Midway through using the toilet earlier, i had a kind of premonition/feeling that something would happen to my towel rack, located directly to the left from my position at the time. that thought had barely finished forming when one of the suction cups came loose and one end of the towel rack fell. thinking back on it, i'm actually not sure which happened first - the thought, or the towel rack actually falling. but whatever the case was, i was able to shoot my left hand out and catch it before it fell to the floor. makes me wonder if a parallel universe version of me did the same thing before...or after? who knows, with whatever spacetime things.

recent happenings have made me realize that my thinking and attitude towards relationships have changed. background info: i started talking to this singaporean guy who's currently living in australia. he's quite keen on getting into a long-term relationship, and he seems to have decided i could be the one after about a day's conversation. previous versions of me would probably be jumping at the opportunity, but present me is a bit more...realistic, i guess. it is a bit refreshing though, to be the one being chased instead of the one doing the chasing. i'm not sure how it'll go, for a multitude of reasons, but i will at least meet him once when he's back. he's also indicated that he wants to be monogamous with his future partner, and i'm not sure how i feel about that now. well...no use worrying too much, i think the best thing to do is to just let things happen.

got a few engagements this coming week. first is going to my aunt's place tomorrow to pick up some letters. dinner with the guildmates on tuesday (don't forget this time!). gym guy might be coming over on wednesday. nothing special on thursday; might go visit the judo elder if he hasn't been discharged by then. there's a unit meeting on friday where management is supposed to unveil measures to improve employee satisfaction. the spoiler i've heard is that nothing's changing. need to pack my smaller suitcase for qingdao after tuition or preferably on friday night, as i'll be going to the airport on saturday night and flying off in the early morning on sunday. must admit that it still feels a little wasteful in a sense, as it seems like i'm spending a disproportionately large sum on money on a short trip. should remind myself that i can afford it, and it's ok to use the fine china once in a while!

-random thought of the day: Finish vacuuming!-

Haze got worse this week. there's a general silent hill-y vibe in the air, and people have been increasingly posting about the terrible air quality. apparently, the air qualities of singapore and malaysia are the worst in the world right now, beating out places like india and china. what's worse is that the government has been dead silent about this issue, i suspect in view of the F1 race that's scheduled for this weekend. the party name should be backronymed to "profits above people".

my day off on wednesday went really well! things didn't go exactly according to plan, but i still got everything done anyway. first was TCM treatment, where the physician did some massage and cupping therapy. she said i might have torn or strained a tendon/ligament in my shoulder. but even if it's a tear, it's minor as i can still move my arm and exert force...not to the level of my right arm, of course. the entire thing (consultation, massage, cupping) lasted an hour-plus and cost $115, which i put in an insurance claim for. it's still pending, i should know the outcome by next week.

then, went to harbourfront to get my flu vaccine. the clinic was crowded, with an estimated 90 minute wait time. not having the time to wait, i asked about the queue at ARC, which was the next-nearest venue. they guessed it would be about the same or longer, but i decided to try my luck anyway. glad i did, because there were less than 10 people in line! even better, they called my queue number next - i guess to get my easy case out of the way fast. best part, it was company-sponsored, so i didn't pay a cent.

lunch with friends (scary JC friend, mentor figure, plus 2 other old boys) was nice. we had fish and chips at mentor figure's regular place at holland village. good food plus excellent company, what's not to like? round 2 (dessert and drinks) was at the holland v food centre. i hear the laksa there is to die for, but didn't get to try it as they literally sold their last bowl for the day right before i approached them! sorely tempted to make a detour there after tuition, but we'll see how i'm feeling tomorrow.

my original plan after that was to go to a montblanc boutique (either takashimaya or MBS) to buy a pen refill for the teacher who still goes to the saturday gatherings, but the other old boys said that getting it off pinduoduo would be much cheaper. the boutique sells a pack of 2 for $33, whereas a knockoff goes for about 70 cents per refill. so the plan is to get it online, although it will mean waiting for a few weeks. in spite of that, i still ended going to takashimaya with scary JC friend for a makeup/cosmetics sale. seriously, the price women (and probably some men) pay to look pretty! she bought 3 or 4 small bottles of goodness knows what...i think one was a mascara? anyway, the total price was over $100. thankfully the level of care i have for my appearance isn't enough to make me spend that much. we also dropped by her old workplace (perfume shop), where i was able to resist the temptation of buying 2 small bottles of perfume that she passed me samples of last week. figure i'll do it later this year, as a promotion reward for myself or something. should also remember that they sell out quickly during the holiday season.

at the perfume shop, scary JC friend made conversation with the staff on duty there. i'll never understand how she's able to engage random strangers so effortlessly. anyway, it seems like young people these days (gosh, that makes me sound old) are also unsure of where they fit into the world. the staff was telling us about her internship as a recruiter, which she hated. well...she's only 20, and still has plenty of time to figure things out.

we weren't feeling hungry enough for a full meal, so we went and did a free sample tour of the stalls in the takashimaya basement. ended up buying mikan (orange the fruit) jelly, and i also got one in drink packet form for the judo elder. we parted ways after that, and i went to the hospital. the judo elder was in good spirits, his surgery went well and he should be discharged in a week or two. we talked for about 2 hours, partly reminiscing about the old days (man, i really am old, huh?) and partly making plans to catch up for a good meal after his discharge. he's been in the hospital for what - almost a month now? definitely way overdue for a meal that isn't hospital food.

so that was my wednesday. some small hiccups, but mission accomplished by far and large. the next 2 days were boring by comparison...just doing cases in office. managed to get my mentor's guidance on a couple of cases that i'm working on, so that's good. seems like i still need to get a better sense of how to assess cases where the other party has had a chance to explain their perspective. it'll come with time and exposure, i suppose.

had lunch with gym guy today, and told him about the japan thing. he seems happy for me, which is good! he also gave me some tips to navigate potential office politics (eg. jealousy), but i'm hoping i won't need them. i think he's quite fun to be around...something i think i want to look for in a potential partner. crochet guy ended up not feeling like coming over, so we had dinner at paya lebar instead. he said his performance review is next week, and if he didn't have any pending cases to show, he'd probably be out of the company. don't know why, but my batman sense has been humming in the background during our past few meetings. i guess for good reason, because he tried to subtly shift the topic to me signing up for a policy. age/life experience really gives you the courage to just speak your mind. i told him straight up, "if your intention is to get me to sign a policy before your appraisal, i can tell you that's not going to happen". i'm noticing that he's been bringing this topic up during our last 3 meetings at least. as a result, the association between "meeting crochet guy" and "being asked to buy insurance" is forming...which gives me a disincentive to meet him. from his end, i don't know if the constant rejection will make him resentful of me. really makes me wonder how good insurance agents get their clients. maybe they have the same success rate, but just cover more ground. like 5% of 100 is 5, and 5% of 500 is 25. well...i honestly think a change in job might not be the worst thing for crochet guy. but as he said, let's see how things go.

oh, about the japan thing. i am more or less confirmed to be going for it, because the coordinator emailed to check my availability! unfortunately, it's scheduled for february, which means it's going to be a bit colder. but it's nothing i haven't lived through! i'm quite eager for things to move along, though logically i know i can't rush the process. guess it's the same idea - do what i can in this time. things i can do include deciding what clothes to bring, getting (ideally bilingual) namecards printed, finding my singapore flag pins to bring over as souvenirs, finding out if it's possible to extend my stay (and if it is, decide whether to visit my town). exciting!

-random thought of the day: Taking it slow for a change.-

Tiny bit annoyed today because things didn't go according to plan, plus i found out i made a minor error in finances.

so my plan was to get TCM done today. problem is, out of the 3 clinics that are within a short walk from my place, 1 was missing (or maybe i didn't look hard enough), 1 only opens for half-day on tuesdays, and the last one takes tuesdays off. really, something something proposes and disposes. but it wasn't all bad, i caught the reception staff as they were closing, and managed to make an appointment for 9am tomorrow.

with that development, tomorrow's schedule should be:

9:00-10:00 latest (hopefully) - TCM

10:00-11:20 latest - travel down to harbourfront

11:20-11:45 - flu vaccination

11:45-12:20 - travel down to holland village

12:30-3:00 latest? - lunch

3:00-4:00 - travel to MBS, get pen refill

4:00-4:30 - travel to hospital

4:30-6:00(?) - visit with judo elder

not sure what i'll do at night, but this should cover all the important events. considering that i'll get most of the important stuff out of the way by the time my leave is over, i'm not too upset at not getting TCM done today.

the next thing, however, really annoys me. so as you know, i'm due to fly a fair bit over the next few months. and that necessitates buying plane tickets. so i happily charged the purchase to my UOB card, with the thought that i would be getting a ton of bonus points. when only the base points were credited, i went to do a bit more digging, and realized that air travel isn't counted as a bonus category for online spend charged to that card! so whatever bonus points i could have got for both my china trips just went 'poof'. i should have used the DBS card! not the end of the world, and it'll teach me to read the fine print more closely. can't help but feel irritated, though.

so, based on what i'm reading, it seems that i need to streamline my spending strategy. for anything ordered online: DBS card. shopping in-person: OCBC card or UOB card if the final sum is a multiple of 5, with a condition that i need to hit $500 on the OCBC card for bonus interest, and an additional $300 ($800 in total) to qualify for cashback. i should also cancel some cards after i redeem the points there. something for me to think about in the near future.

ending the post on a better note, transformation kink guy dropped by for activities. he's teaching me that i value connection over physical attributes. don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy. but we're kind of at different places in life, plus we're not super compatible in the bedroom. i mean, our interests overlap enough so that we both enjoy it, but i've had better. probably not a good idea to compare in that sense, but you know what i mean. well...not being fixated on physical appearance has been a lesson i need to learn many times over. and although i think i'm more or less past it by now, having occasional reminders is good.

well...that's it for now. nothing really new since yesterday, but i just wanted to get those minor annoyances out of my head, which will help me enjoy tomorrow's lunch to the fullest!

-random thought of the day: The char kway teow at the newly-opened shop downstairs is not bad.-

Walked out of the office at 5:30pm today, which is the earliest i've left in a while...a few months, at least. i should be clear that this is not an expression of resentment at having to do tons of overtime or whatnot. i usually go home later voluntarily because i arrive later as well. and i'm definitely not drowning in work; a more fitting description is that i'm comfortably swimming through the work with my head well above the so-called water level. on the way back, i noticed that the sun was looking a little dimmer due to the haze. probably wasn't a good idea to forego the mask today!

applied for 3 days of leave over the next 2 weeks, 2 for the qingdao trip with scary JC friend, 1 for lunch with mentor figure and a few other friends this coming wednesday. considering i usually work from home on wednesdays, i was planning to just go and be back in time to continue working. but then i realized that i could get other errands done if i had the whole day off, such as getting my flu vaccination, seeing a TCM therapist, and visiting a judo elder in hospital. also, it makes me feel less guilty about dipping out! not like i'm short on leave, anyway - i haven't even touched my annual leave this year. so yes, this is one of those times where i have nothing to gain and everything to lose by not doing the right thing.

yesterday, gym guy asked me out for dinner with 2 of his friends, then a trip to the gay bar. one friend is singaporean, the other is taiwanese who's here to ride the train, of all things. the two of them were originally supposed to go see model trains after dinner, but decided to come with us to the gay bar instead. considering i was feeling a little tired and planned to rest/rot at home, i had a better time than i thought i would! cute bartender was there, so i also took the chance to wish him a happy (albeit belated) birthday. he still does my heart so much good. i'm realizing gym guy does too. and to be clear, i'm not falling for him. i think it's like, he's filling a role in my gay social circle. for me at least, one-on-one friendships with gay guys is infinitely better than trying to fit into a gay group, with all the associated politics and drama.

figure i better do some optimization to see how i can fit events into my day off (and other days as well). the current idea is:

tuesday (tomorrow, working from home)

- see nearby TCM therapist during lunch break

- maybe do a quick grocery run

- transformation kink guy coming over in the evening (haven't heard that name in a while, right?)

wednesday (day off)

- flu vaccination at harbourfront in the morning

- lunch with mentor figure and friends at holland village

- maybe stop by MBS to get a pen refill (not for myself)

- go to outram community hospital to visit the judo elder (or do hospital before pen refill)

thursday (in office day)

- submit 1 or 2 cases

- email HR for masters sponsorship

- gym (depending on how TCM goes)

friday (in office day)

- bug my boss for more cases if he hasn't assigned me any yet by then

- maybe submit another case?

- crochet guy maybe coming over at night

seems like a fairly normal week. even though i've hit the promotion target, i can't say that the pressure is completely off yet. but i can say that this quarter is probably going to be easier, because i need 5 points or less per month. but i'll still try to keep a comfortable pace. next year's target is going to be horrible, and i need to get myself ready for it.

-random thought of the day: Really looking forward to a break!-

Possibly because of the lack of sleep last night or the mild panic/big rush this morning, i'm currently feeling a little unequilibrated. disequilibrated? one of them, at any rate. so let me tell you about my ideal plan, and how the actual situation played out. for context, i planned to make sio bak for the alumni gathering this morning.

ideal plan: have the guy over on friday night, go to sleep early. wake up at 5:30am to preheat the oven, then put the meat in. have...activities with the guy while the meat cooks over the next hour and a bit. finish broiling the skin, let the meat cool while we both get showered, slice the meat, and be out of the door by 8:20am.

actual situation: had the guy over on friday night, went to sleep early. woke up at 6:45am because i set the alarm time but didn't turn the alarm on. jumped out of bed (the guy somehow slept on), preheated the oven, and put the meat in. had...abridged activities with the guy while the meat cooked for an hour and a bit. we both showered, then i finished broiling the skin, getting sweaty again due to the heat from the oven and the meat. sliced the meat while it was hot (i know it's not recommended but i was really short on time), and was out of the house by 8:20am.

not a bad recovery, if i do say so myself! thankfully an old boy lives near me and was willing to detour to pick me up. the not-so-good thing was i had to transport the meat there in a sealed container so as not to let the smell escape and linger in the car. and as a result of that, the water vapour released by the still-hot meat made the skin not crispy any more by the time we reached the venue. but all things considered, it was a decent success! mostly good reviews, although the lack of crispy skin was mentioned. wouldn't have been an issue if i'd woken up earlier and gave the meat time to cool! well...that's something for next time. i'm increasingly starting to believe that scoring, poking holes, or otherwise perforating the skin is important. did i mention that the skin is actually tougher than i thought? no wonder i see some butchers using craft knives to do it!

i've got a whole reflection on love vs. intimacy and what insights into my own psyche my encounters so far have given me, but that's deep/lengthy enough to be a post on its own, i think. for now, i'll just say that the big lesson for me is that maybe there is no "the one" for everyone. to be clear, i don't mean it in the sense like i'm going to grow old and die alone or whatever. i mean it more like...everyone has a threshold for what they'd accept in a partner. and it won't be just one person who fits the criteria. for me in particular, i realized that each guy i've done stuff with has at least one thing that i'm really attracted to. even then, i wouldn't necessarily want them as partners. something to expand on another day, i guess.

back to today, tuition. 4/5 kids have finished their exams, and the last one will finish this coming week. could be for the reasons mentioned in the first paragraph, but i felt my fuse burning up faster in class. didn't yell or do anything that would result in an ugly scene, but the urge was there. i'm currently having 2 issues, the more serious one being the 2 new guys are not paying attention, the less serious one being the remaining guy is clueless. we are 10 months into the year, and the fact that both aqueous solutions and gases use the same units for volume seemed to be a huge revelation to him. i'm grateful that the others don't have this issue, otherwise i'd seriously question my teaching ability. anyway, there are only 10 more weeks to the end of this year, where there will be a 2-week break before launching into 2027. my goal is to end this year well, and to have a good next year too.

speaking of how i want to end this year, my lead invited me for a chat this past week. it's something he does once every quarter or so, and i think it's just to touch base and see how i'm doing. he updated me on the masters sponsorship situation, which has now been restricted to the june intake, and is more popular than anticipated. i think he was managing my expectations that i may not get it this round. not the worst news in the world, and waiting half a year till january 2028 (assuming that's the next sponsored intake) is something that i can live with. might actually be better, considering i won't have to worry about tuition then. but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. right now, the plan is to apply for next july's intake anyway, and see if i get it.

next update was on the japan thing. i understand that my lead has put my name up, and it's more or less in the bag. also it seems that a different senior from the one i was originally told will be going instead. seeing as how this senior is mentoring my batchmate and not me, i don't have a relationship with her beyond small talk in the lift or when we bump into each other in the office, which is not at all often. good thing that we're all friendly (or at least cordial, as a baseline) with each other in the division!

third thing: promotion. i told him that i'd hit the required numbers already, and i guess it'll be set into motion once september's points are consolidated. also communicated my concern about quality, and mistakes made. he said that it's normal at this point in my progress, so i'll just take that and run. interestingly, he seems to think that i've been in this job for longer than i actually have! like, he thought i had already cleared 2 years of service, when the reality is that i'm about 3 months shy of that milestone. so there is a possibility that i'm performing at a level that suggests that i've been here longer...or he's just got too many things on his plate and cramming small, not-really relevant details like each individual member's length of service into his brain is not an efficient use of brain space.

another interesting encounter i had was with the chief executive. it was completely unplanned; i was heading down for lunch on thursday, and he was the only other occupant in the lift that came. as luck would have it, the lift made no other stops from my floor to the ground floor, so we had about 30 seconds of small talk. mildly awkward, but survivable. he remembers that i speak japanese due to JET, and asked me if i'd kept up with practising. i have not, and told him as much. but somehow, i think that after 3.5 years of constant daily use, it's somehow ingrained itself into my brain. granted that there will be rust from disuse, but i think the forgetting will be more in terms of vocabulary words or kanji readings instead of grammar patterns. by the way, he spent over 10 years in japan, so he's definitely fluent as well. it occurred to me that the "japan guy" reputation seems to be taking root! scary JC friend mentioned before that one way to build a personal brand is to lean strongly into an angle. this might be an angle worth exploring for me!

remember what i said about becoming stir-crazy from sticking to the routine? well, scary JC friend invited me to go to qingdao in a couple of weeks, and i accepted. we'll be travelling with her mother, whom i've met, and who is scarier than her. thankfully, i seem to be in her good books, or at least not in her bad books. it's been a while since i last saw her though...maybe 2 years or more? i should also thank her for helping me to accept delivery of the socket modules for my power strip. it's set to be a 4-day-3-night trip, but i'm flying over a day later due to tuition. there's no itinerary; the plan is literally "walk and eat". i think it'll be fun.

what's not so fun is that i've noticeably gained weight. like, my jeans feel tighter. the feeling SUCKS - both physically, and in terms of self-confidence. i know what i should/need to do, it's the doing it that sucks. but if i don't do something, nothing improves, and i'll hate myself even more in the future. it's weird that i think i'm capable of waiting for delayed gratification, but i'm failing at it when the reward is more abstract. i was going to say "intangible", but i realized losing inches off the waist and having clothes fit better is quite tangible! or maybe it's a timescale thing. like, i can do it for a week or a month, but 3 or 6 months is a different story. actually you know what? it's not delayed gratification at all. delayed gratification means passing up on short-term rewards for a greater reward in the long run, so your baseline state is neutral. this healthy living thing (including working out) is actively suffering for a reward in the future, so the present state is negative, or worse than baseline. might need to reframe my thought process and attitude to this.

-random thought of the day: Deadlifted and squatted 100kg!-