May's ending. that means i've been in japan for a little more than 6 months already. figured that i should do some introspection. not on as large a scale as a year-end post or anything, but just to kind of keep track and find perspective. most of the thoughts i have have already been mentioned in previous posts, so you're not going crazy if anything seems familiar to you. there will be some new stuff scattered throughout the post, though.

life has more or less settled into a routine. go to work, come home, have dinner, game, sleep; and repeat. each day in school brings new challenges in terms of how to teach certain points to the kids, or even how to engage them (because a few of them don't like english - more on that later). but on a more macro scale, i suppose it is kind of repetitive/boring. not being able to travel even within the country also contributes to that, i guess. although i'm not sure if i'd be planning road trips or anything like that under non-COVID circumstances!

officially, my working hours are 8:30am to 4:30pm. unofficially, i go a little earlier and stay back a little later, so let's say 8 to 5. even then, i have 15 hours free every day. assume about 7 are spent sleeping, and that leaves 8 free hours. it's actually an awful lot of free time! i should be more productive. i've thought about learning a new skill or picking up a new hobby, but i haven't been able to settle on what skill or hobby to pursue. well, i suppose cycling is high on that list. minor issue is that given my suckiness at it, it's only feasible/safe for me to practice during daylight hours, which means after work. still, with the sun setting later nowadays (7pm on average, and getting later), i should try to fit more cycling practice in, as well as consider other forms of physical activity.

speaking of the sun, i think my hypothesis about me getting up with the sun is getting more solid. along with setting later, the sun also rises earlier - about 5am now. and i've been consistently beating my alarm for the past 2 to 3 weeks. of course, i go back to sleep until it rings, but the point is i'm waking up naturally at 5am. this would never happen in singapore!

as you might guess, my health has gotten better over the past half a year. there are visible signs, like my work pants getting looser, my supervisor commenting that i'd slimmed down, and me just feeling more energetic in general. ok, i spent this weekend lazing around, but i think i'm allowed a break once in a while. i just wanted to mention another very tangible indicator. the primary school is located on top of a hill, and the way up is decently steep. like, "i'd apply the brakes constantly when driving down" kind of steep. the first time i walked up, i remember being out of breath and breaking a sweat - despite it being winter then! so, i began to walk up at a more leisurely pace. just this past week, i was afraid of being late, so i walked up a little faster. i didn't feel winded at all! and i didn't sweat either. that's something, right?

to my scientifically-trained mind, the best form of evidence is in facts and figures. i've been weighing myself almost every week, and since i've arrived in kochi, i've lost about 17kg. best part is, i haven't gone out of my way to do any exercise! there's one more weight loss milestone that i want to talk about, but i'll hold off for now because it's not stabilized yet and i don't want to jinx things. suffice to say that i'm happy, and i hope this trend continues. while we're talking about weight loss, i just wanted to put on record a potential stumbling block...in the form of my poor impulse control. i realize that i tend to be bad at rationing my snacks. like, if there's a bag of chocolate, i'll be inclined to finish all of it in one sitting. i'm trying to combat that by buying individually-wrapped snacks, but that's hit and miss. anyone has a good solution, apart from the obvious one of not buying snacks?

relations with the townspeople seem to be good; the kids generally like me at school, and i have no reason to believe that i'm causing any issues at school or at work. of course, there are good days and bad days as far as school goes. some kids don't see the value in learning english, or just don't have any interest. one of them told me that outside of english class, he'd probably never use english in his life. worst part is, he's probably right. some people live in this town all their lives, and never ever travel abroad. i tried to tell him that learning something new would be good for his brain development, but i didn't have the japanese vocabulary for that. my next-best defense was the hypothetical scenario in that he met a foreigner in distress, and got asked for help. although the odds of a foreigner who doesn't speak japanese coming here are low, to say the least. well, i think all i can do is to do what i can. make classes fun, encourage the kids, offer my help freely. if they don't want to learn, or don't want to tell me their problems with learning english, there's not much i can do either.

you know, this is the last place i'd expect to find religious people, much less religious, evangelical people. and yet, i have a neighbour who puts copies of a religious newspaper in my mailbox every day. she did ask me if it was ok, and i said yes at the time. mildly regretting it. the way she packaged it was that the newspaper was reading material to help improve my japanese. and while i don't think she's insincere or bears any ulterior motive, i think that the religious aspect was part of the motivation too. i could choose to be suspicious and think that she's shoving her religious agenda down my throat, but i'd rather think better of her. i just don't get evangelism, though. given how widespread most religions are in the world today, wouldn't it be easy for people to obtain information about them if they wanted to? i'm sure those that wanted to belong to a particular religion would have already converted. perhaps some people just need religion explained to them in an easily-understandable manner. for me, i see too many inconsistencies and unprovable things to allow myself to believe in religion in general. even then, i do think that religion has good messages. just that they're horribly misinterpreted by certain groups.

the one thing i'm unhappy about and can't really do much to change is the loneliness i feel sometimes. sure, i see my colleagues and students every day, and talk with my guildmates almost every night, but it's different than having a partner, you know? but like i've said before, rural-ish japan isn't prime dating ground, even more so for LGBT dating. it's a stupid thought, probably brought about by reading some romance stories on the internet. i'm sure it'll pass soon. guess i should look at this more positively, like in this time, i'm becoming a better partner for whoever i date in the future. be it through losing weight, learning japanese, and/or saving money. i must say that it's annoying to have one good-looking teacher in each of my schools, and to not be able to approach them without looking weird!

so much for not making this large-scale, huh? guess i had more thoughts than i'd thought. all in all, i'd say that things are progressing apace, although there's more that i can do with regards to physical fitness/weight loss as well as making better use of my time. i don't think that there are any more public holidays for the rest of the term, which means that my next slack period is summer break, in july/august. need to get my driving license converted then, but i'll let future me handle that. other than that, it's the same routine for at least the next 7 to 8 weeks. should think about a few cooking projects too, and perhaps a volunteering thing that i'm interested in.

-random thought of the day: Between 1/4 to 1/6 (maybe 1/8?) there!-

Back in january, i blogged about how i made a wrong decision, and shouldn't have bought so many short-sleeved heattech shirts because they didn't help too much against the cold. now that the weather is warmer, i'm kind of grateful that i did buy them! guess it shows that somehow or another, things will fall into place. it reminds me of a saying, "a place for everything, and everything in it's place"...though i'd exchange "place" for "time" here to match the context. the feeling of vindication knowing that i didn't spend money needlessly is quite nice.

to push down rage-inducing stuff in the last post, i thought i'd talk a bit about money. more specifically, my relationship with it. let me set up some background. this thought was brought about by the recent final fantasy fan festival, at which new merchandise was announced. among the new merchandise are two limited edition watches, one white and the other black (light and darkness respectively, in line with the theme of the game). i'm not too keen on the white one, because it's a bit thinner and looks more delicate. but i find the black one to be really pretty. actually, you know what they say about the number of words pictures speak, right? here you go:

the way that this ties back to money is that the watches are ridiculously expensive. we're talking about $460 for the light version, and $540 for the dark version. so here's the question. is it wise for me to pay that much for a watch? granted, i know watch prices can easily be a few times of this, but it still feels like an overly-huge sum to pay.

perhaps i should explore my thoughts about money and value a bit more. i've often said that money isn't the most important thing. but that doesn't mean that it isn't important. we need money to survive in society. that's a fact of life. how much money do we need, though? there's no fixed answer because there are too many variables! cost of living in one's geographical location, how much savings to set aside for an unexpected circumstance, one's spending habits, the existence of dependents, the list goes on. ultimately, i'd say it boils down to one's own comfort level. for me, i'm very much a saver. like, i like to have a decent amount in my bank account. i know people will say investment can give better returns, but until i can do proper research on potential things to invest in, savings it is.

some of my friends say that money is earnt to be spent. and i'd agree. after all, we're all going to die someday, and we can't take our money with us when we depart this earth. but i sometimes wonder if the purchase is worth the money spent. that's where the concept of value comes into mind. i've made relatively expensive purchases before, but those were for items that had some special material/property that i was interested in. a titanium pen nib, for example. i paid over 100 SGD for less than 10 grams of material, which sounds horribly expensive from a dollar-per-gram perspective. but i wanted to try it, and ended up liking it quite a bit. i use it to write replies to my secondary school kids, actually, so that helps to justify it in my mind as well.

the other category of item i'm willing to spend on is items that i need (or that i think i need). a computer, for instance, and internet service. calling the car a need is a bit of a stretch in singapore, but i was extremely grateful for the convenience that it brought during grad school. i'd have been so screwed on any number of the late nights that i stayed in lab without it. in my current placement, a car is more of a necessity now. i mean, sure, i could walk to and from work, and drive the town's cars to the schools. i could even plan going to kochi city by public transport, but it would be painful.

going by those two criteria as buyability tests, the watch fails. i don't need a watch (i'm using a samsung smartwatch now, which incidentally costs less than the final fantasy watch), and there's nothing that this watch can do that my samsung watch can't. in fact, the opposite is true - there are many things my samsung watch can do that this watch can't! i'm not even buying this watch as a backup. if my samsung watch fails, i'd probably get another similar one. also, i'm not hugely into watches. it baffles me, how people can drop thousands of dollars on a watch with no/few special functions. i mean, i suppose the design and engineering is quite ingenious, to have a world clock or stopwatch or whatever function achieved through purely mechanical means. but it's just not worth thousands of dollars to me.

having said that, though, i'm still pretty tempted by this watch. it's limited edition, which plays into my FOMO/want of something rare. it's black, which i like, and i think the purple accents look good. not my first choice (that'd be blue), but it's something that i can still get behind. the stopwatch function is a bonus, but not strictly necessary. the thing that i'm most interested in is the eco-drive technology, which charges the watch's battery via light absorbed from the watch face. i suppose perspective matters too; like it doesn't make sense to buy it as a watch. but if i consider it as a collectable with a potentially higher resale value, maybe buying it as an investment would be easier to justify. although knowing me, i'd want to wear it. and given my less-than-careful nature, the watch would probably get banged up a little somehow and not have value as a collector's item. on my part, i suppose i could be more careful and/or wear it for special occasions only. the samsung watch is better for a daily wear watch i think.

so, decision time. to buy or not to buy? honestly, i'm leaning towards yes. the current balance is about 65-35, which is still not enough for me to break out the credit card yet. i'll see how that changes over the next week, since i'm going to wait for this month's credit card payment to go through and for my credit limit to regenerate. nice to have a bit more of a buffer.

-random thought of the day: Need to catch up on sleep this weekend.-

Political-ish post ahead. it's not often that i do one of these (mainly only near elections, usually), but something happened that has incensed me to an abnormal degree. in the midst of the COVID pandemic, india, specifically delhi's chief minister, has cautioned indians against travelling to singapore because the "singapore variant" of the coronavirus is more dangerous for children. just so we're perfectly clear and to avoid misinformation - it's the indian variant. it's been transmitted from india to other parts of the world. and i'm sad to say that outside of india itself, singapore has the highest number of cases of the indian variant per million people.

he also called for a ban on flights to singapore and to boost efforts for child vaccination in india. despite me thinking that he's a moron and his statement was pulled out of another orifice quite far away from his mouth, we are in agreement on one thing - flights between india and singapore should stop immediately. actually, i'll go a step further and say that they should have been stopped at least 2 months ago. consider this: where do you think a virus would have had more opportunity to mutate - in a country that has reported 400 000 new infections a day at the peak, and whose numbers experts say should be 5 to 10 times higher; or a country that has seen zero community cases for about half a year? in fact, most of the cases in singapore's tally for that period were imported, and most of those imported cases were from...wait for it...india!

this is rubbing salt in the wound. singapore has been sending medical supplies to india, and while i don't think we're asking for repayment because it's a humanitarian issue, this is going too far. i mean, if someone extends a helping hand to you, the very least you can do is not stab them in the back, right? that's just basic human decency. the worst part is, indians are likely to believe whatever they're told. before you pull out your racist cards, i have proof. i won't recount every single detail because it makes my blood boil, but the general plot is that an indian "composer" stole a national/patriotic song of singapore, made some changes, like the lyric "singapore" to "india", and claimed it as his own creation. he kept insisting that it was his even when one of the song's actual composers spoke up, and only said that he had no proof, and would relinquish his claim to the song when the singapore government launched an enquiry. but by that time, schools all over india had been using the song and thinking that it was composed by one of their own. and how many of them will know the actual proof? you can bet indian media won't report on it because they want to save face.

but that's just half the story. after all, we can't control what other people say. but we can choose how to respond to them. and in that regard, i feel completely and utterly let down by the singapore government. the only thing they've done is expressed their concerns to the indian high commissioner in singapore. that's like responding to a slap in the face with, "eh, why you so like that ah?" totally weak and inadequate, especially when you compare it to the ferocity with which they've gone after singaporean citizens in defamation suits, and the liberal use of POFMA, whose wording makes it such that it is a minister who decides what is real news and what is fake news. yes, you may argue that they're different situations, domestic and international. and i'd agree. but (1) think what kind of image that conveys about the singapore government. a paper tiger who only oppresses the weak, but is afraid of taking on bigger opponents. (2) there are things singapore can do that would show how seriously these allegations and false statements are being taken over here. oh, and did i mention that the indian health minister said that it was wrong for us to say that there's no such thing as a "singapore variant"? this is after the high commissioner was called, mind you. how brainless are they? or do they just want the last word for petty satisfaction?

one thing that i think would be the perfect move is to cancel CECA. if you don't know what it is, it's a trade agreement that singapore signed with india, that allows mutual recognition of qualifications and greater flow of labour. i'm no economist, so that's how i understand it. i certainly don't know any details of the agreement. so far, it seems that there has been a net flow of indian labour into singapore, particularly PMETs. changi business park has acquired the ignoble nickname of chennai business park. i really don't understand why the agreement was signed. on paper, it looks great. but to my layman eyes, i see it being heavily skewed in india's favour, simply because of geography and demographics. given that india is hot, overcrowded, and has poor infrastructure, i'd choose to live in singapore anytime. come to think of it, i've never heard of a singaporean moving to india under CECA. but just because i haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. so i could be wrong here. i'm not even going to factor in the rampant corruption and cheating in india, which means that paper qualifications can be bought easily and cheaply.

which leads to the next question - who would sign a contract against their favour? my answers are (1) someone who got conned into it, (2) someone who got forced into it, and/or (3) someone who stands to gain in another area. i don't want to speculate too much, lest i get POFMA-ed, but at least based on the information that i know, i think CECA is a bad deal for singapore. and honestly, if i was the PM and signed it without realizing the full implications at that time, i would use this as grounds to cancel it. not only does it solve a problem for singapore, it would also gain tremendous political credit/mileage. but i don't think it'll happen.

putting those 2 points together, i really wonder what i can do. i've done my part in voting for the opposition (there, i said it), but the current government is still in charge. nobody in the government is indispensable. even our founding prime minister died. i'd rather give the opposition a shot than stand idly by and watch the current ruling party lead singapore to an inevitable grave. to use an analogy closer to my field of study, i'd rather try a new experimental treatment for the cancer that i know will kill me eventually. if it works, great for me. if it doesn't, i'm dead anyway. summing up this post, i'm irate both at india's claims and my own government's response. i've lost hope in the government. ok, that actually happened years ago, but it's something i've never publicly said (here, at least). the government really dropped the ball here by being slow to react. worst thing, they did it TWICE. first by assuring people that masks were unnecessary if they felt healthy (this was in january last year, i think), and now by not stopping travel from high-risk areas, particularly india, whose COVID problem is second only to the US. the US covid situation is another issue, but the summary there is morons are going to moron.

does this make me racist? i don't think so. fact of the matter is that india has said all those things. i'm stating facts. if china, canada, japan, korea, or any other country had done what india did, i'd probably feel just as indignant. one minister built a strawman argument about how wanting to close borders was xenophobic and racist. his colleague then chimed in to say that we (the singaporean people) should watch our tone. thing is, we don't want borders to be closed permanently. just temporarily, especially to high-risk areas until their situation has gotten under control. if they can't get it under control, then singapore being closed to them is their fault.

incidentally, the song that the indian "composer" stole is titled "count on me singapore". perhaps we should let him have it. i for one can't bring myself to sing it any more. both because it's been stolen, and because i don't feel that sentiment now. i hope it eats him up, knowing that he didn't have talent and had to steal other people's work to make a name for himself. but if i know how the minds of cheaters and conmen work, they won't be bothered one bit. lack of a conscience will do that to a person.

-random thought of the day: Think I should stay away from reading the news for a while.-

At the end of each english class for the primary 5 and 6 kids, we'll have something called speaking time. like the name might imply, it's just a short conversation (more of a Q&A, really) with the goal of giving the kids a chance to use english. one question which we did some time back was "how many people are in your family?" to my surprise, some kids' answers revealed that they came from what we'd commonly understand as "broken families", i.e. not having both a mother and father in the picture. for the record, i feel that the term "broken families" is unfairly mean and judgmental. families with both parents who are married in name only could be more "broken" than families with a loving single parent. but i digress.

i have to admit that i don't have much experience with this. growing up, i'd known that some of my friends' parents were divorced, or who had gotten divorced in the time i'd known them. but by far and large, that wasn't a topic that came up in daily conversation. and most of my friends grew up just fine. in fact, i'm better friends with some of the people who come from single-parent families, because they treated me better than those from so-called "whole" families. the lesson to me here i guess, is to look beyond family circumstances and see students for the people that they are. at the same time, i have to acknowledge that such coping with circumstances (especially as they're happening) could be difficult to process, so that could be a possible reason for changes in behaviour for some kids, like if they suddenly become quiet, or act out, or something else.

the next lesson is how this affects classroom activities. one of our recent units was "when is your birthday?", and the focus was to get the kids familiar with dates and months in english. there are only so many times we can ask a kid what their birthday is before the response becomes semi-reflex. good in some cases/times, but not now when we're still trying to get them to remember the english names of all 12 months. it must seem odd to a japanese kid, calling the months these weird names instead of "month 1" to "month 12". my idea to inject some freshness and get the kids thinking was to ask them the birthdays of their family members...but without knowing for sure who may or may not be in the family, it's risky. so ultimately, that idea wasn't taken up, and i totally agree with that decision, because i understand the reason behind it.

one thing which i wish my predecessor had at least mentally prepared me for is managing kids with disabilities. again, this isn't something that i encountered in singapore. being fortunate enough to have been accepted into a higher-end school, our worry was always about how high we could score. something for a future post - i wonder if the difference in mindset is a key difference in schools that are known to be better academically vs. those that aren't. the point is, apart from a brief visit to the spastic children's association school in sec 3, i don't have much interaction with kids with disabilities. and as a result, i also don't have any idea how to teach them. this is more relevant in japan because unlike singapore, kids with disabilities go to mainstream schools too. but they don't join in all the same classes as the mainstream kids, especially if they have more difficulty with learning. the kids with mild disabilities, like dyslexia or ADHD still join in mainstream classes though, and i sometimes wonder what i can do to help them make learning english easier. i suppose this is a sign of my privilege, to have been able to work with students who are considered above average - first with NUS undergrads, and then at the tuition centre, which has a reputation for being a premium education centre. but i figure that as long as i remember that they are people first and foremost, and that although getting them proficient in english would be nice, making english enjoyable for them is more important.

well, that's all for today. there's been some details released about the next final fantasy 14 expansion, which i'm quite excited about. but i'll blog about that in detail some other time, maybe.

-random thought of the day: Rained all day.-

Christianity and catholicism have played not-insignificant roles in my life. not because i'm religious (far from it), but because i've been in christian and catholic schools for 12 of my 21 years of formal education. that proportion used to be larger until i went to NUS, and then grad school. the point here is that i've had some exposure to the christian/catholic faith. but having said that, there's a lot that i still don't understand. so let that be a disclaimer for anything inaccurate i say.

youtube recently recommended me a channel started by a fransiscan priest. that's a religious order within the catholic church. side note: the priest is quite good-looking! i learnt that the fransiscan priests have 3 main vows - poverty, chastity, and obedience - aka. no money, no honey, do as you're told (his own words). the priest was explaining in detail what these vows really meant, and the thing he said about chastity really gave me a profound realization. he said that because he doesn't see women as potential partners any more, he's able to look past their appearance (good or bad) and see them for the people that they are. now, i'm not about to take an oath of chastity (although i might as well be under one, given the remote placement), but i realized that there's so much less stress when you're not trying to impress someone you like, or worrying about how to get their attention, ask them out, or stuff like that. like this week, i went to school A twice. on both occasions, i totally paid no attention to the cute teacher. didn't try to talk to him, hang around his immediate vicinity, or engage him in any way at all. the only thing i did was to return his greeting. and it felt...nice. i wasn't walking on eggshells, or trying to come up with smart/sensible conversation starters. so...yes. it's for the best, i suppose.

while i'm sure there are other things i want to blog about, i think i'll have an atypical early night for once. also, my location-dependent memory can't recall 2 or 3 points which i'd wanted to talk about. maybe over the weekend.

-random thought of the day: It's finally shirt weather!-

Had an odd dream a few nights ago, about my coach. i don't know where it was set, but a guild member and i were exploring an underground place. it had a very factory/industrial feel to it, rusty chain-link fences and all. there was a false wall, which slid away to show a huge obituary of my coach. an indonesian (thai?) name was listed alongside his english name, which was odd because i don't think he has indonesian or thai ancestry. the guild member accompanying me in the dream was crying non-stop. that's even weirder because he has no connection to my coach as far as i know. the last thing i remember from the dream is going back above ground and leaving my guildmate underground with the reassurance that i'd be back.

in the real world, i've asked my senior for an update. apparently, the funeral and associated stuff was private and restricted to family only, so i don't think that my senior had much information himself. when i say "private" i mean to the extent of not having an obituary in the newspaper, so that's the last i'll hear about it, i guess. it also means that when i go back to singapore, i'll have to somehow find out where my coach's final resting place is, if i want to go and pay my respects.

now, i'm not really one for analyzing dreams. given how subjective and open to interpretation they are, it seems kind of pointless. but i do concede that sometimes, it may help give us some new perspective and/or ideas. for one, i thought it was interesting that i didn't cry at all in the dream, but that someone who had no relation to the deceased was crying instead. i interpret that as my subconscious grieving for my coach, but something else is suppressing the expression of grief and not letting me grieve openly. same goes for the memorial to him being in an underground place...like it's something that should be hidden. what could it be, though? i've never been ashamed for being associated with him. although come to think of it, i remember the bowling teacher-in-charge cautioning me not to get too close to him when i was in sec 3. maybe she knew something that i didn't at that time. but like i said before, i don't think that my coach crossed any lines with me in the sexual harassment sense.

sometimes, it takes a death to bring people back together. i haven't spoken to my bowling seniors for years. our whatsapp group only sees activity during new year. some of them have started families, others have migrated out of singapore. the senior with whom i was in contact about our coach's passing said that there were plans for a gathering, depending on the others. given that i'm physically unable to join them, i told him that i'd be happy to attend via zoom or some other online platform if they were organizing it. half of me wonders what we're going to talk about if the meeting materializes. our paths have kind of diverged since our bowling days. but i guess i'll think about it when/if it happens.

went to get a haircut yesterday. i think i tried the barber's patience a bit while trying to describe the hairstyle i wanted to him. my sucky japanese is to blame. credit where it's due; he kept his cool and provided excellent service...which is more than can be said about a certain someone whose behaviour during a press conference has granted him meme status in singapore. not going to talk about that any more, because it's all over facebook, and my blog doesn't need that kind of idiocy and toxicity. i'm really happy with the haircut; i think it looks better than the previous ones i've had in japan. it seems that at the end of the day, a picture really does speak a thousand words, because the barber recommended that i take a picture and show it to the next person who cuts my hair! that goes against the goal of learning japanese though. well...let's see how i get along in broken japanese before i break the picture out.

kind of an odd observation, but i realize i've become more attracted to carbs since coming to japan. in singapore, i could go without eating rice or noodles for as long as i wanted. in japan though, i've found myself buying rice and udon from the supermarket for meals. there's something about japanese rice, i guess. not to mention the ease of cooking it; just throw it in the rice cooker and forget about it until the alert sounds. my rice cooker (inherited from my supervisor) even has a schedule function, like i can throw the rice in and program the cooker before leaving for work, and come home to freshly-cooked rice. on the topic of rice and rice cookers, i tried making rice cooker chicken rice with one of those seasoning paste packets from prima taste (the same company that made the curry mix). unlike the curry, results were less than stellar even though i followed the instructions. there was the fragrance but not the taste. but beggars can't be choosers. i paired that with yeo's brand chicken rice chili that i bought from the kaldi supermarket in kochi city. the chili was flavourful, but totally not spicy. again, beggars/choosers.

one of my predecessors left me what i thought was a microwave oven. i tried cleaning it out in december/january, but x years of accumulated grime isn't easy to get rid of. so, i resolved not to use it, and to look for a new oven because i wanted to try learning baking. here's where i discovered 2 things - (1) ovens are ridiculously expensive in japan. i don't have a point of reference for singapore, because i never looked into buying an oven there. but the cheapest i've seen in japan is about 15000 yen, or close to SGD 200. (2) japan doesn't have purely conventional ovens. instead, there's this odd combination oven that's a conventional oven, microwave, and grill/broiler all in one. i noticed that all the ovens on sale had faraday cages in the doors, which a normal oven wouldn't require (it's used to contain microwave radiation within the oven chamber). so i thought it was strange, and went to read the controls a little closer. it turns out that the thing i have at home was one of these combination ovens too! that made a lot more sense, because i was wondering how a microwave could get so dirty, and why there was a heating element built into the top of it. this discovery is likely going to be bad for my diet, because there are several things that i want to try baking, but haven't had the opportunity. choux pastry (and by extension, cream puffs) are high on the list. that'll likely be a project for summer break, or a long weekend.

-random thought of the day: It's getting warmer.-

Times where my plans are realized exactly as i'd envisioned are few and far between. today wasn't one of those times, either. neither was yesterday, for that matter. the cleaning and gardening projects were bigger than i'd estimated. i managed to clean the living room and toilet areas up yesterday, which leaves my bedroom and the computer room to go. will probably push that to wednesday.

i underestimated not just the scale of gardening, but the physical demand too. after a day in the sun, i'm nice and tan red, and i've got several inexplicable stings and scrapes. admittedly, i wasn't wearing much PPE, just a pair of gloves along with a (thin) t-shirt and berms. the garden's foliage has been reduced to something like 5 to 10% of the original amount, which is a huge win in my book. the remaining plants are those with thick/extensive roots. i've trimmed them way back, like basically down to the stem where my shears couldn't cut through, and i've also added copious amounts of withering agent aka. plant killer to the pant bed. will finish that up over the weekend, or whenever the remaining plants look decidedly less healthy. i've also got to dispose of the plant trimmings, which currently occupy 3 plastic bins and 3 trash bags. i expect that they'll become more compressible and shrink in size after they've dried out.

apart from the redness and odd injuries, i'm also feeling a bit of muscle soreness. who knew that pulling plants out of the ground could be so hard? those roots have really had time to grow deep. i think my predecessor just pruned the overgrowth back when it got too long, so the roots were left alone to grow. good thing i've had some experience with deadlifts, so i knew how to pull from my legs instead of my back. still, there were some stems that resisted pulling, shears, and even the shovel.

kochi city tomorrow! the 2 main destinations are kaldi (in aeon mall) and nitori. it just occurred to me that i should see if nitori has ovens for cheap. although i'm wondering if that purchase will be adequately justified, considering that i don't bake all that often. the goal is to leave home early tomorrow, so that i can get there just as the shops open. which means i'd better sleep earlier tonight!

-random thought of the day: Need to air out my futon.-

Golden week has started, and i've spent 1.5 of my 5.5 days off basically doing nothing. i did go to get some chocolate bread and groceries earlier today, so that's a minor win. got caught in the rain, so the win felt somewhat diminished. even then, there's still a lot of things that i need to do in this break. figure that i'd better do some planning, so as to ensure that i don't forget anything. probably not going to go into too much details, because how much can i explain why i need to do gardening anyway?

yes, gardening is on the list. my predecessor warned me that maintaining the little plant bed at the back of the house is my responsibility, and that it grows to be a veritable jungle in the summer. it's only the beginning/middle-ish of spring, and it's already growing too tall for my liking. so, i bought this weed killer liquid which i've already sprinkled on the plants a couple of times. saw some withering, which is good. hopefully today's rain didn't undo too much of that. the plan is to go a step further and get rid of all plant life there. i bought a shovel and gloves to help in that endeavour. hopefully i can get it done within a day.

next, (more) shopping! the weather's gotten slightly warmer, but i'm thinking ahead to summer, which i hear gets really hot. since i want to go to kochi city to try and source some goods from an international supermarket there, i figured that i'd take the chance to drop by nitori as well, to get bedlinen that are cool to the touch. i'd tried ordering them online, but they wouldn't accept any of my credit cards. bleh. wonder if there was a problem with my previous purchase? also, since it takes an hour each way to get to kochi city, it would make sense for me to make full use of my trip there. nitori and supermarket aside, i'll probably drop by the aeon mall as well. maybe i'll see something interesting there.

the last major item on my agenda is cleaning and getting ready for the change in seasons. things like sorting out my spoils from raiding the bicycle guy's house, throwing away all the odds and ends that have somehow accumulated, doing a round of vacuuming, and preparing for summer (involving putting the heavy blankets and clothes into storage). laundry, too.

ok, let's play fit the pieces together:
sunday - fish shopping, cleaning and laundry, cycling practice

monday - gardening, organization of stuff

tuesday - kochi city, maybe groceries in the next town

wednesday - groceries (if not done the previous day), cycling practice

sounds like a plan, albeit kind of a boring one. most JETs travel during golden week, since it's one of those rare long breaks (the only other one i can think of being at the end of the year). but...COVID. what more do i need to say? at least this is only year 1. with luck, i'll be able to travel during long breaks in subsequent years.

just for record's sake - it's early may now, and the temperature is hovering between the teens and low twenties. i realize i tend to forget how the weather's like during certain points in the year, and when the transition happens. i've been wearing short sleeves at home for the past week or two, and it doesn't feel too cold. having a minor internal debate about when i should start wearing shorts/berms instead of jeans/sleeping pants. maybe after golden week, if the weather forecast is accurate.

-random thought of the day: About to hit a significant weight loss milestone!-