not place a strict deadline on it. the main goal is still to have fun as a group, and to enjoy the experience.

-random thought of the day: Getting paid feels good!-

Haven't been sleeping well these few days...my dust allergy causes nose blockage when i'm lying down, and it worsens over time. i went to bed nice and early last night, but got woken up at around 3:30am because i couldn't breathe through my nose. don't know when i fell back asleep, but was awoken again at about 9:30am by a phone call. the most annoying thing was that it wasn't even important...just a telemarketing call telling me about some roadshow in orchard. actually, no. that was the second-most annoying thing. the most annoying thing was the caller starting the call with, "hello, 你会讲华语吗 (do you know how to speak chinese)?" i kept the phone call very short and hung up at the first opportunity. i do think that i may have been unnecessarily mean/curt, especially when the telemarketer was just trying to do her job. on the other hand, i'm registered with the do not call registry, and i don't remember opting to receive any marketing/advertising information over phone, message, or email. maybe the employee was just handed a list of numbers and told to go through them? whatever the case, it was not the most pleasant thing in the world to wake up to, especially when i was in the midst of a pretty good/interesting dream.

since the last post, i've taught another class, went for that party thing, and been to see my professor regarding the defense. let's go through these events individually. for teaching, i co-taught the same class, with my mentor again. this time, the topic was on inheritance and genetics, and i taught in a minor role this time. all i did was facilitate an activity. for some reason, the kids were more restless/boisterous. maybe because of the topic? the game involved pairing the students up and choosing a "mother" and "father", which would then have offspring and see what traits were handed down. due to the need for a "mother" in each pair, perhaps this activity is not suited for an all-boys class. anyway, we got through it ok, more or less. no co-teaching next week, but they may start to assign classes to me, so i don't know how it will go. for now, i'm still coping ok, no desire to quit yet.

the party thing was on saturday night, and it was in celebration of our group's third anniversary. normally, i'm not one for such events, but i went to give my big brother figure face, as he was the organizer. the catered food was decent, not really worth the $20 per head in my opinion. there were some activities and prizes to be won as well. i won a bluetooth headset! all in all, it was pretty enjoyable. at the party, i also met one of the group members in person for the first time. i'd previously only saw a photo of him, and i'd rate him at about a 6 based on that photo. it seems that he'd recently started a workout regimen plus using some products or supplements. i'm under the impression that the parent company selling these products is an MLM company, but don't quote me on that. whatever the case, it worked! he's definitely more attractive now. it's an encouraging factor to me, as it shows how much a physical transformation can add to a person's appeal. i did briefly entertain the thought of asking him for a recommendation to the company, which would also help me to get to know him a little better. that second point about hoping to know him better was squashed pretty quickly, though, as (1) there's an 8-year age gap between us (he's older) and (2) he smokes. not to mention that my big brother figure also advised against it, telling me that this guy had more issues than was worth my time. that's my second lesson, which is one that bears repeating: that just because somebody looks good on the outside doesn't mean that they are equally good on the inside. oddly, i kind of find myself not really wanting a partner at the moment. i mean, i'll still notice good-looking people, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to imagine myself in a relationship with the people that i've noticed...the only exception right now being final fantasy guy. i hope this isn't the start of my transition into a crazy cat man.

presented my slides for defense to my professor yesterday, and as expected, there was a significant amount of criticism. i'm not upset by it, as i know that my professor is giving all this feedback with the ultimate aim of seeing me clear the defense. perhaps it was also because his tone was somehow gentler than what i've been used to during regular group meetings. i mean, he prefaced some comments with "it's not a personal attack, ah"...which is extremely uncharacteristic! main points for me were: sell accomplishments more, don't dwell too much on failures, add citations, tell a compelling story, avoid using "roughly". my story for part one is the whole prodrug thing, which i have to communicate across more clearly. for part 2, the main message is "less is more". my professor also said that he didn't like the look of my slides, but couldn't exactly pinpoint why. something about the colour scheme and font. well, i'll take that in stride, and look for a plainer template along with a less fancy font. not that my font is super fancy now; i'm using palatino linotype, which just looks like a slightly more jazzed-up times new roman to me. well, i figure that i'll start a new powerpoint presentation. it helps me to reorganize information and reinforce my familiarity with the content and flow of the slides. i'll probably finish that by tomorrow or thursday, then have 3 to 4 days for rehearsals. i was quite happy when my professor told me that he thought i was good at speaking off the cuff and recovering after i stumbled. but i can't rely on my improv skills for this presentation. if there was ever one presentation in my life so far that i absolutely needed to nail, this would be it. i was also happy and relieved that my professor liked my gaming analogy for cancer therapy. i'll definitely include that slide in the final product.

i suppose it's good that i don't feel nervous just yet. with luck, i'll completely skip the nervous phase and only break down after the presentation and Q&A sessions...by which time the happiness would override any negative feelings. but let's not look too far ahead. most important thing now is to get my slides in order, then to rehearse. like my old boy mentor said, by the time i'm due to give the talk, i should be familiar enough to recite everything accurately from memory. that's something to aim for.

-random thought of the day: Gym time!-

I'm sensing a recurring pattern to my weird dreams. They usually happen at my bishan place instead of sengkang. Probably because there's 27 years' worth of memories and associations there. So this dream featured someone that I don't talk to any more. It's sad because we used to be pretty close. In the dream, we were living together and shared my old room. Not sure how or why, there was a disagreement or something and this person wanted to go to a nearby field to fight and blow off steam. I think a similar scenario happened in a previous dream, because I instantly knew which field to go to (one near bishan park). Instead of taking public transit like we did the previous time, I offered to drive. So we went to go down to the carpark using the lift, but got sidetracked as people wanted to go up. We talked a little in the lift too. They told me that their parents were moving into a unit on a lower floor, and I told them that I liked the carpark because it was never full.

During the lift journey, we went past a judo club run by someone I particularly dislike. They told me that they thought that the judo club was good, and that they wanted to join it. My response was something like "we have different opinions on this, and that's ok. You go try out if you really want to". Somehow, we ended up on the 14th storey (although I'm sure my old block only has 13 storeys in real life). I wanted to use an alternate lift lobby, so we went down the stairs, and ended up in s14 of nus. We got separated in the corridors, and I found my way to the pharmacy lab, which was closing as it was 10:00pm. There was a lab officer doing some mopping, and I asked her how she survived if she had to report to work early every day. She said that she needed less sleep as she got older. The last thing that happened in the dream was that there was a case of mistaken identity, as I thought an nus student was my person.

I wonder if it's my need for closure that sparked this dream. We parted on not-good terms in real life...or rather, that person cut me out of their life with no warning or explanation. But that was almost 4 years ago. It would be too late to try to reach out now, I think. They haven't expressed any desire to reconnect, so that should be a big hint for me. It's a pity; I had hoped to achieve great things with this person. Well...what that person chose to do is out of my control. What's within my control is my reaction to it. There's not much I can do though, so I guess the best course of action is to live my life. If we're fated to meet again, we will. And I'll deal with that scenario if it happens.

Interesting thought: for someone who likes Japan so much, I have a terrible track record in my interactions with half-Japanese people.

You know those memes about not skipping leg day? my new workout program has leg exercises for both days. i mean, my old program did as well - even the muscle groups targeted are the same! hamstrings on day 1, quads on day 2. the only difference is the addition of calves on both days, and that's probably caused my legs to ache that much more. need to get used to it, plus do way more stretching and foam rolling both before and after workout. should schedule a TCM massage too, but maybe only after my pay comes in at the end of next week. i wonder which school of thought is correct when it comes to muscle recovery after workouts. one school says to do active recovery, like stretching and even light exercise, eg. walking for leg muscles. the other school says to completely lay off. like, don't do anything more than what's necessary. perhaps it's both, depending on the muscle group in question. i mean, it would be pretty hard to not use your legs at all while recovering. yet, you probably shouldn't be running marathons either. moderation, i guess?

spent a while earlier doing up my slides. i've got most of the content in, but something about their organization bugs me...like, it isn't smooth. maybe that's also because i haven't added all the chemical structures in yet. i realize how handicapped i am (or a chemist in general is) without chemdraw and endnote. will continue the work on my laptop (which has those software) over the next few days, in time for the first rehearsal next monday. by that time, we'd be exactly a week away from the actual thing, which is plenty of time for edits, practice, and any last-minute changes. thankfully, i'm not feeling the nerves at this point in time, but i probably will once my professor has gone over my slides.

it's been kind of uneventful these few days. not much to look forward to other than the defense. the lunch plan with my friend fell through; his office was celebrating birthdays on that day or something. we're supposed to reschedule, but that depends on how busy he is. for the remainder of this week, i've got gym on thursday and friday, work on saturday and sunday. there's also a small party thing happening on saturday. well, if you consider 32 attendees "small". i'm on neutral terms with most of the people there, and only know a few of them well. but i figure it won't be too bad. talking about parties, i just remembered having a weird dream about meeting someone at a party and going to transformers school at tanah merah MRT station. his initials were CP i think, and it was a super unique first name...though i can't remember what it was exactly any more. other than that, i guess that's about it? pretty much. i'll have to find something to keep my mind sharp. boredom is something that if left unchecked, can result in great harm/destruction.

-random thought of the day: Look into air purifiers.-

Taught my first class today! granted it was a shared class, with my mentor and i each handling one part. it went well! the kids were engaged and lively; luckily they warmed up to me reasonably quickly. i suppose that it was under pretty ideal conditions, like spherical chickens in a vacuum...i mean, like my mentor was there to jump in if needed, the topic was electricity (of which i do have some knowledge), and the class was one of the more vocal ones. all in all, a good first experience! naturally, there are still areas to improve on, like me needing to know how to simplify the concept of current to sec 1s going on sec 2s. the most persistent question (which i found the most difficult to resolve) was "if electrons are the ones moving, how does that translate to positive charges moving for current?". i'd wanted to talk about relative velocity, like a negative charge moving left is equivalent to a positive charge moving right, but my mentor said that that would have been too abstract and difficult to grasp for them. in hindsight, i agree. sometimes i forget how when we were at that age, teachers used to tell us "just accept it as it is first, you'll learn the correct thing later on". although come to think of it, i don't think i really knew that electron flow opposes current flow until we did electrolysis in sec 4. ah, the nostalgia.

still undecided on how beneficial/necessary tuition is. i'll admit that there are good points, like having an alternative social circle, and getting exposed to content not typically taught in schools. like, we did leyden jars and circuit assembly today. i've never even handled a leyden jar before today, and my last experience with circuits was at JC i think? maybe tuition is a way to cope with the kids' increasing brightness. i had to remind myself several times that these guys are sec 1 going sec 2. i have no delusions about it, i was less bright/knowledgeable when i was their age. but somehow, i think that i was happier. maybe not exactly happier, due to adapting to a boys' school and the early bullying. but i'm sure that i was less academically stressed, at least. well...after thinking it over, perhaps it's not fair to compare. what was that saying - 今时不同往日 - times have changed from previously. maybe tuition is the norm now, and that's something that kids today have to live with.

-random thought of the day: Still grateful for minimal tuition growing up.-

More wins over the last 2 days - i've lost more weight and body fat since the last measurement! the numbers are: -1kg overall, -1.85% body fat, -1cm off waist, +1kg lean muscle mass over the past 5 weeks. it's still a long road ahead, and i've also been repeatedly cautioned that progress will not be linear (and possibly not as good) in future. well, let's just take these small achievements in stride. it's not going to happen overnight. i told the coach that i'd been having snack cravings over the past week or two, and he told me to treat myself to one good meal before going back to the diet plan. only conditions are that i've got to have protein before indulging, and not to go overboard. like, a slice of cake is fine, but not a whole cake. still haven't decided what to spend this allowance on yet. ramen is a strong forerunner at the moment, as is sushi or almost any japanese food. the only other limit i'll set is to not have a buffet. although now that i wrote it, carnivore does sound tempting...well, we'll see. i'm also due to start a new workout routine this coming monday. i've had a sneak peek at it, and i'm scared. there seems to be more muscle groups targeted, as well as a heavier cardio component, which is what i dread the most. but i know that it's good for me, so i'll suck it up and stick to it until the next change, which is scheduled in a month's time.

next win - had a late dinner and walk with my big brother figure last night. i'm happy that he's willing to make time for me. usually, i'd have some relationship issue to moan to him about as we walked, but not this time! i did tell him about final fantasy guy, and he told me to just be confident and go for it. i do wonder sometimes what he sees in me that makes him tell me to just put myself out there. of course, we often devalue ourselves a further 10 to 20%, so maybe that's why i don't get his perspective of me. i was quite tickled, as he's told me on more than one occasion (most recently last night) that if he had to choose between dating me or the ex, he'd pick me every single time. maybe it's not good to get a confidence boost at the expense of others, but i figure that the ex and i are so loosely associated now that it won't matter either way. another reason that i consider this to be a win is because while updating him about my situation, i realized that i didn't want a date/partner as desperately as before. even with final fantasy guy, my stand now is that i'd like us to date eventually, but even if that wasn't possible, i'd still want us to remain friends. i think i've grown up a little, somehow. maybe it's finding my own inner peace?

defense slides are (have been) at a standstill. not much mood to do it. i know, that's quite possibly the lousiest excuse i can make. well, i figure that i still have some time. i think my professor will want a rehearsal this coming wendesday during the usual group meeting timeslot, so i'll have to get it done on/by monday evening or tuesday afternoon. was sharing news about the defense with the old boys this morning, and one of them (ex-pro headhunter, my mentor figure) expressed interest to sit in. his presence should not affect how the defense goes, but i'm irrationally nervous. maybe it's because if he does turn up, two separate social circles will be intersecting at that event. not that i'll stop him from going though, i welcome the support.

i suppose that at this stage, i should begin the job hunt. will begin throwing out resumes to chemical companies, as well as applying online with glassdoor. with luck, something will come along in about a month's time. if not, there's the NUS career fair in february. failing even that...i don't know. like the fitness journey, let's take things a step at a time. i suppose i could always ask about a receptionist job at the gym...the hours are decent, and bonus if they subsidize training packages for employees. part of me wants to wait till after the defense for more certainty, but it's more or less a 90% vs 100% thing as it is. 90% is still pretty good odds in my favour. or maybe i'm just reluctant to get a full-time job? i have to admit, there's a significant inertia that's built up over the last half a year or so. perhaps i should start by being more active. that's what i said the last time, wasn't it? have to start somewhere...probably with groceries tomorrow. i've still got proteins in the freezer, but i'm out of cabbage and low on fruits.

-random thought of the day: Don't keep broccoli at room temperature.-

Negative stuff shouldn't be the first post that my visitors see for too long, so i'll just push the last post down with a longer post filled with positive and/or philosophical stuff. at present, i've got 2 pieces of positive news, plus maybe a few topics on my mind to discuss.

first piece of good news - my defense date is confirmed! it's set for 03 december, which is three mondays (or 19 days) away. suddenly, it feels like i've got a bit more breathing room to prepare my slides. current progress is about 30%. got the introduction and bits of chapter 5 done, so that leaves chapters 2, 3, and 4 to go. the main focus will be on chapter 3, since that's the chapter with one of the more significant discoveries. by this point, it's more or less in the bag already. but that doesn't mean that i can slack off in my preparation. the ideal (and expected) case is to pass it on the first try, but i've known of cases where candidates were asked to come back for a re-exam, typically after 2 weeks. i definitely don't want to be the first one from my lab to undergo that. as part of my preparation, i've also been wondering what kinds of questions the examiners might ask. there are two main categories of question - fundamental and technical. fundamental refers to the underlying scientific principles (eg. how does NMR work?) while technical refers to your research in particular (eg. why did you use these reagents and conditions for this synthesis?). both are equally valid questions, but personally, i think i'd prefer more technical questions since there's less ground to cover, and because i know the content better since it's my research. i'll have to prepare for fundamental questions too, since one of my examiners is a spectroscopist, and i have used spectroscopic methods for a large part of my experiments. definitely can't pull the wool over his eyes for questions related to his area of expertise. the other examiner is an inorganic chemist who does synthesis, so i guess that i should be prepared to justify my experimental/synthetic decisions as well.

the nice department administrator was very helpful in coordinating everything, and in getting the date fixed quickly. if there was one thing i would change, it would be the time of the defense. she scheduled it for 10:00am, which is kind of early. maybe it was out of her control due to the examiners' availability as well. but now that the time has been set, i'll have to go with it. 10:00am means that the defense starts then, and that i should be in school ideally an hour before, or even earlier. so tempted to just wake up super early to beat the morning rush. if all goes well, i should be physically out of NUS by 3:00pm latest, which means that i should book an evening gym session. it feels a little unreal, that everything is finally converging towards that day. i'll just have to do my best and let everything else happen naturally.

next, raiding has been going well. i actually feel challenged in-game, which is a departure from the routine grind. i mean, that's challenging as well, but for a different reason. raiding is more intellectually challenging, as you have to react to things that happen and make sure that you're dealing enough damage to the boss in the process. the challenge for grinding is in finding the determination to see it through, and not succumb to the boredom/repetition. we made good progress yesterday, clearing the first 2 fights pretty easily, and seeing the third fight's "enrage" - which is when you don't do enough damage by a certain time limit, and the boss just outright kills everyone - twice. we got the boss down to 11% health the first time, and 10% on the second, so that's a measure of progress too. we've found ways to deal with most of the earlier mechanics, and can consistently reach the 60% mark of the fight with everyone alive, unless someone messes up. it does happen, and i'm guilty of it too. most important thing is to be understanding, and not let frustration take over. after all, friendship is more important, right? i'm happy that we're still laughing and joking about most of our silly mistakes, though there are issues (like my non-optimal damage output) that are taken more seriously. on my part, i'm happy and relieved to announce that there's been improvement, as other group members have told me. i personally don't track my numbers, but i do my best to get my attack sequence right. i'd say i'm at 80% mastery, which means that there's still room for improvement. the annoying thing is that we have difficulty with the later phases of the fight. but in order to see and get practice on those later phases, we have to fight through the earlier phases first. and occasionally, we mess up and die early. on the bright side, that probably contributed to our mastery of the earlier phases. hoping that the trajectory of our progress continues, and that we can get a clear before the defense.

since my objective is to push unhappy content of the last post down, i guess i should blog about a topic upon which i have a lot of things to say. "why i won't have kids" was a choice under consideration, but i was afraid that it might be too long. so instead, i'll talk about marriage, and LGBT marriage too. i figured that my thoughts about this issue would hold more weight since i'm part of that community...but i could be wrong. disclaimer: everything here is my own opinion, you are free to agree or disagree as you wish.

in my view, there are two components to marriage. there's a civil/legal component, which helps in buying houses, wills, powers of attorney, all that stuff. apart from that, there's a moral/spiritual/religious component, or the "love and cherish each other till death do us part" bit which makes adultery morally reprehensible. personally, i'm not for marriage at all, be it same- or opposite-gendered. like i mentioned in a previous post, if a couple really loved each other, they would stick together regardless of how they are being perceived in the eyes of the law. to be fair, i do understand how a marriage certificate might provide "insurance" against cheating, as a deterrent by highlighting the commitment that was made, and by giving the non-cheating party the moral high ground and better negotiating power in the divorce.

while that is my view, i am also of the opinion that people should be allowed to marry whoever they want to...with one condition. namely, that the two parties to be married must be able to give informed consent. that's usually interpreted as being human, and of legal age, so that there won't be nonsense arguments of "oh so does that mean i can marry my dog/cat/goldfish?", or the issue of child brides and children being forced into arranged marriages with each other. it's amazing to me how some people can make such huge, inaccurate jumps in logic. makes me wonder if they ever really sat down and thought their arguments through. not saying that i'm the clearest thinker around, but i do do my best to catch myself on any logical failings in my thoughts. i've also read articles of people in japan marrying inanimate objects (eg. anime characters, holograms, inflatable dolls), which i think is harmless for the most part. after all, what's the worst that could happen aside from contributing to the declining birth rate? these people leave their assets to their "spouse", resulting in a messy legal battle among surviving relatives when the person dies. funny thought for this case though, the "spouse" also becomes an asset for distribution among living relatives! imagine inheriting your sister-in-law, and dumping her in your storeroom or something like that.

for me, i think that the civil component of marriage is more important, to the point where i can forego the religious component. maybe because it affects me directly, and i'm not religious to begin with. for instance, i will never marry a girl, so it's going to be difficult to get my own housing. and even if i were partnered, i'm not entitled to the various discounts, grants, and subsidies that married couples get from the HDB. of course, i'm not looking at tax relief that children provide, since that would be unfair as i don't plan on having kids. this inequality might lead to a larger societal problem, as some LGBT people who desperately want these benefits may just enter a loveless marriage of convenience and create more unhappiness all around. the more worrying part is that we would be unable to act on each other's behalf if either of us was incapacitated. it's not an issue if we get along with our partners' families, but in the not-unlikely case that there is disapproval/resistance, there can be all sorts of obstacles such as denying visitation rights, or even something as serious as not informing the partner that the plug will be pulled on life support. i really hope that this scenario never happens, but who knows?

the religious aspect of marriage doesn't really apply to me, but i do have thoughts on it as well. i'm not a religious scholar by any means, so please forgive any inaccuracies. one of my friends commented on a facebook post that religion is both communal and individual. two people may say that they are christian, but have very different perception of what "god" is. like, god may be a father figure to someone, a divine light to another, and a companion to a third person. we can't say that any of these are correct or wrong, since we don't have proof of god existing, or what form god takes. they may all be right for all we know! but yes, that's the personal aspect of religion. for the communal aspect, i think that while branches of the same religion may have differing teachings, there are some general beliefs that most people identifying with a particular religion can agree with. for instance, most buddhists would agree that buddha was a prince who gained enlightenment, while christians by and large believe that jesus died for the sins of mankind. unfortunately, i think only christianity and islam have anti-LGBT sentiments. even then, it's kind of a mix-up in christianity. some people i spoke with quoted leviticus, while others said that jesus would have loved everyone. again, not religious, so i don't know what's right here. i'm personally inclined to believe the latter, since it's more to my advantage. anyway. about religious (christian) marriage in the LGBT context. there's a fundamental conflict, it seems. like, you can't belong to a religion and only obey certain teachings. that's called "cherry-picking", and its presence in any argument kills it in my mind. so there has to be some fairness here. one of my friends said that you can't be LGBT and christian at the same time. again, i don't know how true that is. but if you really want a christian marriage, why not start your own branch of christianity? that's what england did in order to legitimize divorce, right? of course, it's not feasible in this modern world, but it was just an interesting thought to me. although i don't understand why someone would want to be a part of something that doesn't accept them as they are. i bet there are many reasons, like constant indoctrination since childhood, having large social circle overlaps with religion, circumstantial limitations, and stuff like that. of course, there are churches who are supportive, so maybe seek them out instead?

unpopular opinion incoming - unless it's a life or death scenario, people who are anti-LGBT should not be obligated to provide goods and services to LGBT people. there was this whole controversy in america about but a baker wouldn't bake a cake for an LGBT wedding, and even got taken to court because of that. if i were the couple, i'd choose to give other more deserving businesses my money. and even if the court ruled that the business had to serve the couple, i wouldn't trust them not to do anything funny to the cake. so for my own peace of mind, i'd definitely look elsewhere. unless that shop was the only vendor providing a really unique or essential product, but i can't imagine anything that doesn't have alternatives in today's world. maybe cheap medicine in a remote location, or some technology under patent? but yes, i hope that in this more enlightened age, such discrimination will die a natural (and quick) death by people choosing to take their money elsewhere. actually, i do respect the baker's honesty. it would be far worse if he had secretly sabotaged the cake.

coming back to singapore, there's been a massive push to repeal or modify section 377a of the penal code this year. that section has to do with criminalizing men based on their sexual preference, so we're still some way away from talking about LGBT marriage. but if i had a say in lawmaking, i'd choose a moderate middle ground. similar to the UK, i'd say let LGBT couples have civil unions, which gives them the same rights and benefits as married couples. in place of divorce, the union could be dissolved, but rules similar to those of divorce would apply with regards to division of shared assets and maybe custody of children (if present). whether religion factors into the union is dependent upon the couple and the religion in question, but it should not interfere with the civil and legal rights conferred upon the couple by the union. that seems like the best win-win situation to me, though i'm sure that extremists from both ends will find fault with it. the anti-LGBT camp will probably argue that it's the start of a slippery slope (which it won't be because of informed consent), while the super-pro LGBT camp will likely argue that a civil union is still not completely equal to marriage (which it isn't, but you can't force the issue). maybe both sides should take a step back when the issue comes up for debate.

right, i think that's enough pushing. hope that gave you an insight into my mind. the next 4 days are busy, with the extra learning lab meeting tomorrow, dinner with one of the chemistry guys on friday, driving duty followed by work on saturday, and another day's work on sunday. not to mention gym for tomorrow and friday, too. in between all that, i have to clean up the mess in the car (before saturday, likely tomorrow) and find time to finish version 1 of the slides (before next wednesday). should be doable. have to do a quick cleanup of my room tonight, and maybe vacuum tomorrow. all in all, i think there'll be plenty to keep me occupied.

-random thought of the day: Need to clean my fan too.-

Why/how can people be such morons? just had a nasty (verbal) altercation with an uncle, who was riding his motorized bike up the ramp on the overhead bridge connecting punggol and sengkang. he tried to ride past me, and i think that that triggered a fuse somewhere in my system. without going into too many details, let's just say that there was some yelling on both sides, and photos and videos were taken. if he goes to the police, i'm fine. in fact, i welcome it. he broke the law, not me. and while i doubt that he is daring and tech-savvy enough to turn to social media, i've thought out my response to that as well. reminder to self: if ever faced with such a situation again, just state the crux of the issue. never bring in religion, status, race, age, or any other thing that is irrelevant to the issue. probably the worst thing to say is "do you know who i am!?"

the thing that i don't get is, is pride/ego that important? he refused to back down and even countered my (valid) point with "why you scold me!?". so primary school! there's probably a term from logic or philosophy to describe this kind of argument, but i don't know what that is since i'm neither a logician nor a philosopher. i think that him reacting this way might be an education thing, but i don't want to assume. funny thought: can you imagine how that would look like in lab? "prof, why you scold me for not following safety regulations!? you can tell me but cannot scold me leh!" i'd probably be out of the research group before i could complete that exclamation. anyway, it's idiots like this that lower my faith in humanity as a whole. i'm definitely not suited to be the ruler of any land, because if i was in power, people like that would not have a good time at all.

i know that some people might say that given my (likely) higher level of education and (definitely) younger age, i should be patient, accommodating, and let him go on his way. you know, personal cultivation, be the bigger man, and all that. to that, i say that i have no patience for morons and/or willfully ignorant people. if he had got off his bike the moment i had told him riding on the bridge was not allowed, i would have left it right there, maybe even apologized for my tone. but since he chose to escalate it (and in a totally idiotic direction, no less), no chance. i'm not the type to back down from confrontation when i know for a fact that i'm right. which reminds me. i've got to take some action on the judo side.

first day back at gym today after the break, and i just about died. maintained the same weights from pre-break, and i could feel the increased fatigue. also felt incredibly hungry just now, probably adding to the shortening of my fuse. it's kind of painful to get back into the groove of gym, but i know that it's for my own good in the end. so just have to dig my heels in and overcome this inertia, i guess. thankfully, tomorrow's program is easier, so i'll have some breathing room. getting measured on friday, and i'm hoping for more body fat loss. hard to say, but whatever the result, i shouldn't beat myself up too much. unless it's a gain, then someone please kill me. ok, no, i'm kidding. but well...i suppose i'll just do what i can with my 2 or 3 remaining sessions before measurement to undo last week's damage.

-random thought of the day: Grocery shopping is therapeutic.-

One more hurdle cleared! after not getting a reply from my professor for 2 days, i sent my responses to the department coordinator (CC'ed to my professor, of course) for forwarding to the examiners. he later replied that email saying that i had addressed the comments well. makes me think that he really forgot what the comments were, because i didn't change the answers themselves much from version 1 to version 2. what i did change was the presentation and formatting. well, as long as he's happy, i figure it's all good. next two steps: send my professor the corrected thesis (with changes tracked), and prepare the defense slides. i can do item 1 by tomorrow, which leaves item 2. target timeframe for that is to have version 1 out by the end of this coming week, rehearsal and refinements to make version 2 the week after that, and actual defense on the last week of november. after that, i'll finally be free of NUS. here's hoping everything goes smoothly.

work at the learning lab has been good so far. the people are nice, and generally willing to help. only had observations and mentor meetings so far, but i'll be starting teaching next week. funny though, it's not that taxing, but i crashed upon reaching home last night. maybe my body has to get used to it? i notice that they really have all sorts of kids, which makes for all sorts of classes - rowdy, friendly, reserved, deathly quiet. i'm actually most afraid of the last category, because i like to teach by asking questions and involving the students. one question i had was that since i didn't have any permanent classes, how was i supposed to build rapport with the kids? after talking to my mentor, i guess the answer is to just do my best. i don't need them to love me, i just need them to like me enough to be cooperative and so that they can absorb the content i'm supposed to be teaching. also by some coincidence, quite a few teachers there are NUS chemistry graduates. they were doing their undergrad while i was doing my grad studies, so the roles have kind of been reversed now. interesting story, one of the teachers i was observing is good friends with one of my previous minions, aka. honours students. the world is small, after all.

this week, i did the same thing - park at united square on saturday, park at toa payoh and MRT down on sunday. i can see this becoming a regular routine. at toa payoh MRT station today, i noticed that my EZ-link card was missing from my wallet. not sure what happened to it. i'm pretty sure that i had it with me last week, and i know that i didn't take any bus or train trips in the past 6 days. what on earth happened to it!?? i might have left it in the car, although i'd have thought that i'd have put it back in my wallet. in fact, why did i even take it out? absolutely no idea. will have to look again. if it's in the car, it's probably in that little hole under the air-con controls. if not, then it's probably in my room? on the topic of finding things in the car, i found my remaining NS50 vouchers! there are $40 worth, and the whole stack was under the driver's seat. yes, the car's getting messy. i should do a round of cleaning, especially since i'm on driver duty for the two turf city elders this coming saturday.

being employed by the learning lab, and seeing first-hand how many kids come for weekend classes really adds another nail to the coffin in which my desire to have kids has been buried. as a kid, i only ever had one regular tuition arrangement, and that was for primary 6 chinese. there was another attempt for sec 3 maths, but i remember deciding not to continue after the first lesson because the teacher wasn't good. admittedly, he had the challenge of teaching me how to prove trigonometric identities, which i think is something that a person either has the knack for, or doesn't. and boy, i did not (and still don't) have the knack for it. his method of teaching me was telling me "you go try it yourself first", and leaving me alone to stare at the question for about half an hour. so...not good. anyway, my point is that i got on fine without tuition. thankfully, i was bright enough to get some concepts and stuff through reading, while i learnt some others through practice. still not perfect though, can't do physical chemistry. i wonder, is it worth it for a kid to go into a top school if s/he needs constant tuition to survive there? it seems quite sad to me. i've heard of kids staying with various centres from primary 1 to sec 4. at that point, i'd say they might as well drop out of regular school and register the tuition centre as their school. while this is a major factor contributing to my decision to not have kids, there are plenty of other reasons as well, such as the biological impossibility of having kids with my future partner. maybe one day i'll just sit down and write a big "reasons why i will never have kids" post. no relatives have taken up this line of inquiry yet. but it never hurts to be prepared, right?

my week off from gym is over. funny, it felt both longer and shorter than a week. might have been because of the public holiday. have to admit, i did jump off the healthy eating bandwagon a little. ok, a fair bit. snacked more than strictly necessary, which is not that good when coupled with no exercise. hope that i can maintain my last weights used for all exercises. apart from resuming gym, i'm due to return some library books, meet a chemistry guy for dinner on friday, do groceries, and attend a learning lab teaching meeting on thursday. seems like life is getting busier, which is a good thing. still not much development from final fantasy guy's side, but he's got a few more exams to go, so i can't exactly rush him in good conscience. raiding is going well enough, made progress tonight but we're still dying too much. well...i'm sure we'll keep improving.

-random thought of the day: Schedule TCM soon!-

Dreamt of the ex while taking a short afternoon nap just now. i almost wanted to say "had a nightmare of the ex", but that would be unnecessarily mean. in the dream, he showed up at my bishan place. presumably after work, based on his attire. he wanted to go for dinner, so we walked down braddell road, past the BCA academy and going towards serangoon. i don't know why i even agreed to go along, but yes, dreams are irrational. throughout the walk, we exchanged light banter, and it felt nice. don't worry, i'm not about to try and restart anything. in fact, i was kind of afraid that he would suggest we get back together in the dream. we stopped by a laksa place, which he didn't want to eat at (sensitive stomach), so we continued walking. there was some money involved...i had to sign a form to either pay him or get money from him. in the folder which the form was located, there was also a driving licence for operating vehicles (forklifts, etc.) in an industrial park. the ex wanted to go to return the licence, but i saw that it was cut in half and expired. then i woke up.

i'm wondering what this dream means. probably not much. maybe its a subconscious desire to reconnect with him? i hope not. while it was nice to be in a relationship, i know for certain that it wouldn't work out between us. even if i do get super fit and hot, i don't think i'd want to date someone who has rejected me based purely on looks before. my reasoning for that is that even though my appearance has changed, i'm still more or less the same on the inside. and if people didn't like me then, they probably won't like me now. the "packaging" may delay the inevitable split due to character differences, but that's all it is - a temporary fix. of course, maybe if both parties looked like supermodels, they would work harder to stay together? i doubt it. there's a balance of positive and negative attributes that help to decide whether to retain someone as a friend, or as a partner. if i've got to deal with someone's nonsense every single day for the rest of my life, he'd better bring something REALLY attractive to the table. so far, i can't think of anything (physical feature or otherwise) that would make me want to stay with a horrible person. good that i'm still rational.

on and off, i do wonder how seriously the ex took our relationship. the one thing that never sat well with me throughout our relationship was him saying something to the effect of "if you want to stop dating, just tell me anytime". it gave me the impression that he was more willing to give up in the face of difficulty than to fight for the relationship. maybe it was due to his insecurity that i might find someone better, or he actually wasn't interested at all and wanted me to be the bad guy. to his credit, he was true to his word; he didn't object at all when i initiated the breakup, which made it easier and sadder at the same time. well...no point thinking too much now. that's a chapter in my life that is closed, and has been closed for a while. nevertheless, it's good to remind myself of the lessons learnt from that experience. just like with the most recent malaysian guy, who i dismissed as a relationship prospect shortly after that disastrous malaysia trip. good to see that i'm learning more quickly.

the week so far has been relaxing...sent my professor version 2 of my response to the thesis comments this morning, but he hasn't replied yet. hoping that he had a blur moment, and that he will give his blessing to forward it to the examiners. there's an update on my communication with the sports council. if i play my cards right, i think that the outcome will be favourable for me. meanwhile, dinner with some old boys scheduled later tonight. just enough time to shower and drive down.

-random thought of the day: Need to return library books.-

Sent my professor my responses to the examiners' comments, and had a mildly frustrating email exchange with him after that. my professor said that what i did was not what he wanted - he wanted a point-by-point rebuttal of the examiners' comments, involving copying the exact comments and responding to them individually. problem is, that's what i did! each examiner gave a list of things they wanted addressed, and i worked from those lists! i sent him the original PDF for reference, and he hasn't gotten back to me yet. i think he forgot what was in the original file. well, my concession is to copy out the entire text review above the lists and put that in the document as well. the annoying thing is that the PDF is encrypted, so copying and pasting is kind of messed up. i just spent some time typing everything out, and i hope that that's good enough for him. will probably look it over a few more times before sending him the updated version tomorrow. also just looked at my defense slides. i've got chapters 1 and 5 mostly done, so i've just got to focus on the middle 3 chapters. must remember to sell my contributions.

-random thought of the day: Why am I feeling tired?-

Pausing gym for a week appears to be the right decision, since i woke up this morning feeling tired and sore. think it's my body telling me that it needs a break. so i guess what i'll do in the long run is gym consistently for 3 to 4 weeks (preferably 4), then take a week or so off for rest. have to remind myself to think in terms of long-term sustainability. all this excess weight isn't going to disappear magically overnight. since i'm not working out this week, i've got to remember to scale down my consumption to account for the reduced output.

worked both saturday and yesterday. the workload was reasonably light, considering that those were my first 2 days there. all i had each day was a meeting and an observation. meetings were with mentors, who shared a little more about the system and how to conduct class. observations were to expose me to different classroom management and teaching styles. so far, only half my days have been filled, leaving me with 4 hours free per day. those 4 hours aren't spent completely idle; there's content to catch up on (i thought i'd left physics behind after JC, but it's back to haunt me! worse is that i've only taken basic biology, so way more catch-up is needed in that regard.), as well as some administrative things to do, like familiarizing myself with where all the various offices are, testing my computer/printer access, and doing some assignments which my mentor gave. the first assignment was a lesson plan which i managed to complete while i was there, in line with my plan of not bringing any work home. i also met the fiancee of one of the chemistry guys, who is working there. odd, last i remembered that she was working in a bank. seems like he did update us, but that was a few years back. then again, we also haven't met up since...last year's christmas party or so. they're both kind of busy, i guess. teachers (one tuition, one MOE), and not to mention they'll be even more occupied settling stuff for their wedding next month. i kind of wonder how they arrange dates and all that...he's working regular office hours/days, while she works weekends for tuition. maybe they meet in the evenings, or on public holidays? i suppose MOE teachers are more free during school holidays too, so maybe that's another possibility. that train of thought was brought about by wondering if i went through with my plan to work 7 days a week, how i was going to find time for dating and all that. well, at least my understanding with the HR staff is that i have the option to drop one day, but i won't do that at this point of time.

on saturday, i tried parking at united square. total fee was $12.90 for a little over 9 hours, which is kind of acceptable and somewhat comparable to HDB rates. for sunday, i parked at toa payoh and took a train down, which meant that my total "parking fee" (really, MRT fare) was $1.54 for 9 hours. it averages out to $7.22 per day. not bad! i'm tempted to find more ways to reduce cost on saturdays, got a few ideas right now, but will have to test out their feasibility over the coming weeks. interesting fact: if you're parking for between 3 to 4 hours on saturdays in that area, it's cheaper to park at novena square. united square wins in almost all other cases. a couple of downsides about taking the train down is that the underpass from novena MRT to united square isn't air-conditioned, so i got a little sweaty from the walk. that, and if it rains (like it did yesterday), there's a not-insignificant amount of water puddling and flowing on the path that i have to use. i was a little paranoid about my shoes getting too wet and/or the soles splitting off, but thankfully they held together. am considering just wearing my sturdy lab shoes, but they're not the formal kind. we'll see. in a way, i feel that men do have a more rigid dress code than ladies. wonder why? perhaps because of fashion trends? like ladies can wear a dress, blouse/skirt combo, or even shirt and pants. not saying that i want to wear a dress, mind you, but i just wish for a bit more flexibility. maybe short sleeves?

raiding last night got off to a rocky start, with tons of deaths. some of them were due to me messing up the mechanics, and i'm grateful that the others were nice about it. it seems like doing the fights for two nights a week is not quite sufficient to commit every single detail to memory. i can typically get most of the major mechanics done, but there will be some attacks that i forget about and/or don't see until it's too late. sucky thing is that i've got the easiest role in the team - stay alive and do damage to the boss. tanks, who have to mitigate damage and maintain the attention of the boss, and healers, who have to ensure that the team is in generally good health, have it so much tougher in my opinion. thankfully, we (i) got it together and managed a clear of the first fight. according to one of the guys who's been tracking our win/loss ratio, we wiped more times last night than over the entire past 2 months combined. that aside, we also made some progress on the third fight. we got to what i'm calling the chaos phase - explosions, rockets, flamethrowers all around. i must admit that i panicked and died almost immediately. i figure that we'll make it with more exposure and familiarization.

upcoming plans for this week: not much. got to do some groceries tonight, since i'm out of soy sauce and a few other condiments. speaking of condiments, i rediscovered mustard, which i do quite like. next on the list to try: horseradish. have to watch my spending for this month, because i just paid road tax. yet another hole in my already-holey wallet. tomorrow is a public holiday, so i'm going to gather all my energy and finish recolouring those structures. i'll send it to my professor, then to the department on wednesday. after that, it's time to work on the defense slides. target is about 40 content slides, so i'd say 8-10 for introduction/background, 4-6 for each of the 2 less important chapters, and about 8 each for the 2 more important chapters, followed by a few slides for the summary/conclusion and future work. perhaps it's a good thing that i'm not gymming this week...my stomach is starting to feel a little weird. hope it's nothing major.

-random thought of the day: Finished a bottle of fish oil, 9 more to go!-

A few things have cropped up, causing me to haemmorhage more money than expected. first of all, my SSD died. it's the second time in close to 3 years, and unlike the first time where it was just corrupted and could still be detected by my system, it didn't even register on the BIOS this time. it's an inconvenience at most, because i still have laptops on which to do my work. but still, it resulted in my computer being unable to boot. so i went to sim lim square and bought a new 500gb samsung SSD for $170. i think technology has advanced pretty far since i got this computer built. i could have sworn that the 128gb corsair SSD (that died) cost about the same, or only slightly less 3 years ago. since i was there, i got a new DVD drive ($25, cheaper than i thought) because my existing one wasn't able to read CDs or DVDs any more, and because my copy of windows is on a DVD. spent some time last night reinstalling everything and fiddling with the settings. the sound settings were a bit tricky to figure out due to having both speakers and a headset attached to the computer, but i got there in the end. i'm mildly annoyed, because i don't have endnote installed any more, and i don't want to go through the hassle of downloading the NUS proxy client, downloading the actual installer, then installing it. maybe i should, before i lose access to that repository of software. or maybe the installer is still on my laptop? then i can just transfer it over and begin using it. at least i hope i can. worst case, just work from my laptop, which i was intending to do anyway because it has chemdraw.

last month, i got busted by a speed camera for exceeding the speed limit in the KPE tunnel on my way home. the notice stated that i was "between 1 and 20km/h" over the speed limit, so i'm just going to assume that i was 1km/h over. at least, that's what i'll tell anyone who asks. i furnished my particulars last week, and got a written warning in the mail a few days ago. no fine this time, so i dodged a bullet there. will have to be a little more mindful of such things when driving...although i still think a skilled driver speeding slightly is safer than a noob driver driving slowly in the right lane. people will try to overtake and that leads to less streamlined traffic flow with greater chance for accidents. on the topic of the car, road tax and season parking are both due soon. have to remember to pay them by tonight, or latest over the weekend.

my thesis prep has been good; i've addressed 19 comments out of a total of 20. of course, the last one is the most troublesome, because it requires significant recolouring of some complicated chemical structures. haven't started on modifying the defense slides yet, apart from my initial attempt a few months ago. will probably have to make it more concise and result-focused. tip from my friend who passed his defense earlier this year: show off your contributions to the field. for me, that would be applying some non-trivial organic synthesis methodology to the synthesis of platinum complexes, investigating a lesser-known class of platinum complexes, and studying a platinum complex that is as effective as cisplatin, but with a larger therapeutic window. i've also decided to take next week off from gym in order to get more significant progress on the slides. that, and to give my body a break. not to mention that it's a public holiday next tuesday, so my 4 sessions for that week would be monday, wednesday, thursday, friday. never worked out for 3 consecutive days before, and i'm not sure how good of an idea it is to try.

this morning, i had the opportunity to meet a(nother) potential benefactor for kurash. the thing that struck me the most was the level of energy that he possessed. i'd guess that he's in his early to mid-40s, but i could tell that his brain was going at least as fast as mine and my friend's, if not faster. he was willing to work with the federation, so that's a plus. he's a man of many talents, apparently - taekwondo black belt, masterchef singapore contestant, CEO of a company dealing in investments and real estate, among other things which he may not have told us. i think working with him would be interesting, but we need to come up with a concrete way in which he can help us. i'll leave that to my friend, he's the more strategy-oriented one while i'm better at the sports and technical side. anyway, meeting with this guy really made me think that i'm not living my life to the fullest. perhaps i should find something to occupy myself on the weekdays as well? maybe volunteering? or another part-time job while applying for something more permanent? or maybe i should have went full-time with the learning lab first then converted to part-time after landing a chemical job. well...we'll see if anything comes up. the most immediate concern is getting past the defense.

i don't want to sound ungrateful or fickle, but i do realize that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. between my raid group and the guild in final fantasy, i'm finding that i have drastically reduced solo time in-game. and if you know me to any extent, you'll also know that i need my me-time to recharge. so i've been trying (rather unsuccessfully) to balance between accepting and declining party invitations. i also realize that i'm not as good of a dragoon as i'd thought. i mean, i'm good enough to clear normal dungeons and raids with relative ease, but savage raiding is a whole different ball game. on top of knowing the mechanics of the fight and reacting appropriately to each one, you're also expected to play your job well and deal a certain amount of damage to take the boss down. if your group falls too far below in terms of damage dealt by a specific time, you all die. the thing about dragoon (and i suspect for most other jobs too) is that there is an "optimal" way to play the job. like, there is an order of which skills to hit to do maximum damage. i'm...not too good at that sequence, and it gets worse when trying to concentrate on that and to simultaneously manage mechanics that are fatal if done incorrectly. several people have pointed my low damage out, and i find myself being irrationally irritated. it's completely on me, because everyone is telling me this with a collaborative mindset, ie. "this is the problem, how can we make it better?". i shouldn't take it personally, even though hearing honest feedback can be unpleasant. that's a mental hurdle that i have to cross myself. with some luck and lots of practice, improvement should be achievable.

first day of work tomorrow! i'm honestly a little nervous, but more excited than anything. have to remember to dial the nerves back, and just go in with a learning mindset. that, as well as remembering all the regulations on dress code and other stuff too. i think it should be ok. i'm only scheduled for an observation and a meeting with a senior teacher there, so it should be an easy day. have to get there early...although the official start-work time is 9:00am, teachers have to go early to collect notes and set the computer up. i think reaching by 8:30am would be a safe bet. working backwards, that means i have to find my super secret parking spot by 7:45am, which means that i have to leave the house by...7:10am. oh wow. let's see...if i drive to united square straight, i can leave the house at about 7:45am and still make it by 8:30am. is it worth it to sacrifice about half an hour's sleep to save on a $12 parking fee (technically less, due to public transport fares)? signs point to no at the moment. maybe i'll just suck it up and pay parking on saturdays, then use a carpark at toa payoh on sundays. there's no rush; plenty of time to find something that works.

-random thought of the day: Can't set up my NUS email on Outlook. It's a sign!-