It's leap day again! haven't missed a single one yet since starting this blog. this also means it'll be march tomorrow, and i'm a step closer to JET results. kind of exciting, but also kind of nerve-wracking. i was just thinking, that maybe it might be better if i got rejected, then i'd stay in singapore to find a higher-paying job, get my finances on track, all that stuff. but well, that's out of my hands now. it occurred to me that i could have self-sabotaged by deliberately messing up the application through a multitude of ways, like not filling up the forms correctly, or not submitting a required document on purpose. although if i did that, i'd probably end up regretting it. long story short, i'm happy that i did everything JET-related so far to the best of my ability, so that i can be accountable to myself.

tuition again tomorrow. just one class, but at JEM. the regular teacher left some fairly complex instructions, as different kids need to cover different topics. not going to be fun, but hey - at least it's only 2 hours.

-random thought of the day: Must get a haircut tomorrow morning.-

How the turns have tabled!

yes, i know what the correct sequence of words should be, but this is a meme from a final fantasy youtuber. as the correct saying would imply, there's been a shift in power dynamics. specifically, for tuition. here's what happened. knowing that there was to be a kurash referee seminar in taiwan over a weekend in april, i applied for leave from tuition. the planning office rejected my leave, saying that the maximum number of people had already taken leave on that day. they offered to let me have that day off if i agreed to change my working day to another day in march, effectively doing a one-time swap of work days. at that point, i was already a little suspicious, as if they could afford to let me go, it implied that they didn't NEED me there on the day. furthermore, i was going to use my leave, not ask for extra time off or anything. but being at their mercy as they'd decide whether leave was approved, i thought that my hands were tied. so, i did what i thought was the best course of action - buy time, by asking for a few days to confirm my schedule. i realize that buying time is a really amazing/useful strategic move. it allows you to think, and avoids letting yourself be pressured into making hasty decisions. the move paid off, as i then got word that the referee seminar was to be postponed due to newly-implemented coronavirus-related travel restrictions from certain countries to taiwan. so, i no longer needed to take leave on that day, and told the planning office as much. they then asked me if i would consider changing my working day anyway, because they were shorthanded on the day that they wanted to me change to. see how the power balance tipped there? it further confirms my hypothesis that they were leveraging on my need to take leave to try and strong-arm me into going along with their plan. honestly, i don't like it. if the roles were reversed, i think i would have approved the leave and hope that the goodwill generated from that action would make the teacher more agreeable to swap another workday. but i can understand that sometimes, it's more effective to bargain with something that is important to the other party. there are several considerations related to this, like not exposing your weakness to the other party, but i won't go into that here.

i just read on facebook that an NUS junior and japanese language classmate from a few years ago has transitioned from male to female. i'll use female pronouns to refer to her, because that's what she wants. it came as a bit of a surprise, because back then, i'd always thought that she was extremely comfortable with a male gender identity, to the extent of cosplaying as female anime characters, crossdressing inclusive. i remember asking her once why she did it, and she told me something along the line of that it was because she could. right body type, fairly androgynous face. in hindsight, with this new revelation, it seems that cosplay might have been an outlet for her to express her female identity. i'm kind of thinking of dropping her a message, to just check in and wish her well. maybe later tonight.

this also got me thinking a bit more about transgender people in general. i think that there's a lot of uncertainty towards transgender people and the community as a whole. if i had to guess, i'd say that it arises from a lack of understanding, or being unable to talk openly about it for whatever reason. another factor might be that questions that others may have might be considered invasive/offensive to them. some examples include: have you had surgery yet, do you have male or female parts down there, do you like girls or guys. these questions, even when born from genuine curiosity, can make things awkward really quickly. at the same time, maybe it's better to ask certain questions related to orientation? if someone says he's a straight man, it's understood that he's into women. someone introducing themself as transgender doesn't allow others to infer that information. of course, you'd be right to say that a person's orientation is nobody else's business, but i feel that it provides some important context and gives everyone a common reference point.

anyway, i won't even pretend to understand the struggle that trans people go through. i'm lucky, in a sense, to be cis-male and also to be able to pass off as straight at a glance to most people. and sure, while there are things that i don't like about my body, i can't understand what it's like to feel like you don't belong in your own body. also, i imagine that it must be difficult to come out as transgender...more so than coming out as gay or bi. because it's not just a matter of who you like, it's also who you are. while it can be quite disorienting at first to see your friend of X years as a member of a different gender, i think we should make the effort, because although it doesn't mean much to us, it means a lot to them.

my former guild leader once mentioned that he's straight, but also into male-to-female transgender people. the common name used in anime is "trap", and i'm not sure how the transgender community views that word. i do apologize if it's viewed as offensive, or has a negative connotation. i've kind of asked myself now and then, if i'd be ok with dating a transgender person, be it male-to-female, or female-to-male. at this point, i don't really have an answer. logically, if i say i like guys, that would mean dating someone who identifies as male should be no big deal, right? but it's not that simple. i mean, a part of a relationship is physical attraction, which is tied into physical and anatomical features. one of the reasons i prefer guys is because guys generally look and feel more solid/less soft than girls. not to mention that lady parts scare me, but that's venturing too deep into TMI territory. well, no point worrying about something that's unlikely to happen.

-random thought of the day: Closer to JET results!-

More often than not these days, it feels that life is just passing me by. yes, i know that at least part of it is of my own doing, that i should be responsible for giving my own life meaning. after all, that's something that other people can't (and shouldn't) do for me. that's something i want to blog about in a bit more detail today.

before that, just to recount some past events. tuition didn't go smoothly yesterday. they assigned me a classroom with a computer that didn't allow me to log in to my email, which in turn prevented me from registering with the software used to decrypt notes and worksheets. all that meant that i had to teach without projecting anything on-screen, which took a bit more time. it wasn't so bad for the first class, because it was on practical skills, but the second class was on electricity, which meant that i had to draw circuit diagrams to explain the problems. managed to get most of the stuff done, so that's a relief. there was a guild dinner that evening, and lawyer guy went as well. you know the phrase, "to beat a dead horse"? it describes what happened in my brain that night. i ran through all the same information and possibilities, and arrived at the same conclusion - no point doing anything extreme right now. i wonder though, might he know or suspect anything? reminds me of what scary JC friend once shared with me. she once told me how there was one guy who obviously liked her, but didn't take any action. knowing how straightforward she is, and that she didn't reciprocate his feelings, i asked her why she didn't just address the problem and let him down gently. she said that she would have, if the guy had the courage (ok, she referenced a part of the male anatomy instead of saying "courage") to actually tell her outright. but since the guy wasn't doing anything, she didn't see the need to do anything either. i can understand both perspectives. maybe the guy knows that he doesn't stand a chance, but doesn't want to face a rejection. the wavefunction doesn't collapse until it's been observed, after all. to put it a bit more harshly, it's a state of denial, and is probably exactly what's happening with me right now.

apart from being really nice and attractive, lawyer guy is also quite a high-flyer. he recently got promoted to head a department in his company. considering that he's only 4 years older than me, there is a disproportionately large gap in our professional lives. same with chemical engineer cousin, who is also 4 years my senior. i don't know her exact title at work, but she's in a somewhat managerial role. sure, you might say that they're older and have had more time to climb the corporate ladder. how about this then - my cousin, who's only 4 days older than me, is an assistant director in his organization. the discrepancy can mostly be explained by the fact that i chose to pursue grad studies, which cost me 5 years of work experience.

similar to chemical engineer cousin (by whom this post was inspired), it's probably a good idea to start by identifying why i'd want to work, and advance up the hierarchy of a given organization.
- money: i'd say that this is the biggest factor at present. not because i'm money-hungry, but because of how little of it i currently have.
- prestige: i already have a fancy title, and i don't really think that it makes me any more special.
- influence: it would be nice to share my perspective with more people, and maybe help to impact a few lives along the way.
- leaving a legacy: partially related to influence, to ensure that some things are done to better the lives of future generations.
- giving more meaning and challenge to life: provided i find a job with meaning.

if i had to rank them in order of importance, i'd say money is #1 right now. most of the other things are nice to have, but are more optional. like, prestige won't pay the bills; i know that first-hand. i've said it before, but i don't think my expectations/goals are unreasonable - a small flat or condo (3- to 4-room maximum), a decent car (perfectly happy with a honda civic), and enough money in reserve to unhesitatingly give a loan of a few thousand dollars to someone i trust and who needs the money. i wonder if my view has been skewed by the high cost of living in singapore? HDBs go for $200000 at the bare minimum, not to mention the age restriction on singles wanting to buy a flat. a car costs about double what it would in almost any other country, due to the COE. having said all of that, there is a balance between monetary incentive and job-related negativity. i was just looking at the IP firm's website, and it seems that most of the people hired around the same time as me have passed their probation and are now being featured on the website. it did give me a pang of "what if", but i reminded myself that under all the glitz and glamour lies the stress of meeting a mountain of deadlines, constant overtime, office gossip...and suddenly i don't feel so bad any more.

that doesn't detract from the problem that i have to find a path that is a combination of something i'm good at, something i enjoy, something that serves to fulfill a need, and something that earns me money (refer to the post on ikigai some time back). i know that teaching english in japan won't be a permanent gig, unless i manage to be so wildly successful to the point where i can open my own english school there. having been in an academic environment for most of my life, i think that it would be natural to seek employment at a university. not as a professor, but on a more back-end side, say admissions. of course, there is the chemical company route...but i haven't had much success there. based on what i've seen, most companies prefer bachelors' degrees with some work experience over a fresh graduate with higher qualifications. but well, now's hardly the time to worry about that. march is coming, which means that i should know the JET results in a week, 2 weeks tops. i hope that they give me a clear acceptance or rejection, not that waitlist stuff. i need certainty to make plans.

you might recall that i have had several people who care for me tell me to my face that they think plan japan is a bad/unwise idea. i have no reason to think anything other than them having my best interests at heart. objectively speaking, i see their concerns very clearly. i'm 31 now, and depending on how long i'm there, i may be as old as 36 by the time JET ends. having "tutor" and "overseas english teacher" as the two highlights of your resume at 36 years old isn't a good look. again, for reference, both lawyer guy and chemical engineer cousin are around that age, and have solid careers. my cousin is my age, and is pretty high up too. like i mentioned before, i don't particularly need a high-ranking post, although i will concede that high rank usually comes with more money. i did have a wild thought about branching out into a field related to science, but not strictly science. say, recruiting to fill scientist positions, or curriculum planning with a school. my mentor figure made a career change at 30+ years old, from accounting to recruiting. i don't know how successful he was as an accountant, but i do know that he was wildly successful as a recruiter. perhaps it's all in the timing. going back to romance, jedi master first met his current partner 3 years before they started a relationship together. while there was some attraction, they were both seeing other people at that time, and nothing came out of it then. they only reconnected after 3 years, and have been together for 21 years since then. it makes me think that even if an amazing opportunity in singapore landed in my lap now, i might not make the best use of it, or not give it my all, with japan still being on my mind. not to mention the possibility of having opportunities in japan.

so that's that, i guess. maybe i should rethink my contingency if JET fails. the original plan was to get to japan via a private company, but that comes with several drawbacks, like not having a fixed income. well...i guess we'll see what happens after the JET results are announced.

-random thought of the day: I wonder what people look for in relationships...-

Couple of big things to blog about, plus some other less-important/impactful things. the foremost thing on mind is an unplanned encounter that shows how powerful a force chance/coincidence can be. so what happened was that this past sunday, N wanted to meet me and E for dinner. since i was teaching at united square, we met there with the intention to go to jollibee at square 2. somehow, we decided to go for something a little healthier instead, and ended up at this egg shop in novena square. by "egg shop", i don't mean "shop that sells eggs" - more like "shop specializing in egg-related cuisine"...although they did also sell eggs. premium japanese eggs, at about $10 for a box of 12? basically around 4 to 5 times the price of regular eggs from the supermarket. the food there was good, if a slight bit pricey. i was kind of interested in a TKG machine that they were selling. TKG stands for tamago kake gohan, or raw egg over rice. it is basically what the name implies, and it's a popular japanese breakfast. so, why would you need a machine to prepare something so simple? because this machine apparently separates the egg white from the yolk, and whips the white into peaks before recombining them to be topped over rice. seems interesting, although the scientist in me says that that's just eating extra air. i enquired about the price, and was told that it costs $49.90. i was thinking to myself that at that price, that machine had better cook the rice for me as well! actually, that might have been one of its functionalities, but overall, still not worth it to me. i'd rather save the money and whisk the egg white myself!

sorry for the digression. so, while i was ready to go home after dinner, E and N wanted to get bubble tea. while they were ordering, we were spotted by 2 of my former teammates from CJC judo, A and Y. am i using too many name abbreviations? A also knows E as they were from the same secondary school. anyway, A and Y were there as they'd just been rock climbing and were getting an after-workout drink. so, we ended up sitting down and chatting for a couple of hours, mainly catching up on each others' lives. i'd last seen A a few years ago at a judo CNY gathering, while i haven't seen Y since undergrad. she was in NUS judo as well, but was 2 years ahead of me. you know, guys having NS and all. catch-up apart, most of the conversation was about the army, and sharing funny ICT stories. i then found out Y went to volunteer with the SAF, so she was able to follow the conversation somewhat. overall, it was a pretty emotionally-fulfilling day. but just think of it...how many factors and decisions had to line up before this meeting was possible? even a minor change in the events would have resulted in us missing each other. so, i'm grateful that things happened how they did.

i just want to digress a little to talk about A. we are more than acquaintances, but nowhere near best friends. our friendship is one of those that kind of picks up where it left off at our last meet-up, mainly because he's really sociable and has a way of putting people at ease. most people may not know this, but he is the first person from the judo world that i ever spoke to. during first 3 months at CJC, there was a CCA fair where we could choose what CCA to participate in. from the info sheet, i knew i was interested in judo and fencing. so, i went to the judo booth, where they were organizing a demonstration. as i was standing there watching, a guy wearing a blue belt came up to me, introduced himself, and started a conversation. this was before i knew that secondary school judo was a thing, and that SJI and CJC were training together. i'd assumed that he was J2, or a senior. to my surprise, he told me that he was J1 (same as me then). it impressed me, because i'd just seen him jump a pyramid of 6 people. the positive impression of judo then, along with the lacklustre experience at the fencing trial, led to me choose judo as my CCA...and the rest is history. if you've read some of my judo-related posts from that time period, you'd know that our coaches were hard on us, to the point where it was said that if we could survive the annual training camp, BMT would be a walk in the park. looking back, i'd say that that statement is half-true. anyway, the kind of suffering that we went through as a team built a strong bond, which is why i think we're able to connect so readily despite literally years of no contact. and, as mentioned before, he's really nice and easy to talk to. i kind of wish that i could experience a bit of his life. he's working at RWS, does some stunt/fight coordination on the side, and has ad-hoc acting roles as well...the most famous of which was in ah boys to men. well...i don't know. i doubt he remembers talking to me all those years ago, or knows how much impact that conversation had on my life. justification: out of the 10+ complete newbies that joined judo in CJC, i am one of about four who eventually obtained a black belt.

the coronavirus situation doesn't seem to be improving. more precautionary measures are being taken, including the cancellation of some events, like the final fantasy one that was originally scheduled for the following sunday. that's becoming a guild dinner now, so it's not all bad. one of our members/friends is coming over from malaysia though, and i do feel a bit bad that he's kind of making a wasted trip, since one of the main things he's coming over for is no longer going on. at least we'll meet up with him. and he's bringing over the first production run of our guild t-shirts! it was limited to the committee this time due to the tight timeframe, so the silver lining is that we can do some preliminary fit-checking, adjust if needed, and maybe open it up to the entire guild in time for when the event is to be held eventually.

of course, i couldn't not post about valentine's day. no plans this year, as usual. was kind of flirting with lawyer guy...told him that i didn't have valentine's plans because he was working. he hasn't replied yet, so i'm wondering how he's taking it. but seriously though, i don't expect anything to happen between us. i was thinking again, and my conclusion hasn't changed - as attractive and amazing as he is, i wouldn't give up plan japan to be in a relationship with him...even if he happened to be into guys. while it may be a decision that i might kick myself for in the future, that's the best decision that i can make right now, given the current circumstances and knowledge. interestingly, i don't find myself yearning for a partner in the same way i used to; the experience with the ex taught me that it's better to be single, than partnered and unhappy. besides, i need to love myself more before wanting love from others. and while i still want an attractive guy as a partner, i'm realizing that my definition of "attractiveness" is extending more beyond physical looks, and including something which i didn't really think about in the past - maturity. i shouldn't say too much, because i'm crossing way too many bridges before reaching them, but yes. of course, having physical attractiveness never hurts, but its importance is diminishing.

like you might have guessed from the previous paragraph, and like i've said on many occasions, i like making decisions with perfect knowledge. that's all but impossible now, since the virus causes circumstances to be ever-changing. and with the outcome of my JET application still in limbo for another month, i kind of feel like i'm navigating with an incomplete map. these two things affect one pretty important event, and that is the upcoming kurash referee course and exam. it's scheduled to be held in taiwan in early april, and these two things have a profound impact on my attendance there. more obviously, the virus affects the event in multiple ways. for instance, the event itself may be postponed, or taiwan may issue a travel ban on people coming in from singapore, to name two possible things that might happen. the JET thing is more personal, since it'll only affect me. so what happens here is that since i signed up for possible early placement, the JET people can send me to japan as early as april, which clashes with the dates for the course and exam. i'm really not sure what my odds are, but just knowing that the chance exists already makes me think twice. from an admin point of view, it's easy enough to tell the organizers that i won't be going. and since i'm friends with them, it can be done even at the last minute. the difficulty is in the logistics part, more specifically, flight booking. it's usually advantageous to book plane tickets early, because rates go up quite sharply as the date of departure draws near. but if i were to book the tickets now, and for some reason or another end up not being able to go, it would create a lot of hassle and potentially wasted money if the airline is adamant on not issuing refunds. in cases like this, i think the best thing i can do is monitor the situation for a while longer, then commit to a course of action. i'm thinking to wait for JET results, because that's 2-3 weeks away, and will still give me enough time to book flights. or i might book the cheaper return flight now, since it's on sale. if i end up not being able to go, at least the potential money lost won't be as painful.

february is half over...or almost, since it's a leap year. that means that march, and the outcome of JET, is about 2 weeks away. i should really get more done. at this point in time, i have plans to sell/give away most of my books, throw away a ton of stuff, and decide what to take with me to japan. yes, i know i'm talking as if i'm confirmed to go, but it's better to think this way when making plans, is it not? after all, planning for a no-go and actually having to go would be infinitely more troublesome than the other way round. sorry, that sounds kind of confusing. basically, if i end up not being selected, it would be much easier to reverse the plans i had made under the assumption that i was to be going. whereas if i ended up having to go, i'd have to do a lot of last-minute thinking and planning if i let things stay at the current status quo. and while i don't know whether i'll be going or not, i think a clearout of stuff might be good for me. i've probably mentioned this before, but as i grow older, i find that i have less attachment to material things. not going to be a monk and renounce worldly possessions, but it's a step in that direction? i don't need much to keep me happy, really.

we are almost 7 full weeks into the year, and i honestly don't think i've had a single dreamless night. maybe i'm not active enough in the day, so my brain compensates by being more active when i'm asleep? i kind of miss coming back super tired after a day of activity and just falling asleep. it's literally the stereotype of "as soon as my head hits the pillow". should look into increasing my activity level to see if that helps.

-random thought of the day: Had a random bout of hiccups earlier.-

The novel coronavirus (NCoV) has been making headlines these few weeks. latest update as of this evening is that singapore has raised the DORSCON (aka. threat level) to orange, the second-highest. the highest level, red, will result in school closure and extreme measures being taken. i don't think i've ever seen it go to red, not even during SARS in 2003. orange seems to be bad enough; there have been reports of people panic-buying/hoarding groceries at supermarkets this evening, after the rise in threat level. i'd heard of that happening in hong kong and taiwan, but i never thought i'd see it in singapore. it's another show of how powerful fear and the mob mentality can be.

speaking of viruses, i read an article some time ago about "bug chasers", HIV-negative people who deliberately sleep with HIV-positive people to catch the disease. while i'm sure there are bug chasers of all genders and orientations (and possibly for other diseases besides HIV), the article i read focused on gay men who want to contract HIV. being a mostly sane and rational person, i cannot understand why people would try to get sick. least of all when it's a chronic condition. sure, the virus can be controlled with daily medication, but wouldn't it be better to just not be sick in the first place? there was a report on someone having to be detained or quarantined for some reason or another, and he was not given access to his HIV medication for a few days. not saying that this guy contracted HIV on purpose, it's an example to highlight the inconvenience that having HIV can bring. anyway, one of the interviewees for the bug chaser article said that the thought of catching HIV, and the risk he took, aroused him. call me conventional, but it has the opposite effect on me. he ended up regretting it though, while waiting for the results of his HIV test. can't remember whether he caught it or not, but that's not the important bit. on the other end of the spectrum, there are HIV-positive people who knowingly conceal their status and sleep around unprotected to spread the virus. makes one wonder what's wrong with the world.

didn't have much to say, just wanted to blog a bit to make sure i'm keeping to my minimum posting targets. and to advance the post count; i think i'll aim to restart after 1800 posts, or when i get news about JET. that's it for now, i guess.

-random thought of the day: Old boys' gathering got cancelled.-

Social engagements for CNY are done with. granted, there weren't that many, anyway. among the 4 of them - a thing at my friend's place, a dinner with the old boys, a final fantasy guild dinner, and last-minute-ish mahjong with scary JC friend, her sister, and an old junior - i want to talk more about the last one.

here's another example of how small the world is. mahjong was scheduled on friday, with scary JC friend's sister's best friend. he happens to be my junior from cat high! i think it's interesting how both sisters (who are from st. nick's) ended up having good/best friends from cat high. the one thing that all 4 of us have in common is that we were in a bowling CCA at some point in our lives. in fact, i helped to coach him when i went back to help out in JC. i haven't seen him since then, so it's been something like 10 years? no, more like 13-14. i was J1/J2 when he was sec 1/sec 2, and he'd graduated from cat high by the time i was done with army. anyway, he's married, with his own place now. it's certainly a very modern-looking house, though a little too showy for my personal taste. i mean, he's got a pool table in the middle of the living room! again, it's not wrong or anything, just not for me personally. i did like his automated mahjong table, though. the game progresses a fair bit quicker when the table shuffles and stacks the tiles as you're playing. scary JC friend ended up being the big winner; she was up about $100, $30 of which came from me. quite unfortunate, because i was doing quite well for the first round and a half or so. then, throwing tiles for a few big hands, plus not being able to form gaming hands, led to my winnings eroding pretty quickly and becoming losses. well, such is the risk taken when gambling.

if you're close to my age (maybe ±5 years), you'd probably have seen and maybe even identified with a "you know you're old when..." meme. i know most of them...joints creaking and popping, preferring to stay at home instead of going wild on the town...but there's one that i experienced for the first time on friday night - getting cranky when staying out too late. to be fair, i'd been out since morning, due to the mahjong thing. we played until about 7:00pm, until the sister had to go off to visit her friend, and scary JC friend was supposed to meet her boyfriend for dinner. my plan was to drop her off, but somehow i ended up staying. dinner was at this yakitori place that was quite near my old workplace, and run by my friend's friend. apparently, they were in architecture school together, he got tired of working in industry, and went to set up this place. the food was good, and i especially liked the seasoning mix he used for the chicken cartilage. out of everything that we had that night, my #1 favourite would have to be the oysters, which were big and fresh.

other than the couple, our artist friend was also there, and our lawyer friend (not lawyer guy from final fantasy) dropped by with a friend as well. so, with this group of friends, food is usually accompanied with drinks of the alcoholic kind. although we're the same age, our attitudes to alcohol consumption are vastly different. i don't drink all that often, and i don't see the allure of getting drunk. more so because the recovery gets worse as i get older. it's a cost-benefit thing, i guess. the benefit of those few hours of enjoyment definitely don't make up for the hours/days spent feeling horrible after that. again, this is my personal opinion, and is not meant to tell you how to live your life. it may be kind of surprising that we're still pretty good friends despite having such different interests and ideas of what constitutes an enjoyable time. to be fair though, there is some overlap, and i guess that the undercurrent of care/concern is still present. anyway, to finish off the point that i started in the previous paragraph, as the night wore on, i felt my mood getting worse. it was definitely irrational, and nobody's fault. i was telling the guild members about it the next day, and one of them modified my statement a little, and said that i was only cranky because it was late, and i was outside. i realized that that was indeed more accurate, since i stay up late at home all the time and my mood generally doesn't suffer. and i suppose that not being out till late on a regular basis has contributed to that too.

remember how i said that our lawyer friend brought his friend along for dinner? well...i didn't have a very good impression of him. he was talking about this girl he was sleeping with or something, and about his experiences with drugs. it seemed to me like he was trying to impress, or appear cool. it did give me pause about disbelieving 野郎's story about drug abuse (see that whole saga around the middle of 2018), since he was also from the ACS family of schools. i'm not saying that ACS kids are drug addicts, just that two ACS boys have independently claimed to have used drugs. so...draw your own conclusions. meeting people with whom you don't get along is not pleasant, but it does help remind you that there are all sorts of people in the world. it also helps keep your mind open.

quickly talking about the guild outing, it was good to meet them again. 2 newer members joined us, as did one inactive member. lawyer guy was supposed to go as well, but he fell sick. while i wish that i could see him again, perhaps it's for the best since there's no chance of me doing anything stupid (as far as my interaction with him goes) if he's not there. we had ippudo ramen for dinner, and while i don't think it was bad, it wasn't outstanding, either. i remembered having ippudo ramen in perth as well, and the association was only made when i saw the logo on the serviette. the branch was located at tanjong pagar, which kind of turns into a ghost town on weekends. good to know that that's where the tanjong pagar branch of virgin active is located, and even better to know that the building offers per-entry parking on weekends! it's nice to meet up with the guild members once in a while (outside of the game, i mean). they proceeded to have after-parties, one group went for KTV while another group went for some eurodance thing. having learnt the lesson that staying out late too often doesn't agree with me, i went home right after dinner. in other guild news, they're planning an event called "the biggest loser". if that's anything like the TV series, it'll involve people competing to see who's lost the most weight. seems possible, since one of the officers of the guild is on a weight loss regimen. the prize is 50 million gil, which is about the cost of a large house. most definitely attractive, but i think that the real reward would be the better health from losing weight.

-random thought of the day: Get a new wrist rest!-