Bad day at work today. ok no, it wasn't BAD bad, but it would definitely not register high on the good-o-meter. well, a not-good day was bound to happen sooner or later, and i guess RNG just chose this day.

so what happened was that my mentor...not exactly scolded, but reminded/warned me that i was forgetting a lot of basic concepts. i feel bad because we should be past this stage already! worse is i'm one of the few that has prior experience, so such stupid mistakes are less forgivable to me. i don't know if it's linked, but my group lead also swung by later in the day to check on me, and suggest that the 3 of us (her, my mentor, and i) start sitting down together to discuss my cases before i actually start on them proper. i'm undecided how to feel about this. just taking things at face value, they seem to be looking out for me and trying to find ways to help my learning and development. but the suspicious side of me thinks that these 2 events didn't happen on the same day by coincidence - they're doing this to say that they did all they could before finally giving me the boot. i know that the possibility of my suspicion being true is low, but it's not zero. still, i will choose to believe that they're more nurturing than the accursed IP firm. having said that, it's no excuse for me to keep messing up. hopefully this bad spell will end with submitting these 2 cases, and it can be a fresh slate moving on.

the silver lining is that we got allocated our seats! we tried to settle it within ourselves yesterday, but someone was a little slow and got left with a not-good seat, which that person didn't want. since the condition attached to us settling it ourselves was that the seating plan had to be unanimously agreed upon (which obviously didn't happen), we proceeded to ballot for seats today. for some reason, the ballot came down to me and another guy to be split between that same bad seat and a pretty decent one. i lucked out and got the pretty decent one. it's actually an improvement over the seat i chose for myself yesterday, because the seats i'd shortlisted had been chosen by other people by the time i came back from the shortlisting! so...we're set to begin sitting at our assigned seats starting from 2 mondays later. i'm quite excited at the thought, mainly because we'll have an additional screen, which should (hopefully) boost productivity. i've already dropped in to say hi the people sitting nearby. they also appear to be nice, but then again, everyone in the office does.

as usual, blogging kind of dispelled my funk. while i'm still not back to equilibrium mood/feeling yet, i'm feeling a lot better than i was before starting this post! part of me is tempted to just ask my mentor about whether i'm at risk of losing this job, but i get the feeling i should just keep my head down and my nose to the grindstone. might as well fix what i have control over, instead of worrying about the what-ifs.

-random thought of the day: Things are not always as bad as they seem.-

How do you follow up after such a heavy post? it'll be 2 weeks tomorrow since my uncle's passing, and if i'm being honest, life has just gone on. no dreams about him, no supernatural sightings or encounters (he was an atheist, so i'd actually be surprised if i were to have an encounter!), just days passing by. writing that last sentence got me thinking, though...if one were to leave some form of imprint on earth after their death, would their religion/beliefs affect how it manifested? i remember a year or so after my maternal grandmother passed away, i tried to stay up all night. the two events are unrelated, and present me thinks all-nighters are overrated. so, anyway. sometime in the middle of the night, i saw what i thought was a floating ball of light. it wasn't glowing brightly, just like a glow-in-the-dark sticker that needed recharging. it hung around for maybe 10 seconds, then disappeared. young me thought that it was my grandmother's spirit. older me thinks that it may have been a floater in my eye. well, i don't suppose i'll get a definitive answer to that. chinese superstition says that the soul sticks around on earth for 100 days before moving on, and it's only been 13. so there are still 87 more days for something to happen. while i'm not expecting anything, the probability of something happening is infinitesimally small (because we don't have definitive conclusions about the afterlife, or if it even exists), but not zero. i'm not holding my breath, though.

over these past 2 weeks, i've had a bit of trouble at work, in the form of not writing a report up to my mentor's expectations. i think something got lost in communication, or i'm not understanding her instructions clearly enough. thankfully, that was resolved after talking to her face-to-face this past monday. it's kind of annoying that i don't have a good read on her yet. i guess she's just a little brisk in the way she talks, which i don't mind - but it affects my reading/perception. i'm very grateful that she outright said that she feels that my learning is important, and she is really detailed in explaining her points. i'm still not at her level when it comes to analyzing patent applications...but then, i've had less than a year's practice compared to her 10 or so. i think i have to learn to accept that this company is more forgiving, and not be so paranoid about receiving scoldings for bad performance. having said that, i also know that i can't afford to drop the ball too much. as for overall progress, i appear to be on a good trajectory. i have an estimated 6.5 points now, and i need 22 total by the end of september. not counting the remainder of may, that means i have 4 months to get 15.5 points, which works out to about 3.9 per month, or 1 per week. definitely doable. i just worry that i'll be loading more work onto my mentor, because she has to check my work before it goes out to the client. i should probably practise what i preach and communicate with her - ask her if she has a preference for how frequently i submit work. that's a conversation for next monday, where i should also ask if she'll be taking leave in june, so as to better plan my submissions.

another exciting thing happening soon in work is that we're slated to be moved out of the training room and into the office proper. some desks have been cleared for us, and we have to indicate preference and/or ballot for them. i have a few preferred spots in mind, but apparently they're in high demand. i know there's one in particular that i want to avoid because of my own weird superstition, but i think i'd be ok with any of the other options. have to take another walk around the office and rank my preferences. there's actually one right beside my mentor, but that's not really going to be a factor for me when i make my choice because she only works in-office one day a week!

tuition is going well, but i kind of feel more like a babysitter for the sec 1 kid than that i'm actually teaching him anything useful. when i raised my concerns to my friend, he told me that the kid's mother is ridiculously happy with her son's results, and to just maintain what i'm currently doing. ok lor. i mean, if the parents are happy and the kid is doing decently in school, i guess that's all that matters. i feel more productive with the sec 2 kids, but the challenge there is that they're all from different schools, and covering different topics. despite that, they seem to have done well for their mid-year exams as well (barring the usual careless mistakes), so that's a relief. i think i want to ask my friend if i can move to just teaching higher-level chemistry and physics next year. while the actual content now is easy, it's difficult to make the explanation understandable to kids with no or limited background knowledge. or i might just stop it altogether after this year. the extra money is nice, but there's this sense of dread? trepidation? when i think about waking up early on saturday morning and commuting down just for 4 hours. granted, those 4 hours nets me about $180, so i guess it's just how much i value my time.

something negative happened today, and i need to process it. background information: between L, his dad, and me, we don't really have a roster for chores or duties. like, if i see the laundry basket is full, i'll run the washing machine. or if i see the laundry's dried, i'll take the clothes down and arrow L to fold them...stuff like that. although i will say that L's dad does most of the chores. cleaning, washing, laundry, dishes, i don't think there's anything he doesn't do. so what happened here is that i put my guild shirt in the laundry basket, and L's dad put it in the wash. unfortunately, he also put the shirt through the washing machine's dryer function, and the heat caused several decal letters to peel off. heart pain! what kind of salvages the situation is that it's the same shirt i messed up in japan, when i tried to iron back on some of the finer structures in a decal that was starting to peel. so...i'm not feeling great about it, but i know that that shirt is old and it's bound to happen sooner or later. anyway, i have a second, newer shirt in a colour scheme that i like better, so i'll be washing that myself. better to remove risks as much as possible. i wonder if my guild will do a third print run of the shirts?

i think that's all i have at the moment. things are going pretty well, and i really don't have anything to complain about at this point. just hoping that my next batch of cases will increase my mentor's confidence in me. i guess the fact that i'm looking forward to work more than tuition is quite telling. looks like this job may be right for me after all. now, to pass probation and cement my role here.

-random thought of the day: Take time to process emotions.-

Retired cousin (who's now semi-retired, but that's something for another time) messaged me late last night (sunday) with the news that her dad (my maternal uncle) passed away. although i wrote this post on 12 may, it's not my place to jump the gun and talk about it before the news was officially broken by my uncle's immediate family. so, i decided to hold off publishing this post until i saw some form of announcement, which came in the form of a touching tribute on facebook, as well as a post on (semi-)retired cousin's blog.

to start, this uncle is the husband of my maternal aunt, so we're technically not related by blood. add on the fact that he was overseas for most of my life while i was growing up, and i guess you can see why i never really grew super close to him. but it's not like we were strangers either; we did spend time together on multiple occasions. i can probably count those instances on one hand, which may be why my memories of those instances are a little more defined than say, all the holidays i spent growing up with my cousins, which got kind of blurred together.

i plan on recounting those memories, of course, but i thought i'd talk about a bit about my uncle before that. i first heard of him as a child, before even meeting him. the first thing i remember someone telling me about him was the nickname "mustachio tiger" - fitting, because he had facial hair (one of the few adults i knew that did), and was born in the year of the tiger! i seem to recall rumours that he was strict with his kids growing up, but don't quote me on that. anyway, i'll elaborate on how my impression of him changed as we interacted over the years.

our first time meeting was...a long time ago. i don't know the exact date or even the year, but i do know that it was in singapore, probably sometime when i was in primary school? i know it was in singapore because it was at their place in tampines. we went over for lunch or dinner (i'm inclined to say dinner, but really have no solid memory to back that up) and while i don't recall any real interaction with him, i recall exploring the house while the adults talked. as it is with most of my memories of childhood, the details have slipped from my mind a long time ago. like, i couldn't even draw you the layout of the flat even if i tried! anyway, i think that's when i first knew he worked for SIA.

although he wasn't a pilot (his role was grounded, something about cargo, i think?), he subsequently got posted overseas to various countries. first india, then new zealand, then the US, after which he retired back to new zealand. that ties into memory #2, which was going with my aunt and cousins to visit his family in auckland, new zealand. it was december 2000; i know this clearly because i got my PSLE results while i was overseas, and someone (an uncle? older cousin?) pranked me into believing that i only got into the affiliated secondary school, instead of the (better) school i actually got posted to. another reason it was memorable is because it was my first-ever trip by plane, and we got bumped up to business class for the return flight. i was a little anxious going, because the image of him being fierce was still present in my mind. during the stay, i found him to be kindly but with that "don't mess with me" aura - although that could be from my imagination more than anything. he was an awesome host, taking us on road trips (on one of which the quotable quote "jesus was born on chirstmas day...and so was i!" was uttered) and to tourist attractions, including the luge, where i lost control of my cart and ended up scraping my elbow and knee. we'd reach home in the evening and spend a few hours just gathered in the living room, being together. the adults drinking wine (i believe he was the first person to show me how to use a corkscrew!), and i had L&P soda. it was also during one of these evenings where i made the faux pas of asking how much he earned. in my defense, it was a genuine question borne out of sheer curiosity while wondering how a career in SIA would pan out. i had no intention of comparing it to anything or anyone. that was also when i learnt that he smoked a pipe. i don't think that i equated the contents of the pipe with the contents of cigarettes at that time, so i thought it was quite a distinguished habit. but knowing what i know now...no thanks.

we definitely got closer during this trip, and even exchanged sporadic emails for some years(?) after. i forgot where exactly we were when it happened, but i remember calling out for the others to wait for me when we were walking across some hilly terrain. he was beside me then, and told me "don't ask others to wait, catch up to them instead". i won't say that it's become my mantra or anything, but i feel like that did somewhat influence me. of course, subsequent life experience has taught me that there's no shame in asking for help when i really need it, but i guess his words to me that day kind of explain why i'll at least attempt to give problems a shot on my own first before approaching others. another thing that happened during the trip was that he offered to be my mentor. being young and ignorant, i had no idea what a mentor was, and i think my aunt or someone else who i asked told me that it just meant "teacher". stupid me at that time promptly associated it with "schoolteacher", and i guess that's why i never really consulted him or sought his mentorship the way i'm doing with other mentor figures that i met later in life. although i wonder what would have happened if i'd approached him with my life problems and/or asked for his opinion regarding big decisions growing up. would i still be the same person and on the same path as i am now?

memory #3 wasn't in person, at least i don't think it was. i seem to recall it being over facebook messenger or email. this was after JC, probably during or after NS. he asked about my university plans, and mentioned that he'd be willing to sponsor my university education if need be. since i was going local and had the tuition grant to cover most of my fees, i didn't take him up on the offer. i still wonder why he made that offer specifically to me, and (to my knowledge) none of the other cousins. maybe i'm overthinking it, but i think maybe he saw a bit of himself in me. more on that later.

this next memory is probably the most significant one, and it took place in may/june of 2013. i'd just finished my last undergrad exams, and as was the custom, was planning a grad trip. since i had australia as a destination already, i thought why not go visit my aunt and uncle in new zealand, where they retired to? they welcomed me with open arms, and upon learning that i was only intending to spend 5 days there, my uncle asked why i was only staying for such a short time. that led me to extend my stay to 3 weeks. not my smartest move, because as you'll see from my posts at the time, i felt that there really wasn't very much to do there! still, it was a nice change of pace where i got to experience a different life - working on his country home, planting garlic, cutting down tree branches, that sort of thing. perhaps i could have asked to borrow a car and go around the area myself, or spent some time exploring the city on my own, but i was still rather unadventurous at that point in time. that was also when he evaluated me as a guest, proving that habits from work do carry over into retirement. in fairness to him, he asked if i wanted to hear his evaluation, and i said yes. at that time, i was older and perhaps saw things from a less exaggerated perspective than a child would. so, to me then, my uncle was perceptive and asked interesting questions which made me think. we also celebrated my achieving second-upper honours with dinner at a fancy restaurant, courtesy of (semi-)retired cousin.

unfortunately, that would be what i consider my last substantial interaction with him. after that, i saw him only once or twice more in person when he came back to singapore for short visits, and we exchanged messages maybe a couple times more? suffice to say we didn't have much contact after that trip. perhaps it's because he's been physically far away for most of my life, it doesn't seem to register that he's gone. while i'm feeling sad at his passing, it's definitely not at the level of what my aunt and cousins (his wife and kids) must be feeling now. i understand that he kind of changed while trying to get used to a different life in his retirement years, but the silver lining is that he got to spend lots of quality time with them (and with other family and friends on video calls) in the month-ish leading up to his passing, leaving good memories behind. (semi-)retired cousin tell me he was back to his old self that she remembered in the month or so that he spent in the hospital.

feelings time. as mentioned before, we weren't exactly close. i'd say he was a level closer than the aunts and uncles on my dad's side that i only see during CNY, weddings, and funerals. it kind of baffled me, why he would volunteer to be a mentor for me, and offer to sponsor my university education. even more so when i don't think that those offers were extended to any other cousins in my generation! perhaps he thought i needed the extra help? at the risk of main-character syndrome, allow me to hypothesize a bit here. i think that we were a bit alike, in an odd way. see, i remember asking a relative (i forget who exactly) about this uncle, and the relative replied that he was a little eccentric. i'm sure there was no ill intent. that's also how i found out what "eccentric" meant, by the way. and i guess that resonated with me a bit, as i was labelled a weird kid in secondary school. it's a label which i didn't like at first (teenage issues of wanting to fit in, right?), but grew to embrace as i got older. i don't know enough about my uncle's history to cite any examples of eccentricity, but i do know just from the time we spent together that his thought processes and analyses were a little different. he was also extremely insightful, probably honed through years of management experience, and knew what questions to ask. i hear he was good at maths, and tutored my aunts when they were schooling - which explains his highly logical nature. although he was opinionated, and sometimes blunt to the point of not taking other people's feelings into account while speaking his mind, he wasn't a bad person - not by any means.

he was also really stubborn. this could be interpreted positively as perseverance, or negatively as obstinance. that's another thing which i think we have in common! it's not exactly good in this case though, because from what i understand, he'd been feeling unwell for a while (i hear for the better part of a year), and only agreed to seek medical attention in march when the proverbial excrement hit the fan. i'm inclined to say that the behaviour was borne out of his generation's upbringing and the expectations laid upon them - notwithstanding all the flak they get nowadays, boomers are incredibly tough. i guess he thought it was one of ailments that he could power through...except that he couldn't. while it would be in poor taste to reduce my uncle's passing to just a lesson in seeking timely help, seeking help before it's too late is definitely an important takeaway from the whole thing.

in the immediate future, the family has requested privacy, so i'll just check in with (semi-)retired cousin occasionally. looking a bit further, i'll plan to head down to NZ maybe later in the year, or early next year to pay my respects. i hear my uncle will be buried somewhere really scenic, which suits his nature-themed retirement life. depending on where everyone is (physically and in life stage) at that point, i might bring L to meet (semi-)retired cousin. not sure how things will change, but if that meeting happens, she might be the first family member that i'm introducing him to.

ending off this post, i guess there's really not much more for me to say. i'm grateful for this uncle's presence in my life (as briefly and sporadically as our paths intersected), as well as his generous hospitality despite us not being all that close. i'm happy (as happy as happy gets, considering the circumstances) that this was the catalyst for my cousins to start burying hatchets. last i checked, i was told that everyone is doing ok, which is just about all we can ask for in such situations. now all we can do is let time do its thing.

-random thought of the day: Nothing today.-

About a year ago, i wrote about how presumptuous it was of me to assume that i'd plan well enough to publish my JET reflections post before leaving japan. seems like history repeating itself, because i'd planned to do a "one year post-JET" post on 30 april, which was the date i left japan and landed back in singapore. it's now may 4th (happy star wars day, by the way), and i'm only just writing it now. again, my hubris! thank goodness there are no consequences here aside from self-imposed ones.

hard to believe that it's only been a year since JET, especially when you know that i've already been back to visit the town! contrary to how it might seem, i'm not trying to reassert my presence there. it just so happened that my kids were graduating, and i had to send in a form. i don't think that i'll go for next year's ceremonies...not for the big school, at least. but that's a consideration for the future. like i was saying, it doesn't feel like just one year. if i had to estimate the time, i'd say maybe 18 to 24 months. i guess being too free makes time pass more slowly. those 8 months of unemployment felt like forever.

perhaps the reason the span of one year felt longer is because so many things happened. getting used to living in singapore again, then leaving for the UK, trying to find jobs there, it not working out and coming back, getting used to living in singapore for real this time, that whole fiasco with GD, meeting L and starting to date, applying for jobs, meeting L's dad, finally landing a job, the cruise, getting used to the new work routine. writing it out makes me feel like i've come a long way in the past 369 days! the best part is, there's still so much more to come. of course, no guarantee that it'll all be good, but that's life, isn't it?

remember i said that one way in which japan changed me is that i'm more understanding/compassionate? i think i'll take that back, because idiots in singapore don't deserve compassion or understanding. it's different if they're neurodivergent or special needs, but most instances of inconsiderate behaviour that i've seen stem from selfishness/self-centeredness. like the woman who barged into the MRT as soon as the door opened to reserve seats for her family. the thickness of skin to do that and still be able to hold eye contact with other commuters...disgusting.

later in the day, i had a minor physical altercation with an older (mid-40s) guy, but i won't go into detail because i don't want to remember it. doesn't do my heart good. although if i know myself well enough, i'll still involuntarily recall it. i was (still kind of am, actually) angry about it, but after i came home and told L what happened, he reminded me not to do anything stupid. sure, i could have beaten the guy up to the point of dislocating a few joints, but doing so would jeopardize my entire life for that brief satisfaction of inflicting pain (that he deserved) onto him. weighing the two, it's totally not worth it. i was again reminded that i have more to lose now, and that my actions affect the people i care about. not that they didn't before, just that i care more for this person. i'm sure that L would definitely manage if i went to jail or whatever, and he might even stick around if i were an ex-convict, but why go there when it can and should be avoided? also, martial arts are only to be used as a last resort. we were still far from "last resort" territory on that occasion. so i will take comfort in knowing that i put my training and life experience to good use, and was the bigger person.

it did get me thinking a bit...are there other reasons for why i should be the bigger person? there's a common anime trope about how a character doesn't get offended by others, never takes things to heart, and that's because he sees others as inferior. like, "whatever the sheep say or do doesn't bother the lion". i've thought about whether i can adopt that approach, but i don't think it's right for me. as i've said before, i don't feel anything puts me above other people, nor other people above me. things like money, status, or higher education don't make someone "better" than others. and you don't need riches or advanced degrees for simple things like thinking about others and not being a nuisance. 

speaking of history repeating itself, the election results were not hugely surprising. i wish that certain outcomes were different, but i'm ok with most of them...except the one where a literal 卖国贼 won a seat in parliament. i'm grateful that our professional and personal paths won't ever cross, because so far, nobody outside of his political party has put in a good word for him. and for a former minister to barely eke out a victory (margin of 1-2%, i believe) against someone standing for election for the first time, i think that says something. but at the end of the day, he won, and will likely be protected by gerrymandering electoral boundaries being redrawn in future elections. all i can say is, kayu is really kayu.

well, life goes on, as it always does. for me, that means work tomorrow, where i hope that i'll be able to send out a case, and have a discussion with my mentor about a couple more. don't think there are many major events on the horizon, save a guild chalet in 2 weeks. it's nice to meet my guildmates every now and then. i feel it's amazing that despite meeting them online, i'm closer to them than to some of my real life friends!

-random thought of the day: Think of the bigger picture.-