Cheap things can bring great happiness. because the plastic on my phone case had either absorbed too much oil from my hands or had been rubbed so smooth from frequent handling to the point of slipperiness over the past 2-ish years, i recently bought a new phone case from lazada. cost like, $4 with no delivery charge since i opted for self collection at a convenient location. it's made my phone experience feel so much better! definitely a disproportionate gain in terms of satisfaction/utility. perhaps i should change my phone case more often, unlike my note 8 one, which i think i used for the full 6 years.

i read somewhere that our bodies remember periods/moments of great trauma, to the point where we are more susceptible to mood and health issues on anniversaries of such events. don't know for sure how true that is, but i guess i'll find out soon. july was when i first started getting inklings that things were not quite as hunky-dory as i thought in the relationship. probably the worst will come in august, so i should prepare myself for that.

had dinner with E tonight. it was supposed to be with N and E, but N's wife's grandfather passed away last night. the 3 of us are due to meet next monday, but i met up with E since he was free anyway. he talked my ear off during dinner; i think the conversation was 70:30 or 80:20 in his favour. during our conversation, i found out that he's in essentially the same situation as when we last met up in end-february for the larger class gathering. he's made some progress in house-hunting, in that he got his HFE letter and has explored several locations. i'm also mildly annoyed that he didn't contact scary JC friend, but i guess it's his prerogative to choose an agent. his current agent seems to be trying to squeeze him for money, so...good luck to him.

mentally and in other aspects of life though, no change. he's still in his self-created conflict of being aimless in life, yet not wanting to aim for anything. i told him that he obviously wasn't dissatisfied enough with his life, because he hadn't taken any concrete steps to change it! am i bad for thinking that if i'd first made E's acquaintance today, and not 20 years ago in JC, we wouldn't be as good friends as we are now? he also said that he feels that he's so far behind us in terms of progress over the last 10-ish years (basically since graduating from university). i asked him then why isn't he trying to catch up to us, and his reply was "what's the point?". i also tried to get him to see that although his progress is nonexistent, his starting point is so much further ahead than ours from being born into a rich family. so if we look at absolute distance from the somewhat arbitrarily-defined "finish line", he's actually still closer than i am. must be nice, to be able to not worry about money! E was also telling me about how he'd only go for a 5-room flat because he wanted the space, and his dad offered to buy him any place he wanted. while i'm not exactly jealous of him because it's just his lot in life, i must admit to some minor internal screaming. to be fair, i'm not exactly worrying about money now myself, but that's only because i'm employed in this job. i'd really hate to be a jobseeker in this market.

another interesting thing i did was to have lunch with the newbies both yesterday and today. there was a pretty cute guy, but he's a full zodiac cycle younger than me! the whole "not dating at work" thing aside, i think the age gap is a bit too much. still, they seem to be adjusting well...though it's only been 4-ish days to a week. they're still in a different location due to space limitations, and i think we'll only see them more regularly from september or october onwards. till then, there's always lunching together i guess!

-random thought of the day: Working from home tomorrow!-