Spent the entirety of today doing nothing with L. by that, i meant we both did nothing, and not that we did our own individual things separately without spending time together. maybe i should have said "with L, doing nothing". yes, that would have been clearer. but yes, today was a complete rest day for us. i slept in until almost noon, and we spent the entire afternoon plus half of the night watching netflix. it's not good, i know, but i really do think that we needed it. personally, i felt that this week was more draining, possibly because we had to be in office for all 5 days. plus, i'm spending half of my saturday giving tuition, so working 5.5 days a week. honestly, it's less of the work and more of the commute that's draining. good thing tomorrow's a public holiday, plus we're back to the hybrid arrangement again (at least, i think we are)!

this past week in the office, i've had several attacks of impostor syndrome, which manifested in doubts about my performance, wondering if my mentor was actually upset at me, fearing that i wouldn't pass probation...the whole schtick. one of my colleagues too, said she was feeling demoralized because her mentor mentioned being worried about her (lack of) knowledge. i hope we're just at the valley of the dunning-kreuger curve. a few others and i tried to reassure her, saying that we were still in training and perhaps the mentor's expectations had been unfairly high because the colleague in question did work in an IP firm before. i should take some of that advice myself!

L and i were lazy to the point of not going out for lunch with his dad today. we usually go out for lunch and/or dinner on sundays, so i was quite surprised when L told me his dad went out to buy food for us. he also cooked a mean fried rice for dinner! that's a dish i still want to try, if only to erase my failure to make it in japan. it got me thinking that he shows his love in ways that i find different. i'm not comparing him to my dad in the sense of "who's better" or anything, it's just different, is all. like, he will buy dinner for L on workdays, and even drive down to L's workplace to pick him up. i'm not saying that my dad wouldn't do that for me, but it's just something that perhaps i chose not to practise. another difference is that L's dad is really disciplined, like his routine is the same regardless of weekday or weekend - wake up at 5:30am, sleep before 10:30pm. unfortunately, sticking to that routine means that he's unavailable for late night things. example: L and i took a grab home when we came back from japan. i don't think that means he loves his son any less, just that he has boundaries which are perfectly reasonable. makes me appreciate my dad and my aunt more, especially since i know how much my aunt does not just for her kids, but for the extended family as well.

going to say something stupid here...life's boring, and i love it. i think this is the "building" part of "building a life together". the day-to-day interactions don't seem like much, but i'm sure they add up. interestingly, i tried browsing some NSFW stuff one day, just for the hell of it. and i realized that while i still can appreciate a good-looking guy, i don't really feel like i'm missing out by not getting to do stuff with them, which is an interesting change. most importantly, i've never once thought of picking any one of them over L. must be true - love is all you (i) need. 

-random thought of the day: Long weekend!-

Thinking back, the last time i took buses regularly was when i was in JC. or maybe undergrad, before the circle line was up and i'd have to take 95 into NUS from buona vista MRT. now, i'm taking the bus more frequently - every day i have to be in the office...and i've noticed something that's different from my student days. that thing is that the bell is often pressed more than once for bus stops. i finally figured out why last week. it's because people nowadays have their wireless earphones in, and just press the bell without checking to see if it's been pressed already. i mean, it's a small thing, but i just find it so unnecessary.

while in japan, L and i took the train a couple of times. it was so peaceful! no idiots blasting music or videos, having phone conversations, nobody was even talking! it's shown me again that people in singapore are inconsiderate. and don't tell me it's a boomer thing. japan's aging population is worse than singapore's, yet they pull it off. it's just people in singapore not thinking how their actions affect others. it's really sad, because i've seen kids in primary school start to exhibit this sort of behaviour too.

question for all of you: how would you deal with this sort of behaviour? would you go up to the inconsiderate person and tell them that they're being a nuisance? or would you just try to ignore/bear with it? i often find option 2 to be easier - just put my noise-cancelling earphones in and turn the music on. yet, a part of me wants to do #1. it would be fine if i knew that the other person would respond rationally, but knowing some people, they may get angry at the perceived loss of face and try to pick a fight. i'm not worried about getting beaten up or anything, but i am worried about how they'd react to my probable response if they don't stop, which would be to wait until the bus/train had opened its doors, then throw their phone out. i know, that's courting trouble. but i really think that some people need rude awakenings.

on to happier stuff, work's been good. we're going back for phase 2 of training, which means no live files for a month or so. i'm in two minds about the break. on one hand, it's nice not to think so much and just listen to online lectures. but on the other hand, i kind of want to get more cases in so that i have more certainty of meeting my KPI goal. i'm not tracking it super closely, but i think the 4 cases i've completed so far have netted me about 2 points? that's out of 22 that i need to hit by september to pass probation, by the way. one of the trainers told us not to focus too much on the numbers, but to get each case done well instead. i see the wisdom behind that, but a part of me does want to churn out cases. should remind myself that it's a marathon, not a sprint. also, things are going to get more difficult in this upcoming phase of training. need to give myself enough time to adapt and learn.

speaking of work, i received a job recommendation from jobstreet the other day. no, i'm not thinking of jumping ship - quite the opposite! so i decided to go to my various job portals and update my status to "no longer looking". in doing so, i logged in to mycareersfuture, and saw the number of companies that had rejected me. it's a lot. basically all of my applications there. if i'm being honest, even my current company rejected me there, but they somehow still called me for an interview. i know that i'm lucky to have been offered this job, and seeing those rejections reminded me just how lucky i am. to be fair, even with the few hundred dollars a month i'm missing out on, i'm paid pretty well as it is. and HR has told us that we'll get a pay rise after passing probation. yes, i'm aware that if i'd gotten the higher sum initially, the pay rise would put me even further ahead. but that's the thing - thinking like that is just chasing after a target that never gets any closer. i think that's how some people lose sight of the truly important things. so, while i'm sure that the few hundred dollars will come up in my head every now and then, my goal is to make peace with it, and send the thought on its way.

even happier things, today is L's birthday! we didn't do much by way of celebration, just had lunch with his dad at punggol coast, the new end of the north-east line. it's not quite fully functional yet; i'd estimate only 35% of the shops are open. there was still a crowd, though! we reached at 11:50am, and there were long queues outside most of the eating places. i also saw quite a few housing developments there - that's where the crowd came from, i guess. i think now's not really a good time to visit...maybe in a few months, when more shops open and they hype has died down. part 2 of the celebration was his dad cooking dinner for us (i'm not sure if that really counts, since he does it every fortnight or so), and us sharing a slice of cake his aunt bought him (his dad's not into sweet things). all in all, quite a low-key thing. i joked that the air tickets to and from japan, as well as the hotel expenses, were my birthday gift to him. he's actually ok with that! of course, i'd get him something else if he wanted, but he's not mentioned anything so far.

from the last post, i do want to talk about finances. i recently liquidated an ILP that my friend recommended i get at the start of grad school (ILPs aren't good investment vehicles, in my opinion), so i've got a bit more cash. i'm looking at investing most of it, while keeping some as a "rainy day" fund. i'm also considering eating the forex loss and converting my yen into SGD, seeing as it's currently sitting in the bank and not earning interest. might as well have my money work for me, right? at this time, i'm thinking of splitting the entire sum 3 ways (not necessarily evenly) into: 1. savings, aka. rainy day fund; 2. investing; 3. HDB downpayment fund. i'll probably do a separate excel sheet to plan this in greater detail, because while i'm sure that only 2-3 people actually bother to come and read my blog, i also have to consider the other possibility that someone else stumbles upon it.

like i mentioned earlier, it's phase 2 of training next week. what that means is all 5 days are in-office days. it's not bad, just that the morning commute can be annoying. the bright side is that i think this arrangement will only last for a week or two before we go back to being able to work in the hybrid format. totally not complaining, by the way. i enjoy going to the office as well!

what really put the cherry on top of an already awesome day was that i looked up the accursed IP firm and saw that my previous boss is no longer there. like i said before, given a choice of whether or not to throw her a life buoy if i found her in shark-infested waters, i'd get right on the most important task of making popcorn to munch on. it makes me wonder why she left. considering how high up she was, the logical thing for her to do would be to stay until retirement. her leaving does make me worry a tiny bit - what if she joins my current company? the odds are low, but not zero. it wouldn't make sense for her to join and climb the ranks again, unless she took a deal where she gets parachuted into a senior position. even then, the pay cut would be significant. the best case scenario is if she resigned to migrate overseas or to be a stay-at-home mother...something that takes her out of the local IP industry. or the next step down from that is that she might have quit to start her own private practice, which i can sort of live with. the most important thing is that i NEVER want to cross paths with her in person again. if she does end up joining my company by some sadistic twist of fate...i'll just stay far away from her.

-random thought of the day: Excited to go to work!-

Making the trip back to the town (and just japan in general) was fulfilling, both in ways that i expected and didn't expect. i also realize that i don't feel the urge to chronicle every single thing i did, as i would typically expect to feel on a holiday. i guess it's because i kind of see japan as home now, and going home is, well, (pardon the pun) nothing to write home about! this was reinforced by the town hall staff actually greeting me with "お帰りなさい", or "welcome home". it warmed my heart in a strangely different/intense way.

the main reason i went back was to see my kids graduate. i remember a year ago, wondering so many things - if i was doing the right thing by leaving them at the start of their third year, how i would miss them, whether i could convince myself to stay another year just for that class. i couldn't, so i didn't, and me looking back on it thinks it was the right choice. at that time, i remember asking the singapore JETs how they dealt with their favourite kids graduating, and one of them (an ex-MOE teacher) told me it was like finishing a good book. i didn't understand it then, but i think i kind of do now. as much as i wish for more time with them, we all have new places to go, new people to see. i suppose what i'm trying to say is that the moral of the story is to treasure the time we have with people who we like, both good and bad. i don't regret getting annoyed at some of the kids and telling them off, but i'm happy that the good memories overpower the less-good ones. the silver lining is that some of them have my contact, so it's not goodbye forever. more like a see you again.

objective #2 for this trip was to have a solo trip with L. he was sporting enough to follow me to the town, where i unfortunately had to leave him alone for most of the day of the ceremonies. he got along really well with my supervisor's family! for all my supervisor tells me about her son being shy around people, he took to L really quickly. that's 2 for 2 non-japanese people that i've seen him meet. but i'm happy to see him growing up well. i don't intend on going back to the town every single time i go back to japan, but i will at least go for his graduation ceremonies. that's still some ways into the future though, considering he's due to start primary 1 in april!

for our first time travelling together, i'd say L and i did pretty well. we didn't kill each other, nobody mentioned breaking up, and while there was the occasional exasperation and mild annoyance, there weren't any lasting negative feelings. i think it's a good sign! the only thing i think we didn't do so well on was saving money. i guess it balances out, L's slightly spendthrift tendencies with my wanting to save as much as possible. i guess there's a time and place to save, and a holiday is not it. i will say though, that i enjoyed myself more than if i were on a solo trip.

another side quest i managed to do was talk to my successor. she seems to be doing well, although from our conversation, i realized that the problems that were present in my last year are still there. really, trying to reform the japanese way of teaching/learning english is basically a lost cause. ideally she'll be the one to change things, but in the more-than-likely event that she doesn't, i hope that she finds her own level of peace with it. that, or she gets disillusioned and leaves. only time will tell which way it'll go.

going back to work the next day after taking a late flight back probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but i did it anyway. thankfully today was a slow day; most of my cases came back with minor amendments and i should be good to submit them for final checking tomorrow. interestingly, my lead asked me for a chat, to check on how i'm doing and if everything was ok. i think it's nice that he bothers...makes me feel noticed. as far as pace and progression goes, i think i'm in a decent place. should be on track to confirmation if this keeps up.

i also wanted to update on more finance-y stuff, but there are things that i have to set into motion first. i suppose a starting point is to mention that i submitted my pension refund for the time i was on JET, which means i should be expecting a sum of money in a few months. time to start investing again...with a better strategy this time.

-random thought of the day: Need to lose weight again.-

Regardless of your beliefs (political, moral, religious, etc.), i think we can all agree that the pandemic was bad. my recent thought is that there's a silver lining for most bad things, bar some unique exceptions. my other silver lining for the pandemic (other than the japan experience and being in a town isolated enough that i only caught COVID after 3 years) is that work from home has become...not normalized, exactly, but let's say widespread. the seniors told me that we were fully in-office before COVID, but we've transitioned to a 3 office/2 home scheme, with some even going as far as 1/4. that's right, 1 day in office, 4 working from home. it'll be a while (a few years, minimum) before i'll get approved for it though, but as it is, the current 3-2 arrangement offered to all staff is already pretty sweet. as we're still in training, there've been weeks where we're in office for all 5 days, but that's balanced by the flexibility to choose which days we can work from home for now since we don't have assigned desks. once we move out of the training venue, our locations will be fixed due to the desk-sharing arrangement going on. but that's for future me to handle.

present me has more or less finished the 4 cases that were assigned. one has been completed, 2 are at final inspection, and one is with my mentor for the first round of checks. quite efficient, if i do say so myself! i'm only unhappy that i didn't notice something quite elementary yet significant in one of the cases, leading to a pretty significant error. thankfully my mentor wasn't angry. the downside about working from home is that most stuff is done over text messaging, and emotions don't carry across well on that medium. but she's been nothing but nice every time we've met to discuss the cases so far. i do appreciate that she's very direct and to the point, so there's no second-guessing with her. by that logic, i'm sure she'll tell me if she's unhappy/upset with my work or with me. really, the accursed IP firm's shadow still looms over me to some extent. just have to keep reminding myself that the system and the people here are kinder, and that they're way more invested in me that the accursed IP firm ever was.

good thing that i'm reasonably ahead in my work, so i won't be fretting over it while in japan next week. i had the bright idea to 3D print stuff for some people there, but i don't know if i'll be able to finish in time. i also haven't started packing, but that's still kind of ok since i have saturday night and all of sunday to do it. reminder to self: might not need to pack so many clothes since i plan on doing a uniqlo run there. the itinerary for now looks pretty open, the busiest day so far is wednesday, and that's only because we're taking a domestic flight to osaka. so it's graduation ceremonies until about 3pm, stay in the town until 4:30pm max, drive for an hour to the airport, and have about 30 minutes to refuel the car/do the return paperwork before checking in around 6pm. hopefully i won't be cursed to rush like mad the past 2 times i've had to go to that airport.

so many things to do, so little time. i'm pretty sure that i have things under control, but i fully expect uncle murphy to pop up sometime/somewhere. well, as long as i get my main missions of submitting pension documents and attending the graduation ceremonies done, and i make it for all my flights, i figure it'll be fine. worst case, there's an excuse to go back in the future!

-random thought of the day: Communication is important.-