Couple more rejections came overnight, but before i talk about those, i wanted to mention a weird dream i had. it was weird enough that i actually went to write it down in my notes app after waking up in the middle of the night. it's long, so i've italicized it in case you want to skip over it.

there were 2 separate dreams i think, but i don't know where the transition is. the first thing i remember about the dream was that i was back in singapore, and the weather was cool, like autumn/spring in japan. it was nighttime, and i was at a hotel with 2 secondary school classmates, S and I (both of them were in band). there was a woman there too, and i was saying how i liked the cooler weather. outside the hotel, there was a dog locked up in a pen in an area that resembled the bicycle parking space of the town hall. i told S and I to take my bag and go ahead to the train station, but i forgot and went back into the hotel to get my bag. met up with them at the station, and had tickets booked in I's name for somewhere.

i remember passing an attendant dressed like ANA ground staff. she waved us through the gantry and we took an escalator down to the platform. the first train that came was too crowded, to the point where the doors didn't close properly before it departed. we missed it. people must have desperately wanted to get on board the next train, because an auntie was basically doing a(n american) football-style charge to get on.

in the train, i stood in the middle of the car as i usually do. despite being underground, the train's windows showed the view above ground. i knew that i had to take the train 2 stops, to buangkok station. midway through the ride, i felt someone pulling on my bag. tuens out a middle-aged man had opened a plastic bag attached to my bag, and found a pack of chocolates, which he opened and was in the process of eating. we got into an argument where he said everything belongs to everyone or something like that. my response was "if that is so, then your house is mine". at my demand for him to pay up, he threw a retro 3-fold velcro kids-style wallet at me. i opened it and found some coins, including an old 50 cent coin (the bigger one). they smelled really metallic.

after alighting at buangkok station, i was taking the escalator down (i think it should be up in real life?) when a boy came and passed me a blue leather key holder, asking if i'd dropped it. i told him no, but since i was going to the control station anyway, i'd take it there and turn it in. i tapped out at the gantry with my phone, but it didn't open. turns out i tapped the wrong sensor and the adjacent gate opened. i went to the control station, gave them the 2 wallets, and asked them to reset my phone so i could tap out.

after exiting the station, i walked down a long walkway. i passed by 2 bowling juniors (J and X). turned into a shop and found some judo elders and Mr O, a science teacher in one of my schools now. one judo elder showed me how me used pink crepe paper to turn a book into a bookmark. something about cutting it in half so it interlocked with the page to be marked. the others were practising an illusion routine involving multiple umbrellas. the idea was to make it seem like the same umbrella was being transported through space. separately, the shop also had jeans for sale.

i walked along a narrow footpath, with a hill to my left and the main road to my right. met many people i knew along the way, and they all said "welcome to singapore!" got even more excited, and started jogging a little. i reached a traffic junction that i had to cross to get to waterway point. i wanted to take a picture of something (the mall?) there, but ended up taking a video and then a selfie by mistake. i met scary JC friend, one of the chemistry guys, and another guy i didn't know. they were all on mountain bikes, and scary JC friend had a P-plate on hers. i gave her a hug and then crossed the road.

there was something else that happened in the mall, but i didn't remember what it was, so i have no recordings of it. the mall looked tall, narrow, and dark, which is totally different from waterway point in real life.

thanks for bearing with me. it's been a long time since i dreamt so much and so vividly. if i had to guess, i'd say it was caused by my excitement from planning a trip back (i'll talk more about that in a future post). interesting that people who i haven't thought of in a long time showed up; the secondary school classmates and bowling juniors in particular. wonder how they're doing? a superficial google search didn't turn up anything relevant, and i don't feel inclined to probe deeper.

sadly, i also got 2 more rejections last night. well...one rejection and one "sorry we don't have vacancies but that may change". think i'm going to count that as tentative. the rejection was from my current #2 choice, the one where my cover letter had a typo. maybe it didn't get past them after all. ah well. the good news here is that my #1 choice got back to say that my resume had been passed to the relevant partners and they would be in contact again in the coming weeks. side note: should i send a thank you to acknowledge that? of course, it's not a job offer by any means and rejection is always a possibility, but it gives me hope.

i'm noticing a trend in the rejection emails i've been getting. i think i can broadly classify them into human-written vs. machine-written (or human template response). perhaps the bigger companies are all using the same screening platform, but i notice that a typical rejection email that i would consider machine written goes like this:

thank you for your interest in *company*. after careful consideration, i regret to say that we are not progressing your application further. the decision has been a difficult one as the overall standard of candidates has been exceptionally high this year. unfortunately due to the sheer volumes of applicants we are not able to offer individual feedback at application stage. thanks for your interest and good luck.

it just makes me want to scream! i've also been looking at reddit (of all places) for resume advice. turns out that a 2-column format isn't advised because it doesn't work well with ATS (applicant tracking software). so i've redone my resume from scratch and kind of upsold some points without lying. hopefully that will work better for future applications. it's kind of funny...resumes and cover letters are something that you can improve over time. does that mean we should apply to jobs lower on our list first, and save the most desired companies for last? different deadlines aside, i think that's more trouble than it's worth. i'm just going to apply to companies that are advertising the appropriate vacancies. there are 2 more which just came up, and i plan on applying to them within this coming week.

-random thought of the day: Singapore trip plans next!-