Fell off the gym bandwagon this past week, partially due to CNY and mostly due to laziness. while i could find excuses, i figure that i should be honest to remind myself that i'm not perfect, and that reality can (does) differ from the plan. good thing i missed a whole week, so my next workout will be push day, which i was originally what i was supposed to do anyway. the important thing is to get back onto the plan ASAP, the steps of which i'll lay out later.

had my first weird dream in the new place! the first one i remembered upon waking up, at least. i dreamt that i was a teacher, and that a half-day of school on saturday was mandatory for lower primary students. i went for a primary 1 or 2 class in a random school, and i met my ex-form teacher from sec 3 and 4 as he had them for the previous period. we chatted a bit, and he mentioned that i wasn't dressed appropriately. i recall i was wearing a long-sleeved sweater and long pants, which i thought was fine! he then said it was because i'd worn this same outfit to an NSFW event, and when i asked him how he knew, he kind of hinted that a video had been leaked. now that i think about it, it's very on-brand for him to hint at things first and expect you to figure out what he's saying. i think that's the extent to which i remember the dream. analysis time!

starting with the last part first, i wonder if it's subconscious fear/worry of having my NSFW activities "exposed" to social circles where it would be inappropriate. work, for example. although...i do wonder how much damage it could do. 377(a) has been repealed, so it's not illegal any more. plus, we're all consenting adults. i suppose the main negative outcomes would be social (ostracism, bullying, etc.). and in an extreme case, the bullying might have more serious consequences in that a higher-up deliberately makes things difficult so quitting or getting fired are the only possible options. i don't think it'll come to that for me, as long as i keep delivering on my KPI and don't mix my work and private lives.

the next thing is about that particular teacher. i haven't seen him since either O-levels results day, or one of the random times i went back to visit the school. last i heard, he transferred to another school where the students had a reputation for being "rougher". we (me and the friends who i was talking to about it) wondered how he would survive there. but seemed to survive he did, and he even won an award from MOE! that was in 2019 though, and that was also the most recent piece of info i found about him. let's do some calculations. assume he was 34 when he was my sec 3 form teacher, 16 years passed since 2003 and 2019, making him 50 in 2019. considering he was single when he taught us (and assuming he remained single throughout), retiring at 50 would be possible on a teacher's salary assuming that at least some of it was invested. not to mention he's malaysian, so retiring to his hometown would reduce his cost of living by a whole bunch.

interestingly, the 2 form teachers i had (sec 1 & 2, sec 3 & 4) both remained single as far as i know. there were rumours floating around about their orientation, and apparently my old classmate saw our sec 1 & 2 form teacher in a very gay-coded outfit along neil road, which is known to have a gay bar and be a popular hangout spot for gay guys. doesn't prove or disprove anything, of course, and the only way to know for sure is to ask the teacher himself. doesn't look like that'll be possible either, because he's also seemed to vanish off the face of the planet. the last piece of news i have about him is that he received a national day award in 2023, while still with my alma mater. the age lines up; i know he was born in 1973 so he might have stayed in the same school, and also retired at 50. he's malaysian too, so definitely possible. well...wherever they are, i hope they're happy and living their dreams.

CNY was quiet for me. had scary JC friend over for dinner on the eve, which was nice. it was unexpected too; she mentioned that she wouldn't normally imagine spending CNY eve with me, especially since it's traditionally the time for reunion dinner. but she isn't celebrating this year due to a recent bereavement, and her schedule lined up with my plans, so there we were. it was nice to have a reunion dinner-ish thing for my first CNY in the new place! had a quiet day 1 and day 2 as well, since i didn't do any visiting this time. i think i'm going to maintain it this way. i don't know...i feel like most of my extended family and i don't add value to each other's lives (with the exception of my aunt, uncle, their 2 sons and the 2 sons' kids) and we don't contact each other anyway, so why bother with seeing each other for that one time a year? i know arguments can be made about how "they're family, after all", but i don't know. maybe i'll think about it next year.

had the transformation kink guy over on thursday/friday. he mentioned that he was interested to rent my spare room, and while i have no issues with him as a person, i wonder if i'm ready to share my space with someone else. having people over for a while, or even spending the night is different from having a full-time tenant. he asked me an interesting question while we were having dinner, which was if i enjoyed having him around. i mean...like i said earlier, i have no issues with him, and i think we're able to get along. but "enjoy"...that's a tough one. i will say that i enjoy people's company in general, but too much of a good thing may not be good. seems like i still want my own private space, and i'm not ready to rent yet. scary JC friend was telling me about an alternative to renting, which is to open my place up as a venue/space for people to use. the example she gave was hosting mahjong games - players pay some sum per complete round in "drinks money" (typically $10-20), so assuming one round takes 2 hours (leisurely pace) and i open my place for 8 hours a day, that's 4 rounds of $10 X 4 per round, or about $160 per day. multiplied by 20 working days a month, and that's an extra $3200, which beats what i'd get from renting! of course, there are some assumptions made here, in the number of rounds completed, plus that i will have full occupancy throughout the day. there are risks too, in that strangers are coming into your place, sometimes when you're not home! i was telling her that i'm not sure if i'll be willing to take the risk, but it's an alternative i can consider.

went to an LGBT acquaintance's place for dinner last night. apparently she's a trans girl, and is dating a straight guy. they're living together in the guy's place (he's 27 and bought a condo...like, what!?). she shared that she moved in 3 days after they started dating. to think that i thought me moving in with the ex after 2 months was fast! coincidentally, their place is just a couple of traffic junctions away from the ex's place, so i know that area fairly well. dinner was good - there were 2 more guests other than myself, and we had some enjoyable conversation and played a couple of tabletop games. i guess this is the kind of social interaction i've been lacking, since the majority of my social interactions so far this year are either with colleagues, or M18 in nature. one of the other guests was quite soft-spoken and looked pretty cute! reminded me of my dentist friend - might be the facial hair. he mentioned that he was born in the year of the tiger, so i knew that it was either 1986 or 1998. think the facial hair threw me off; i guessed that he was a full zodiac cycle older than he actually is. thankfully i kept the guess to myself! hopefully there'll be more of such SFW gatherings.

ok, quick planning thing before i go off for tuition.

today - tuition

sunday - nothing special

monday - nothing special

tuesday - office CNY celebration, alumni CNY dinner

wednesday - gym, have crochet guy over (or maybe on thursday?)

thursday - nothing special

friday - work in office, gym

saturday - morning alumni gathering resumes, tuition, guild CNY dinner

based on my dinner engagements, it seems that my later 2 gym days this week have to be fixed on wednesday and friday. which means my remaining gym day can be today, tomorrow, or monday. would prefer to avoid tomorrow if i can, since it's the day off for most foreign domestic workers and the PLQ area will be crowded. between monday and today, i'm thinking monday is better since i'll be going to the office anyway. although if i go today, that means i won't have to carry my gym bag in addition to my office backpack on monday. well...let's see how i feel after tuition.

-random thought of the day: Still not sleeping well.-