Some days you just have to grit your teeth and push through. today was one such day. i didn't interpret my mentor's instructions correctly, and caused a bit of a delay. thankfully it got resolved by the end of the day, but it still didn't feel good. i think she was upset with me, because we didn't have a case review today. my "done but not approved" cases are stacking up - quite literally! well, at least it means that i'll be making a decent-ish contribution to the company's billed amount this month.

the misinterpretation actually resulted in me not giving someone a timely instruction. being a new staff member in the IP firm, i'm more accustomed to submitting work for my mentor's approval than i am to approving others' work. so when my mentor asked to see a draft reporting email, i went to draft it instead of asking the relevant support staff to draft it and get back to me. yes, i know that if i become senior enough, i'll eventually be the one approving everything...i just didn't expect to get some power at this early stage! but now i know. on the topic of getting power and being the one to approve things, i actually realize that my mentor is really patient. even though she's said that she doesn't like going back and forth over a piece of work for too long, my relative noob-ness has necessitated that more than once, because i make mistakes, or fill certain things up wrongly. today, i was on the opposite end of the exchange. i'd asked one of the support teams to update something for me, and i'd given instructions on what to update and even attached a screenshot to the email. they didn't update everything as it should be, so i had to send another, even more specific email, which got them to make the exact changes i was looking for. even that brief exchange made me feel a twinge of annoyance. i can't even imagine how my mentor feels. just hope that she regularly reminds herself that i'm still a trainee. honestly though, i think today's exchange upset her, because she said something like, "how much more clearer do i have to be!?". while there is no right answer, there is a wrong answer, and that's, "give me step-by-step instructions". at this level, that would be career-threatening. it's something that i'd maybe expect from an honours student, but definitely not from someone who's supposedly capable of doing independent research. was just thinking that although it's not professional, i'd let my mentor strangle me to vent, if she wanted to. it might do her heart some good. i do wonder if she's thought about it...though perhaps it's best not to venture down that path.

if i had to guess why today was so tough, i'd say that a very likely reason could be how weirdly my day started. so, i've started swimming in the mornings as of this week, since part of my virgin active membership gives me access to a pool. it's probably half the length and breadth of an olympic-sized pool, but it's sufficient for my uses. it's only been 2 days, but it's a start. i figure any activity helps to offset the desk-boundedness of work. so...swimming. naturally, swimming pools have changing rooms and showers. in this case, the swimming pool is located within a hotel. the changing rooms (both male and female, but separated) are one floor up from the pool (which i don't really mind), and the male changing room has only one shower cubicle (which i quite mind). i guess they assume that guests will shower in their own rooms. so i've found that if i get out of the pool at about 8:05am to go shower, i should be able to make it to the office on time.

...that didn't happen today. i found myself waiting outside the shower cubicle for around 15 minutes. and guess what - a couple came out of there (a guy and a girl, i think foreigners). i'd seen them earlier down at the pool, and i guess they decided to sneak away for some fun time. now, don't get me wrong. i'm not judging them. in the first place, i don't know if they were just showering, or doing something more intimate. and besides, i think it's good that people can get some action anyway. i was more worried that the girl might make a fuss about outrage of modesty, despite being in the male changing room. thank goodness she was covered up when she exited the shower cubicle. the other thing i was not happy about was that they had to monopolize the only shower cubicle for their shower/fun time. again, i don't care too much where or when people do things, as long as it doesn't cause unnecessary hindrance to others. but it did leave me feeling annoyed that my schedule was delayed.

weirdly, i think that incident's left me feeling quite...unsettled. as i've mentioned previously, i have no issue with people being adventurous in public, as long as they don't make nuisances of themselves. having said that, i have no idea why i'm even feeling anything out of the ordinary at all. the guy isn't my type, and the girl's looks are irrelevant to me, so i don't think it's jealousy for either of them. maybe it's envy that they have each other? that, or hormones. pheromones, rather. i wonder if there's any weight to that whole "pheromones alter your behaviour" thing. at that time, i was more worried about being late for work, so i didn't really give it too much thought. in fact, i remember thinking to myself, 'please don't let the floor or walls be sticky'. i think they had the decency to wash any secretions down the drain. but enough about that. it's getting gross.

last quick thing! since i'm on long-term cover of the learning lab class, i apparently have to do student appraisals, which is typically not within a cover teacher's job scope. but i can't complain too much, considering how few classes i've had this past month. let's put it this way - if my hourly rate for the learning lab is based on just the hours that i teach and mark, and if i was paid that hourly rate for my IP firm hours, i'd be a millionaire in about 10 years. so, i guess it's not unreasonable for the learning lab to ask me to do a bit extra...provided they stick with assigning me one class a day.

-random thought of the day: 3 big events this weekend!-

When work involves staring at computer screens almost constantly, i think that it's natural to not want to look at any more computer screens after work. but then, tonight is a time when i'm not too tired, and still feel capable of some computer use at home. believe me, these times are becoming rarer and rarer.

i just want to talk about 2 "r" things today, relationships and responsibility. can't explain why, but sometime in the day (usually when i'm walking back home after parking the car), the thought that it would be nice to be in a relationship comes to the forefront of my mind. mind you, this is despite me acknowledging to myself that this isn't the best time to get into a relationship, for the simple reason that i left the office after 7:30pm every day (and after 8:30pm for 4 of those days) this past week. clearly, my lack of a life outside work isn't going to be conducive to dating. but i do remember what one of the principals said a while back - that he thinks that sometimes, after a rough day, it would be nice to go back to someone. he's still single, interestingly. quite sure he doesn't swing this way, and even more sure that even if he did, we wouldn't end up dating as long as we're working in the same company...and maybe not even when that's not the case! incidentally, i do have a codename for him, but i'm not going to disclose it here for the sake of professionalism and in consideration of the huge amount of awkwardness it would cause if he ever knew what it was.

perhaps this thought about relationships was brought about by an unlikely source - one of my old teachers. you may know about the old boys' gathering at turf city. well, a former teacher and a former principal are regular attendees. since their combined age is over 170 years old, some of the old boys - myself included - take turns to drive them to turf city. as the principal is getting on in years, he usually stays for a couple of hours before wanting to go back for a mid-morning nap. the teacher sometimes follows the transport when the principal leaves. but knowing how much he likes to chat with some of the old boys, i usually offer to send him back a little later after the principal leaves, so that he can hang around a bit more. throughout these car trips when it's just him and me in the car, there'll naturally be conversation. and for some reason, probably concern, the conversation has wound up discussing my love life. unfortunately, he's been asking me if i have any girlfriends, to which the honest answer is "no". at this point in time, i don't see the need to give him the extra information. but today, he actually asked one of the other old boys, who's a mentor figure to me, to introduce a nice girl to me. this mentor figure, to whom i've come out previously, deflected the question quite expertly. i was more amused than anything, actually. but yes, it's good to know that people are concerned about me...though a part of me wonders if that teacher's opinion will change if/when he knows the whole truth.

responsibility can actually be loosely tied to relationships. let's start with the situation. so my dad's gone overseas for a period of time. while he's away, he asked (well, told) me to water the plants that he grows around the front door. i will admit to having forgotten about them for most of the week, and can probably take responsibility for a few of their deaths. i'm grateful that there's no such thing as "plant abuse", otherwise i'd be facing some sort of punishment for sure. let's hope plants never rise up and overthrow humans. anyway, that's not the responsibility that i wanted to talk about. rather, the subject of this discussion is the responsibility of watering them that was thrust upon me. now, i consider myself to be quite a caring person...only towards people and things i actively choose to care about. in this case, i did not voluntarily assume responsibility over the plants, nor are the plants' existence a result of my actions. so, is it justifiable that i didn't carry out my responsibility well? the asian mindset is probably "no", but i'm just thinking whether that kind of thinking is correct/valid. it probably differs between individuals, so no point mulling over it too much. if you haven't guessed yet, my answer is "yes". another aspect of this thing is that it's shown me that i'm not ready to care for another living being. if i can't take care of a plant, what more a pet or a kid? to think i used to want a dog. maybe the TCM massage therapist was right - i'm self-centred in that regard. at this point in my life, though, i don't think there's anything wrong with that. after all, i'm not obligated to take care of anyone/anything right now.

got to start gym and swimming plans. was supposed to start this week, but somehow having not enough sleep from staying up late to cook messed up my plans and cost me $20 in ERP charges this week. so, the plan is to go to office tomorrow morning, go for tuition after that, come home nice and early, finish all my chores, and sleep by 11:00pm so that i can leave the house by 6:15am on monday. hope that works out.

-random thought of the day: Call the tailor to arrange delivery.-

Broke the record of being the last person to leave the office today. well, that's not exactly accurate. i think there was one other guy who was still typing away when i left. still, staying late has begun 2 months into the job. nothing that i can't handle, though i must admit that work is piling up.

initially, i didn't want to blog today, but i received a really odd email which i thought i'd talk about. it was from a cyber-extortionist, and the summary of the email was (1) my computer had got infected by malware, (2) the hacker knows my password, (3) the hacker has compromising video footage of me which was recorded off my webcam, and which will be released unless i pay USD900 in bitcoin. thankfully, i know that the email is mostly fake. there were elements of truth - the subject header contained a string of characters that i did indeed use as one of my passwords in the past, and the chance that my computer got infected by malware is present as well. but scary as the entire email sounded, i know that it's fake based on the third item. i don't have a webcam! in fact, i have never had a webcam on my desktop. my camera-enabled devices are my phone and my tablet, which may have captured such footage, but i think based on angles of use, there won't be anything really incriminating unless video can be recorded from both the front- and rear-facing cameras simultaneously.  if i had to guess, i'd say that the hacker got my password from an old database of leaked emails and passwords, then threw that email together. anyway...it's certainly jarring to receive that kind of email, and even more so when they have a password you recognize in the subject header. i think i'd be panicking if i'd ever had a webcam hooked up, but thank goodness for small miracles.

since i'm here, i might as well also blog about bangkok, which took place before china. yes, i know that it's almost a week overdue. it was my second time in bangkok, first time being december last year. since it was mainly a holiday to relax, most of our time was spent eating and getting massages. i visited this japanese-influenced place on the first night, and then went to a branch of the healthland spa chain the next day. it wasn't bad overall, but it wasn't excellent, either. might be an imbalance in my system, because i thought that the therapists were using too much force on my legs. or maybe i'm just tight and wound up from stress? anyway. the other highlight of the trip was meeting jedi master again. he wanted to bring me to a sauna-type place for uhh...experience, but the rain and our late meeting time killed those plans. instead, we just went for drinks at the same place which we went to in december. this time, our conversation was on a deeper level. i shared some (traumatic) stuff about my past with him, and he told me to examine such moments of trauma, because they have a deep influence on a person's personality, thinking and behaviour. my other assignment is to find out what's keeping me back, or why i'm not ready to live my life fully. he also thinks that i'm going to be a significant figure in the LGBT community - i don't know about that. but one thing he said kind of stuck with me and made me think. he told me that i'm powerful, because i'm smart and handsome. i may have paraphrased the last two adjectives, but he definitely used "powerful". to be honest, i still don't quite get what he sees in me. maybe it's because i'm fixed on a certain standard of beauty, one to which i certainly don't conform. he also reminded me to not abuse my power, though i think i'd have to figure out how to use it before i can abuse it. it made me think about something Ian Mckellen said. according to him, he was reluctant to play magneto in the X-men movies, until bryan singer (the director) told him that mutants were analogous to minorities - people of different ethnicities, orientations, etc. maybe my X-gene will activate soon?

-random thought of the day: Need a better sleep schedule.-

Landed back in singapore earlier this morning/afternoon, from what i think might be my last overseas trip of the year (due to limited annual leave). as you may know, it was to celebrate my friend's wedding. the tricky thing about organizing this post is that the wedding happened in 2 phases - singapore and china, and there was a short bangkok trip in between those two phases. so, doing it chronologically would be kind of not-smooth. i think i'll talk about the wedding(s) first, and save the bangkok segment for last.

phase 1 of the wedding was in singapore, and held at the village hotel in changi. i was purely a guest for this wedding, so all i did was show up and celebrate. the solemnization was quite nice, done in an open-air balcony thing with a great view of the sea. i found the bride's vows were particularly moving; she said something about being grateful that the groom made her wait for true love worthwhile, among some other things which i may not be able to accurately recall because of bad memory. but i did recall telling her later, that if someone sincerely said that to me, i'd cry on the spot. the solemnization was followed by the usual wedding dinner, where i had a brief catch-up with my professor and some of the lab people who were invited. surprisingly, one of our old chemistry friends attended the dinner, too. the reason i was surprised is because he'd basically disappeared after our undergrad. i mean, we knew that he was in the police force, but most of our news about him, like that he got married and had a kid, was obtained second-hand. that night was actually the first time i'd seen him in close to 6 years. the dinner itself was nice - food was great, and i really liked the sand-art video documenting the entire relationship process. the bride and groom also performed a song, him on the keyboard and her on vocals. it was quite unexpected, and a rather heartwarming touch. not sure why, but attending weddings of people who mean a lot to me kind of makes me want a wedding of my own. maybe it's because i've seen how their love developed, and want the same for myself? thankfully, those feelings don't really last that long.

in contrast to the phase 1, i was very involved with phase 2 of the wedding, which was held in china. apart from this being my first time as a "brother"/groomsman for a wedding, it was also my first trip to china. as far as first impressions go, i think it was quite positive. we landed at kunming airport, which was quite big and clean. surprisingly, we landed at the same time as wing chun grandmaster ip chun (ip man's real-life son). talk about a coincidence! i almost went over to ask for an autograph, but decided not to in the end. mildly regretting that now, but oh well. a 3.5-hour road trip to the bride's hometown of gejiu followed. not the worst i've experienced, by far (10 hours in uzbekistan tops that list). i was talking to the driver along the way, and he shared several interesting facts about china. like, their speed cameras track average speed over a section of road. somehow, i was more aware of the use of slogans in china. there were several of them for the anti-corruption campaign, and i noticed them almost everywhere i went. admittedly, i'm sure that the singapore government uses slogans too, but perhaps i see them so often that it doesn't register in my conscious mind?

we didn't really do much that first day in china, considering that we only got to our accommodation in the late evening. i think all we did was have dinner. yunnan food has the profile of being spicy and oily. i imagine that it's to ward against the cold and supply the calories it takes to climb the mountains. thankfully, it fits the singaporean palate quite well. the wedding was on the second day, and that's when we got busy. the entire day's events were being covered by a photo/video company, and there were several things that we had to do multiple takes of. similar to the singapore wedding, the china wedding comprised a gatecrash, a photoshoot, and a dinner. the gatecrash was relatively mild, i think because the bride's family gave chance to the foreigners. there was nothing completely impossible for us to do, though i must admit that skipping rope on a spiked massage mat wasn't fun. good thing my feet have been acclimatized to rough surfaces from judo training, and from my general preference of being barefoot while working out. we had a lunch break, then a photoshoot at the lake in the middle of town. as you may know, i'm not one for photos or videos, so i felt a little awkward when the photographer/videographer gave prompts on certain actions to do, or poses to adopt. but well, i'm not the star of the event, and i don't want to cause any trouble, so i just went with whatever i thought would work.

there's definitely some cultural difference between singapore and gejiu, and that was highlighted during the wedding banquet. for one, it started really early, and really punctually. before the dinner itself, the bride and groom (and bridesmaids and groomsmen) were stationed at the hotel entrance to welcome the guests. the bride had a tray of sweets/nuts/other munchables for the guests, while the groom had a tray of cigarettes. that's definitely something you wouldn't see over here. also, the dinner lasted a really short time - about 90 minutes, 120 at most. the reason for that is that instead of having dishes served one by one like in singapore, all the dishes were served at once at the beginning of the dinner. it was the same for all our meals, by the way. i think it's an interesting practice, and certainly more efficient than what we do. good thing that the groom pre-empted us about this, because a typical singaporean who saw guests dining and ditching wouldn't think very highly of them. but as one of the bride's uncles also told us, that was the way around there. only close friends and family would stay until late, leisurely chatting, eating, and drinking. and oh my goodness, the drinking. the alcohol of choice is 白酒, which is made from various grains. its distinguishing feature is that it smells and tastes sweet, but still packs an alcoholic punch. the one we had at the dinner was 52% alcohol...way way beyond my comfort zone. but as the uncle from earlier also said, since we visited, we had to try the local specialities so that we could answer questions about the locale when asked. he's quite a congenial gentleman, telling us to not worry about social status (elders vs juniors) and to just enjoy and have a good time. i really appreciate that he didn't force us to drink, but only asked us to try the alcohol and to have only as much as we wanted. in fact, he said that if anyone wanted us to down anything, he'd drink with them on our behalf! there was one other segment during the dinner, in which the bride's parents gave the couple some interesting gifts - a jar of local soil, and a jar of lake water. the significance of those gifts was to remind the couple that they had family and a home in china, and not to forget their roots. it was incredibly meaningful and touching, and i admit that i got a little emotional during the proceedings.

dinner was followed by the afterparty, aka. karaoke and more drinks. i didn't stay too long, due to the smoke permeating the entire facility. that's another thing i found to be different about china and singapore - so much more people smoke in china! in fact, non-smokers seem to be the minority, at least among chinese men. my friend's wife also began to feel unwell, so we beat a hasty retreat. not sure if it was due to the smoke, or if something that i ate didn't agree with me, but i began to experience stomach pain in the early morning of the following day. we were supposed to do some sightseeing, but i ended up just staying in the hotel room and trying to sleep it off. the groom was nice enough to stay with me, and i felt bad to have made him miss the activities. i am grateful for 2 things despite this illness - (1) that if it had to have happened, at least it happened after the main festivities, and (2) that i received excellent care from the bride's parents, who are both doctors. the rest of the trip was quite uneventful...heading back to kunming, spending the night, and catching an early morning flight back to singapore. it's a good thing we managed to get bumped up to an earlier flight, because the original flight had us landing at what, 11:00pm? i can't imagine how tired i'd have been, considering that i'd taken an afternoon nap and feel at only about 70% condition now. although that might also be due to my stomach trouble. still can't pinpoint the cause, since every one of us ate the same things, but only i fell sick. well...it's not important now. will probably be in good enough health to go to work tomorrow. and would you look at that...i've run out of steam to talk about bangkok. that'll come in the next post, i suppose.

-random thought of the day: Back to the patent world...-

Hey everybody. I'm currently in Bangkok, on board the BTS train on the way back to the hotel after meeting with Jedi master. There are many things which he told me, which I will cover in greater detail in the trip summary post. For now, I'd like to rectify one thing which he brought to my attention. Further to my post of 17 October 2018, I'd like to state something more explicitly.

Readers of this blog, please be informed that I'm gay.

I owe it to myself to do what I'd said I'd do at that time. That's it for now, I'll be back in Singapore next Monday, so catch you all then!

Thankfully, the week ended on a better note than it started. we were buckling down for the end-of-month crunch (well, me not so much because i'm still considered new), and i managed to get most things done with fewer mistakes, which is a relief. i realize that it's important to keep detailed notes for each case, because cases can drag along for quite a few years. i found myself having to refer to emails from 2013 to get some info that i needed. closer to present-day, even cases that i began a month ago are now coming back as deadlines creep up. so, my lesson for this week (other than the usual thing of really checking all documents carefully) is to look at all correspondence history and instructions when adding on to a case.

not sure if you've experienced it, but there's nothing quite like the feeling of having a dubious decision be validated later on. so what happened was that due to the usual end-of-month pressure, the company was offering paid overtime this weekend. i knew that i couldn't go on sunday due to having tuition, but i was contemplating at least going for saturday. in the end, i decided not to as i didn't really want to spend a perfectly good day in the office. plus, i don't have any urgent work. so i went for the usual cat high old boys thing instead. the validation came when i began to experience stomach problems in the early afternoon. had i been in the office, i would definitely not have been able to just curl up in bed and sleep it off, which is what i ended up doing. strangely, it got better at night, and i'm only feeling very slightly right now. probably a coincidence, but you know that we can spot signs in things if we look hard enough.

before that, though, i went to the tailor to collect my shirts. this time, it experience wasn't nearly as pleasant. they'd somehow managed to mess my order up, to the extent of missing out a shirt entirely! the other mistake wasn't as major; just wrong buttons used for the shirts that were done. to be fair, it wasn't the resident tailor's fault. i saw that he wrote everything down exactly according to my specification. the mistake was made by the offsite people who were responsible for making the shirts. it did strike me as weird that he didn't apologize, though he was nice and polite throughout. i can understand that maybe he didn't feel the need to apologize, since he didn't make the mistake (older generation style of thinking?), but from a customer service standpoint, maybe apologizing would be the "right" thing to do? i don't know. receiving an apology isn't that important to me, but it was just something i thought of. what's more important is the offered resolution. he told me that the buttons could be handled quite easily, and that i could go down to collect them this evening. the fourth shirt, however, would have to wait until 18 june. the plan was to bring that fourth shirt along for the china wedding, but it seems like that's not going to happen. well, i have a backup, so it's ok. i also asked if it's possible to have the fourth shirt delivered to me. after all, it's not my mistake, and i already have to make an extra trip down there today. he said that he'd see what he can do. makes me believe more that having the courage to ask, and asking nicely, will get you to apparently inaccessible places.

also, i went to sign with virgin active. seems like i chose a good time, since they added on to the previous promotion. 4 weeks free instead of 2! i'm planning on trying the early morning swimming thing tomorrow, but i don't know if i can wake up that early. i'm also due to see the genesis coaches tomorrow night, for some idea of what exercises to do given the equipment available to me at virgin active. since i have access to all of the branches island-wide, maybe i'll even consider going to the gym on weekends? saturday afternoons sound possible, and maybe even sundays (depending on tuition class timing). but let's see how things go first. at present, the thing i'm trying to tackle is my poor sleep. somehow, i didn't expect corporate office life to be that tiring! i didn't even feel so drained while doing lab work, unless maybe if i'd stayed until really late. maybe it's the mental fatigue? or staring at the screens all day. you know, if you'd told 13-15 year-old me that there was such a thing as too much computer usage, you'd probably have received a laugh (possibly derisive) in reply. but right now, there are days where i come home after work and the last thing i want to do is fire up my computer to game. the weird thing is, i haven't had a night of uninterrupted sleep in a while. i've got plans to address this sleep thing, first of which is trying to sleep (and wake up) earlier. it'd probably save me some money too, since i think i've ate 3 or 4 $4 ERPs this week. and perhaps the idea of a nice morning swim will motivate me to get out of the house earlier too. the second plan, which i've been thinking of for a while, is to get PC glasses. you know, those glasses that are supposed to filter out blue light and make staring at the computer screen less strenuous? yup, those. will probably go back to owndays, since i know that they do offer it, and the pricing is fairly reasonable too.

this coming week is quite exciting! working for only 2 days, then flying off for the china wedding. we'll be stopping over in bangkok for a couple days' R&R first, which i think is a break that i could use. good thing that this block of leave also coincides with my mentor being away on a business trip. she did leave me some work before she left, though, so there'll be plenty to keep me busy for these 2 days. i'm pretty excited, since although we hang out pretty frequently, i've never travelled with the chemistry guys before. yes, i know travel can make or break friendships/relationships, but i think we'll be ok. everyone's pretty easygoing, and i don't think there's anything about any of us that really angers the others. based on the pre-travel prep, we work pretty well together, and can pick up where someone else left off. so that makes me optimistic. before that, though, tuition. hope the kids are cooperative today.

-random thought of the day: Still have to settle commencement stuff.-