"Pick your battles wisely". that quote occurred to me earlier on the drive home, and i think it's quite relevant to a certain aspect in my life. before that though, i have an update on the favourite SJI boy situation.

so i talked to him. he says that he's perfectly fine, and that i haven't done anything to annoy him or anything like that. based on this, everything should be fine, right? in theory, yes. but based on his tone and choice of words, something is wrong. the biggest hint came from his reply, which went something like, "i'm ok, if you think there's something wrong, i'm fine with it" (i can't remember the exact phrasing). in normal english, that actually sounds not-that-harmful. but add a singlish twist, and the meaning becomes more like, "if you have a problem with me, there's nothing i can do about it". that worries me, because it shows how far the distance has become, and it makes me feel that he doesn't trust me like before. as much as i hate to think this way, i think he may have been externally influenced, or my character judgement was way far off. what he wants to believe is out of my control, so just have to hope that he has as much sense/intelligence as i think he does. well, i'll respond to this in my newton's third law way...as much as it sucks having to do so. funny how some people that you (i) care about don't seem to reciprocate that much. but well, i figure it's karma. after all, i'm guilty of doing that too. well, i guess we'll see how things go for the next few weeks/months. if he suddenly reverts to his old self close to nationals, that should be the biggest danger sign for me.

now for the battles thing. you should be familiar with the old saying right? "know yourself, know your enemy, and you'll be undefeated for hundreds of battles." something like that. so here's the thing. remember the thing i wanted to do on my birthday, but ended up not doing due to being unable to muster up the courage? i'm thinking of it as a battle now. conditions for victory and defeat are quite clear to me, but i won't post them here (yet). my blog isn't ready for it. so, what happens now is that i'm picking battles with people which i have greater chances of winning over. then when my confidence gets the boost it needs, i may try the tougher battles. for now, i've already won about 8 battles, and have about 10 more to go. all in good time.

i wonder if being upset weakens your immune system. somehow, i remember reading that your mental and physical well-beings are linked, and each exerts influence on each other. guess that's true, because my nose suddenly became blocked after the talk. maybe if i convince myself that there's nothing i can do, my nose will unblock itself.

-random thought of the day: Damned emotions.-

Have i been busy enough to not blog for 10 days? actually, i don't really recall what i've been busy with. i haven't really made THAT significant progress in lab work, and the modules are more or less manageable. good news is that i finished my materials presentation yesterday, so i'm just left with a written report and 2 final exams on the module end. interesting story about the report, which is for organometallics. i remember the lecturer saying 4 pages, so i went ahead and wrote a 4-page report as normal. after checking his written instructions for confirmation about the deadline, i noticed that the report was supposed to be 4 pages, double spaced. so i suddenly had twice as many pages as i needed. finally managed to get it to 4 pages after a lot of backspacing, deleting, rephrasing, the occasional frustrated scream, and a small cheat (moving my references to the cover page). figure i'll let it rot for a while before the deadline, then do final editing before submission.

lab work-wise, i've synthesized another 2 catalysts...and that's about it. the downside of my compounds is that they contain sulphur (still used to the british spelling), which makes them smell horrible. but if this work gets me a paper, i won't complain (too much). thankfully, the syntheses are easy; taking 3 steps at most for now. if all goes well, i'll be able to test my 2 catalysts tomorrow. incidentally, i'm just wondering. which do you think is better - to make a few catalysts, test them, make a few more, test again, or make like 10 catalysts and test them in one shot? i'm more inclined to the first method, because more checking means finding a hit sooner...like say, if catalyst #3 gave ridiculously good results, i'd know sooner from method 1 than method 2. the flipside is that you'll only know for sure which one is the "jackpot" catalyst after synthesizing and testing every single catalyst. i guess it's more of a personal preference thing.

other interesting happenings include my friend's wedding, and receiving a professor. the wedding was nice. actually, i don't think "nice" does it justice. it was well-planned, well-executed, and not too extravagant/flashy, which i think was quite sensible and appropriate for the couple's current stage in life (my friend hasn't been working for that long, while his wife is a new-ish teacher). nevertheless, it wasn't a cheap affair, and still had that sense of occasion which is befitting for (arguably) the most important day of one's life. unlike my cousin's wedding, i didn't feel any tears coming at all, which convinces me that it was the music last time. food-wise, it was standard wedding dinner stuff, so there isn't much to say. the one improvement i'd suggest is to do away with the rapidly-moving strobe lights while the first course was being served. made my eyes hurt more than anything, and didn't allow me to watch/appreciate the serving routine.

did drink a bit (2 glasses of wine), and as a result, had to wait until the alcohol was back to undetectable levels before driving back. the waiting was done over dessert at macdonalds. i must say, the matcha mcflurry is pretty good. one unfortunate side-effect of attending the wedding is that it somewhat reminded me that i don't have someone like that. not that i want to get married, but i would kind of like someone to care for and to be cared for by in return...someone who knows me well enough to read my mind, and whose mind i can read easily too. but that's just my emo showing. it'll pass soon, i think.

receiving a professor was interesting. my professor had lab class yesterday, so he asked me to go to the airport to pick his guest up. it's a little intimidating, actually, to be there alone and knowing that you're scheduled to be alone with a foreign professor whom you've never met before, at least for the time it takes to drive back to school (about half an hour at a reasonable speed). thankfully, this professor was really nice, which put me at ease somewhat. things went mostly smoothly, though i did panic when he didn't show up even after 20 minutes from his flight arrival time. the worst-case scenario i pictured was that he had come out of immigration, but didn't see me, assumed i wasn't coming, and took a taxi to NUS himself. thankfully, he was just a little held up at customs, and everything was fine from there. on the way back to NUS, he was telling me how in taiwan (where he's from), having graduate students pick up visiting professors is the norm, whereas it's the exception here. but having said that, i really would not mind if my professor asked me to do something similar again in the future. at least it gave me a reason to take a nice long drive, with the petrol fully paid for.

seems like i will miss all saturday CJC/SJI training sessions due to group meeting. training is from 10:00am to 1:00pm, but usually ends a little early. group meeting starts at 10:30am. the presenter speaks for about 20 to 30 minutes, followed by another 30 to 40 minutes of questions and discussion (it's usually longer). that means group meeting will finish at 11:20am earliest. by the time i drive down to CJC, it's 12:00pm or later. getting changed for less than an hour of training isn't worth it to me. well, at least i can (usually) make wednesday training sessions. the main reason i still go down for saturday training is because of the lunch plans afterwards...though recently, the number of people going have been decreasing, and the senior-to-junior ratio is skewed. wonder why.

also this past week, favourite SJI boy is still kind of...hostile? not really hostile...the best analogy i can think of on the spur of the moment is that he's behaving like an irritated cat. and guess who's not a cat person? seriously though, i'm still trying to justify his sudden change. since he has approached me with significant problems/issues in the past, i would like to think that there is a certain level of trust between us, which theoretically means that he shouldn't be lying to me, which in turn means that there is really nothing wrong with any aspect of his life. it's SOMEWHAT believable, because he interacts normally with his friends. that's the bugger that makes rationalizing this sudden mood swing a whole lot more difficult, actually. considering that it persisted after the first training session, i don't think it's to do with his rustiness. i saw him train this past saturday, and his form is more or less there again. that also makes me wonder if he did ever lose his form in the first place, but that's not important now.

what is important is that i find the underlying cause for this sudden change. after a lot of thought, i've narrowed it down to these few possibilities (in no particular order): puberty/teenage hormones, he wants to create distance, there is an issue sufficiently secret/serious that he can't tell me about it. if it was the first and/or third reasons, i'd be ok with it, and give him the space he needs, no questions asked. but in the off chance that reason #2 is right, i would really like to find out why. has he been hearing stuff about me? have i done/am i doing something he doesn't approve of/agree with? because the way i see it, you don't just wake up one morning and decide to stay away from someone without a good reason. i don't know, but i really hope there isn't any misunderstanding. of course, the last reason i can possibly think of is that he thinks i've outlived my usefulness, and thus, wants to move on with his life. of all the reasons i've listed, i think this is that one with the lowest probability. on a personal note, i'm also hoping and praying that whatever the reason is, it won't be this one...because if he does think that way, then my character judgement skills (which i quite pride myself on, by the way,) have failed me big-time. i've decided to have a little chat with him tomorrow after training. despite his reassurance that everything is ok, and no matter how much i want to believe him, some alarm bells are still going off in my head. and being an INFP, i do trust my instincts. well, we'll see what our talk turns up.

i saw a notice at my lift which says that my carpark will be converted from coupon-based to EPS-based, which means there'll soon be a barrier that deducts money from your cashcard as you leave. the reasons they gave was that it would help ease congestion and motorists would only pay for the time they parked. i admit that the latter point is valid, since coupons go by half-hour or one-hour blocks, and you can't save your remaining time for another parking session. but as for the first point, it's currently 2:04am. i think that by this time, all the cars that park in this carpark would have parked for the night already. wow that was a pretty confusing sentence. anyway, the carpark is only 80% full at best, even at this late/early hour. so the congestion thing doesn't really hold water here. actually, they omitted what i feel is the most important reason, which is that they wanted to prevent people from parking without a coupon! although the carpark uncles and aunties are fairly diligent, some people do get away with coupon-less parking. with this automated system, no such luck any more. at least i have season, so i'm not affected at all. it may even work in my favour if temporary visitors go elsewhere to find (by-left) free parking. i may get a lot that is close to the lift more consistently!

guess that's it for now. other than talking to favourite SJI boy, i also have to NMR my 2 catalysts. with any luck, everything will go smoothly, and i can move on to the next stage in both aspects.

-random thought of the day: Murphy's law of carwashing states that it will probably rain within 24 hours of you washing your car.-

Lots of (mostly good!) things have happened in the close-to one week i haven't blogged. believe me, i wanted to, but i've been having late days, and the internet has been screwing up at night. i haven't been able to load facebook or youtube for the past 3 nights at least. don't know whether it's linked to the singtel fire, but it's really getting on my nerves. think i should call the singtel people up. incidentally, does anyone know where to find singtel's assurance of quality, or if they even have one? i briefly went through their website, but didn't find anything.

reading some stuff online, as well as the residual cool weather from the ridiculously heavy rain this afternoon, have put me in a rather reflective/contemplative mood. before that though, i think i'll talk about the stuff that's happened this week, starting with the guild house trip on monday. most of the chem kids went, even those who had already graduated. previous guild house trips were generally successful, and i don't think this one was an exception. it was nice to meet with the working people, seeing as we don't get the change to eat together regularly any more. somehow, i can foresee us meeting up even when we're all out of NUS. but that's looking a bit too far ahead for now. unfortunately, one thing did kind of dampen the mood though, and that was the substandard level of service at the guild house that night. admittedly, it might have been because we went late (around 9:00pm). don't think that that was the main reason, though. the service staff took 15 minutes to tell us that something we ordered was no longer available, and they forgot our order twice. looking back, it was probably not that big a deal. but i was hungry that night, and you know what they say about hungry men being angry men. we then decided to go to the 24-hour macdonalds at kallang for drinks afterwards. thankfully, it was near the SJF, so i managed to get there without getting lost along the way. we talked for a bit more, then went home since it was close to 2:00am. previously, it would have been unthinkable to do something like this without a car. love having my own transport.

even though the following day was hari raya haji, i still went back to school for a bit. i realize that i like working on sundays and public holidays. it's the quiet, i guess. that, and the fact that there's fewer people in the lab, which means more space and not so much queueing for common equipment (eg. rotavaps). don't get me wrong, i like having the seniors around to laugh and joke with (and ask questions if i get stuck). but being introverted, i do need my quiet time, which is why i treasure my sundays of being almost-alone in lab. maybe i should take off-in-lieu sometime during the week...though it would be messy at best to explain to my professor.

went back for CJC training on wednesday. coincidentally, the coach was sick and didn't come, so i ended up giving them a few judo-related exercises, in addition to the physical training that they had planned. understandably, they were all quite rusty after not having trained for about 2 months. today was SJI's first training in about 5 weeks, and i understand similar symptoms of rust manifested. i'll have a bit more to say about this later. for now, i'll say that i see potential in a fair few of the kids. one of them asked me if they'd be ready for nationals next year. i told them yes, provided they trained with 100% dedication.i kind of conveniently left out the fact that they'd have to be ready by hook or by crook. at this point, i'm not sure of any of the current SJI sec 4s are planning on coming to CJC, but in the event that they aren't, we'll only have 2 senior belts next year. not good odds no matter how i look at it. but then again, i probably shouldn't judge an athlete by his/her belt colour. i've known yellow/orange belts to pull victories out of thin air against more experienced opponents. fair enough, it doesn't happen often, but it happens...which is good enough i guess.

some previous versions of my blog template had a little bio-data section. that was 2 years (or more) ago, so i won't blame you if you didn't know that it was my birthday this past thursday. i turned 25, which means i'm optimistically 1/4 (or less) of the way through life. given that the average life expectancy of a singaporean male is around 80 (rounded off), a more realistic estimate of my progress through life would be 5/16. take off 5 years for chemical inhalation, emo, stress, and whatever, and that leaves me with 2/3 of life left to go. but let's stop this train of thought. it can easily take a turn for the depressing. anyway, i was very grateful and surprised for the 30 or so birthday greetings that i got on facebook, and from the chem kids on whatsapp. presents-wise, 2 of the chem kids gave me a batman t-shirt, which i quite like. haven't tried it on yet, though. didn't get anything else, which is fine. i'd previously griped about the lack of presents, but i figured that since i got the car, i have to honour my words from a 2010 (or so) post where i said that if i got a car, i would be perfectly fine with not getting presents for the next 5 years. so, while i'm fully prepared not to receive anything for the next 5 birthdays and christmases, you all are most welcome to surprise me with a little something here and there.

with this birthday, i guess i'm officially in my mid-20s. can't stay young forever, after all. there are some things which i promised myself that i'd do on my birthday, but due to a lack of time and/or courage, i didn't get them done. feeling quite upset with myself as a result. then again, i guess there isn't much difference between doing it on my birthday versus any other day. so why do i have to wait for my birthday to do it? i don't! but yet, it's scary. maybe that's why i'm putting it off. well...i've heard the sooner i settle things like these, the sooner i'll be happy. have to put that to the test i guess.

one of the reflective thoughts i've had is about carding...you know, the whole national athlete thing. i talked to my friend on thursday during NUS training, and he opined that it seemed like a huge hassle. i had to agree. he also asked me why i bothered with the whole carding thing in the first place. after some thought, i guess i have 2 major reasons. first is to hopefully make things easier when i take grading next year. next is so that any overseas trips will be partially funded by SSC. are those really good enough reasons? i don't know. i'm starting to think that it might not be worth all the trouble. especially the club thing. i like NUS judo well enough, but i wonder if training on thursday nights is such a good idea, especially when training tends to finish quite late.

the other thing that i felt quite put off by was favourite SJI boy today. having not seen him for about a month, i'd wanted to get updates on how he's been doing and all that. think i caught him at a bad time, because he was rather...short with his replies. he did tell me that he topped his class, which is a good thing. upon some CSI, i think i found out the reason why he was so...not really upset...more like standoffish(?) despite insisting that he was fine. tiring physical training aside, it seems that he expected his skill level to be exactly where it was when he stopped training. now i may be wrong here, but i don't think even an olympic-level athlete can maintain his/her performance after not training for a month. i'd believe that they can go back to their previous performance levels faster than regular athletes, but to not deprove at all after a period of inactivity is quite unbelievable. maybe i'll have a chat with him on wednesday, when he's more relaxed and more likely to be receptive to whatever i have to say. at the same time, i know that i shouldn't take it personally. after all, i've had days where i didn't want to talk to anyone at all, no matter how good their intentions. so, understanding is key here. besides, i trust my initial assessment of him.

tomorrow's sunday, which means i'm going into lab for a bit. hopefully i can do 1 or 2 column(s) and proceed to the next step of catalyst synthesis. if that reaction failed, i guess i'll just set up a couple of new reactions. and i have to pay my phone bill and renew my road tax. i'm not about to try it at home, what with the shaky internet connection. oh. must return my library books too. looking slightly further ahead, i've got to finish my organic materials presentation slides my this coming week in time for my presentation on the following monday. and my friend's getting married this coming saturday! while several of my friends are engaged already, he's the first person i know within my age group to get married. well...i think i should cut it here. my internet's stable for the time being, so i'd better take advantage of it and publish.

-random thought of the day: People are so confusing sometimes.-

Chances are that you guys have probably seen at least one post where i talk about my weird dreams. in case you haven't, you're about to see one now. brief background: the earliest occurrence of a weird dream in my memory dates back to secondary school, probably before i began blogging. though i don't remember what the exact dream was, the experience of having that dream left an impression on me. for some strange reason, i have 2 recurring weird dreams. they're not exactly the same each time, but have the same overall theme. the first theme is all my teeth somehow falling out. that's the most common of my weird dreams, having happened around 4 times (which i can remember; actual number is probably higher) so far. wonder if it's my guilty conscience manifesting because i don't visit a dentist regularly. the second type of dream started after ORD, and involves me being back in camp. wait...it gets weirder. in the most recent version of that type of dream, i dreamt that the ferry terminal to tekong had been upgraded to airport-like quality, and we could pilot our own 2-person hovercrafts back and forth. very interesting. i wonder if there's a reason these themes keep popping up? might be my subconscious trying to tell me something.

recurring weird dreams aside, i also had one pretty scary dream. (un)fortunately, i don't remember exactly what it was about. i do recall, however, being a little scared to go back to sleep. so far, i think i've only had this kind of bad dream twice, which is already 2 times too many for me. i'm really not much of a horror person. my weird dream rate has been quite high over the past 2 weeks. i attributed it to stress in the past, but i don't think i'm feeling particularly stressed now. or maybe the dreams are an outlet, hence reducing my stress levels? i don't know. don't get me wrong; i'm not adverse to weird dreams. it's the scary ones i don't like. well...we're still a long way from understanding dreams, so i guess i can live with the uncertainty for now.

nothing that interesting happened on friday...just got my organic materials presentation almost done, like 90%. just have to add the findings from the second paper, and an overall conclusion. projected slide total (excluding the title slides) is about...20. i have to get through that in 15 minutes maximum, which means a time allocation of about 45 seconds per slide. should be ok. just hope i don't overshoot at all, or in the worst case scenario, not overshoot too much.

this weekend was good. there was a team of 2 visiting judo instructors, and they spent the whole weekend giving seminars and teaching class at various locations across the country. my partner had previously trained with one of them in japan before, so he wanted to entertain them for one night. and luckily, i got invited along to act as a translator in some of their classes, as well as for dinner, where we had the famous claypot rice at geylang, and tau huay for dessert. one of the instructors also works for (or is some high-up guy in) this company called pfluster (the "p" is silent). really wonder how some companies come up with their names. i'm sure there's an interesting story behind it. on a related note, i realize that my japanese language level has dropped SO much just after one summer and half a semester of not actively studying japanese! really really need the practice, especially in both speaking and listening. reading and writing seem to be ok for now, so that's somewhat of a relief at least.

what a difference a few kPa make. the air pump at my nearest SPC got repaired, so i went to inflate my tyres earlier this morning. when my tyres were less-than-full, i got an average economy of 9km/L. like i mentioned before, each pixel of my fuel gauge represents 2.5L of petrol. i can normally get about 25km per pixel, which works out to 10km/L nicely. when the tyres were underinflated, i don't think i even hit 20km per pixel. and after inflating my tyres to the recommended pressure (and refuelling to a full tank for a fair comparison), i've gone 40km and the first pixel is still lit up. in the interest of fuel economy (and by extension, my wallet), it looks like i have to faithfully top-up my tyres at the same time i top up my petrol.

also earlier today at SJC, one of the club members lightly brushed the right-front corner with his car. the damage is barely noticeable, and he was nice/honest enough to tell me about it. these are 2 things for which i'm very grateful. thankfully, 80% of the damage is on the front bumper, the other side of which i'd scratched up already, so i can live with that. the other 20% is on the panel above the bumper, and it's very easy to miss at a glance. overall...minor heart pain, but i'll survive.

receiving a letter from the LTA out of the blue can be a scary experience. believe me, having just received one this past thursday, i'd know. luckily for me, it wasn't about a traffic or parking offence. they just wanted me to renew my road tax. even though the deadline is about 3 weeks away, i should get working on that soon. from the letter, it seems that i need various documents, and compiling those might take a bit of time.

i went back to lab after the SJC session, and set up 3 reactions. hopefully they'll all be ready for work-up and analysis tomorrow. somehow, i was tired enough that i fell asleep for about an hour in the student room. woke up before it got too late, though, so that's good. halfway through writing this post, i realized that it's my turn for solvent duty/waste disposal tomorrow. and guess who went all the way back to lab on sunday, but forgot to count the bottles of waste solvent? well, looks like i'll have to go in early tomorrow to get that done. and speaking of tomorrow, the chem kids have a guild house dinner planned, and i also have to go down to nus judo training for a bit. yes, i decided to join as a temporary stop-gap measure. have to talk to the coach for a bit, find out a bit about the carding procedures and attendance matters. hope everything falls nicely into place.

-random thought of the day: Bak kwa is a good idea for omiyage.-

Discretion is the better part of valour. do you agree? explain your answer.

since it's thursday today, i thought i'd join the throwback thursday trend for once, and ask a question in the style of secondary school english essay questions. there's a reason behind this particular question, and unfortunately, it's tied to a negative experience. i'll elaborate more on that later. for now, let's recap the week so far.

nothing much for monday and tuesday, just regular work and classes. somehow, i think that the content covered for graduate modules pales in comparison to level 4 modules. don't feel like i've learnt all that much, especially for organic materials. well...as long as i can keep my CAP above the requirement, i'm ok with it. had a minor moron moment on monday, in that i forgot to bring my transponder to school. so i had an unexpected early day. made up for it on tuesday though. for my research, it seems that i may be changing direction a little, since my compound is unstable to heat. have to do a fresh round of literature searching to get the general idea of the reaction procedure.

yesterday and today were fruitful in lab. finally got my compound to crystallize nicely. too bad that with the change in direction, it won't see much use anytime soon. at least i identified my error, so there's a learning experience. i surprised myself by reaching school before 8:00am today. part of it was because i wanted to test the hypothesis of pumping petrol when the ground is cold (low temperature = higher density = more mass per unit volume = more petrol per dollar). the other reason on because i woke up at 4:50am, and couldn't get back to sleep. i think that this won't be a frequent occurrence...just when i need to refill the tank, which is once every 2 weeks or so. minor bummer was that the air pump was out of order, so i wasn't able to check my tyre pressure and re-inflate as necessary. think i'll go to the ang mo kio avenue 1 or upper thomson branches of SPC soon.

good thing i was in school early, i guess, since there was the asset check plus a surprise safety inspection. luck was really on our side this time. in preparing for the asset check, we inadvertently prepared for the safety inspection as well. all in all, everything took longer than i'd expected! thankfully, i gave some leeway when booking my NMR, and had sufficient time to prepare my samples after the checks. since i came early, i thought i could leave school early...but talking to my professor, and the rain made that quite difficult, nevertheless, i left at around 7:45pm, which is early by my standards. it was good, i guess, since i got some errands run. bought paper and labels for the lab, and socks for myself. i really don't know where all my socks have gone! when i came back from japan, i had around 5 pairs of socks. somehow in 2 months, all but one pair have disappeared. it's quite frustrating/annoying, because i have to be in shoes during weekdays. so i bought 6 pairs of socks. luckily they had a sale going on. one pack of 3 pairs for $18, 2 packs for $19.90, so practically half off. hope they don't go missing again.

so now, the thing about discretion. as i was turning into my carpark, someone was turning out also. even though i had the right of way, i motioned for them to go first. i'm not sure whether they didn't see my first 2 gestures, or they were distracted, or whatever. anyway, they took a long time to turn out, which resulted in me giving them a "what the hell!?" kind of gesture. no, it wasn't obscene, just sort of like this:

for some reason, the guy's passenger got sufficiently angry to stop the car and come out to confront me. not wanting to cause any traffic situations, i just ignored him, turned in, and parked. i did wonder, though, what i would do if it escalated into a physical confrontation. i realize that despite all the judo training, i'm not exactly how i would respond in a street fight scenario. judo is only effective up close, and more often than not, it's a reaction-based system, meaning that the opponent has to initiate something first. the advantage i think i have is that the ground can be used as a weapon for me as well, while the disadvantage is i don't like getting hurt pointlessly. but the more fundamental question i think is, is it "correct" to even engage him? seems like all martial arts teach the same core principle - "never fight if you can avoid it". not forgetting the follow-up line - "if you have to fight, hit first and hit hard".

to tell the truth, i was a little scared. mainly for the car, though. the way i saw it, i was at a disadvantage because the car could be collateral damage. his car was far away, so no worries for him there. besides, i don't know if any of them live here, and if their memory will be good enough to remember my license plate number. i'll probably have to be on my guard a bit, and check for any new scratches, dents, flat tyres, cut brake lines (goodness forbid), and stuff like that. well...considering this is singapore, i'd say that the odds of something like that happening are...15-20%. maybe i'm thinking too much. but just in case, here's what i remember: white hatchback-type car, possibly a honda. 2 chinese guys, probably in their 20s. very short hair (NSFs?). driver wore glasses. well...let's hope that this information never comes in handy.

-random thought of the day: The back of my Kodokan keychain is peeling off.-

While doing some lab work yesterday after group meeting, my senior said that i should try to change my language. upon doing some reflection, i realize that i have indeed been using the words "sad" and "depressed" a lot since semester started. could explain why my mood hasn't been that good for a while now. so for starters, i'm going to try and avoid any negative references in this post. that should be easy, since the main point of this post is to blog about a few happy events in the past week.

i'd forgotten to blog about my organometallics presentation earlier this past tuesday. all things considered, i think it went quite well! probably could have improved on is time management (overshot by 3 minutes), but other than that, i think i simplified the paper sufficiently and got the message across clearly. the lecturer didn't have any questions for me, which i think is a good sign. my friend said that he saw my mark (18/20), which is ridiculously good by my standards. i'm a little reluctant to believe it though, because i don't want to set myself up for disappointment. so with the presentation out of the way, i only have the written report (4 pages) and the organic materials presentation before my CAs for the semester are complete. the presentation is a little worrying though...we're supposed to review 2 papers. my topic is on liquid crystals and OLEDs. those papers are very different from organic chem papers, and as such, present quite a challenge. but i've found a pretty good review paper, and hopefully i'll get the hang of reading it in time for my presentation 3 weeks later.

on thursday, i met up with 2 of last year's honours students (the last one was overseas) and the UROPS student in my lab for dinner. i don't mean we had dinner in lab, but that they're from my lab...but i think you might have guessed that. we went to saveur, where there was no queue! what a pleasant surprise. apparently, google translate says "saveur" should be pronounced similarly to "sever". the nice wait staff pronounced it while taking our order, but i forgot how it sounded. do remember thinking that she said "starter" instead though. and "saveur" means "flavour", not "savour" as i'd previously assumed. my starter was the signature pasta (highly recommended!) and a mushroom cappuccino, which is just mushroom soup served in a cup, not mushroom-flavoured coffee. for the main, i had the pork, which was nice. just that the serving size was a little small. about 150% of what they gave would have been perfect for me. so far, i've had the sea bass and the pork. i think that i may eventually try everything on the menu...the duck looks like a promising next target. we then went to this chinese dessert shop. they got mostly durian stuff, while i had mango sago. after that, since i was going back to school anyway, they decided to come along for a short visit, surprising the 2 group members who were still there. i think we should meet up more often...but also depending on everyone's schedule.

the next good thing was on friday, where i met up with 8 JC classmates for dinner at heartland mall (close to kovan MRT). i was late, so they had already ordered at sakae sushi when i'd arrived. don't know why they chose to eat there. but well, i went along with it since they'd already ordered. the food was (barely) ok by singapore japanese food standards, but the service sucked like hell. my friends waited up to 30 minutes for their food to arrive, and this was despite 3 reminders to the staff. really don't know why they went in in the first place. maybe because it wasn't crowded. after dinner, some of them wanted to go bowling, so we tried our luck at the nearby superbowl. i was surprised because (1) i didn't expect a bowling centre in a heartlands area, and (2) it was packed! ok, granted that it was relatively small (26 lanes at the most), but still. we didn't get to bowl in the end due to the crowd, but went to nex for ice cream instead. got mint chip, chocolate, and coconut. the guy in front of me in the queue got ahead of himself and gave instructions for my order, thus messing it up. had it been sprinkles or syrup, i would have just taken the screw-up. unfortunately, he asked for peanuts as a topping. unless it's mixed in as part of the flavour, i never have nuts on my ice cream. so too bad. wonder how the staff accounted for this. hope they didn't end up in a tight spot. if i were in the guy's position, i really wouldn't know how to fix the problem.

after that, 2 of us went for drinks, and subsequently stayed over, at our third friend's place. ironically, one of the friends was the guy i'd had a big problem with in japan. i guess now that we're back in our comfort zone, he behaved a lot more...normally. in fact, it was somewhat less obnoxious than what i'm used to, which was pleasant. we got hungry halfway, so took a taxi to cheers at serangoon gardens for snacks (and mixers for the other two). i had group meeting, so i went off to bed after the wine, while they continued with jack daniels. wonder when they finally crashed. thankfully, i woke up bright and early, and more importantly, not hung over. made it early to group meeting and survived the whole thing, though i was still tired. all in all, it was great hanging out with the JC people again, especially since i haven't seen one of them in 6 years. as much as i want this to be a more common occurrence, most people are working now, and our schedules aren't that likely to align.

on a side note, i'm finding that service staff aren't really capable of good communication any more. of course, this is a generalization, and there are exceptions (like saveur). but by far and large, i get the feeling that service staff don't understand english all that well, or don't have a service-oriented mindset. however, this is dependent on several other factors as well. for instance, i'd expect service staff in shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, generally more upscale places, to be competent in english and more customer-oriented. i definitely do not expect the same high standard of service from an uncle in the NUS canteen, compared to the customer service centre of starhub, for instance. but i'm not saying that the canteen uncle has bad service, mind you. in fact, the canteen uncles are generally friendly, which makes waiting in line a bit more bearable. but there's an exception to the location rule, and that's the age of the staff. even though i'm capable of decent chinese conversation, i generally try to converse in english first unless the other person starts off in chinese. nevertheless, it still bugs me when people (who look) under 35 can't understand english properly. oh well.

also on friday, i met a very interesting person, about whom i'm dying to learn more. unfortunately, it doesn't seem like our paths will have the opportunity to cross all that much. but well...i don't know. i can't deny that i'm interested...but the odds of further development are low...my (rather optimistic) estimate places it at 15%. fingers crossed.

3 more exciting things are lined up in the upcoming 3 weeks. in order of my excitement, SJI/CJC training is resuming (this coming saturday), my friend's getting married (3 saturdays later), and i turn 25 in 11 days. other than that, it's the usual routine of lab work and stuff. i'll be fine. have to start working on my breakfalls and flexibility a lot too. that aside, i find myself thinking about the interesting person a lot. really don't know how things will turn out.

-random thought of the day: Get motivated!-

'I think i'm screwing up my life.'

that thought suddenly came to me earlier today. i realize that it's kind of late now, and i should be sleeping in order to wake up nice and early for school tomorrow. but i reasoned that if i don't get this out of my system, i won't be sleeping very well tonight anyway. don't worry...i'll make it as short as i possibly can. so here goes. i'm not making significant progress in lab work, i feel like it's me against the world, and administrative work is taking the enjoyment out of judo.

for lab, i literally do not have any more valid reasons for slacking. i have a car, a transponder, and to top it off, my substrate just arrived. literally no excuse. and yet, i don't know what's holding me back from diving into lab work 100%. guess i should remind myself that i'm being paid, so i've got to get my act together. my current behaviour is probably more reminiscent of an honours student, evidenced when the mass spec lab staff asked who my mentor was. for my own sake, i should wake up my idea.

being alone isn't new to me. in fact, i prefer solitude most of the time. if you haven't guessed yet, i'm the type of person who only needs (wants, actually) a few very close friends. but even then, there are close friends, and there are CLOSE friends. somehow saying it has more impact than reading it. but what i mean is that even within my close friends, there are some i trust more than others. for instance, out of the 10 chem kids, i trust all of them with my material possessions, like if those with driving licenses wanted to borrow the car for something important, i'd readily lend it to them (with the understanding that they'll pay for petrol and any damages, of course). however, there are only 5 to 6 of them i'd trust with my secrets. anyway, i tried a little experiment earlier. well, more like study. what i basically did was look through the contacts in my phone, and pick out those to whom i'd be willing to open up. out of 90 contacts (that says something in itself already), i picked out 6 people...which is 6.recurring 6%. i thought the sample size might not be large enough, so i tried with my facebook. out of 356 people, i found exactly the same number as before. 6 people, or 1.69%. although there are some overlaps from phone nd facebook (as expected), none of the 6 people from my phone and/or facebook are family. interesting. maybe i should just go with it and talk to one of those 6 people. that might do my heart and soul some good...provided i can get the words out. i have mentioned that i freeze up at sensitive conversation topics, right?

judo is frustrating me from 2 ends. one being not having a club, and the other from suddenly suffering a deprovement in skills. the club thing is becoming a bit of an issue. all i need is 2 months, but something tells me that that won't be easy (or even possible) to get. i don't know. my partner's advice is to filter out the noise for as long as necessary, though i doubt i will be capable of that. as for skills, my breakfalling issues have improved a little, but there's still a long way to go. still can't seem to project into the roll. i think i need more practice breakfalling over obstacles. on the bright side though, my NROC application went through! so that's the coaching bit more or less down. also, i finally found out the problem with my refereeing. i look too unsure! have to be more confident and assertive i guess. too bad there's no more chance to practise this year.

actually, i think the main question i should be asking myself is, "what is the worst-case scenario?" for school, it would probably be withdrawing from graduate studies, or more extreme, getting kicked out...though i don't think it'll get there. besides, i'd prefer to leave on my own terms. the alone thing...a quick online test showed that i'm not depressed, which is good. i don't know what exactly will be the worst-case scenario for this one. maybe becoming a crazy cat man. worst case for judo is me leaving the circle...well no. i'll stick around SJI and CJC. what's more likely to happen is that i get dropped from the national team, either permanently or until i solve the club issue. in all honesty, i think i can live with that. but well...we'll see. right now, i think i'm overdue for bed.

-random thought of the day: Want to get away from it all.-

Frustration is the foremost feeling i'm experiencing now, though i can't say why for sure. all i do know is that it started either during or after training earlier today. based on that knowledge, if i had to guess, i'd say it's because i'm having difficulty with one of the techniques in nage no kata. i'd say it's insufficient practice...or maybe practising the wrong thing. the other thing is being on the receiving end of that same technique. the ideal situation is that uke (receiver) executes a nice, graceful rolling breakfall and stands up afterwards. on the other hand, my breakfall was a lot less graceful. in fact, the perfect sound effect to describe my breakfall would be "splat". as with all things that go splat, it hurt. i guess i was a little annoyed with my partner, who seemed to think that it was correct, and i had to just get used to the pain. thankfully, the resident nage no kata experts were on hand for consultation, and they determined that i was holding onto my partner for too long, and not projecting into the breakfall. it was quite frustrating to hear that, actually. it's not that i don't appreciate their advice, or think they're lying, but i really thought i had this breakfall thing down solid already. you'd think that if i can breakfall over 3 (crouching) people easily, i should be able to project myself forward, right? apparently not. well...i think it's nothing that a bit of practice won't solve.

katame no kata was...average. don't know if it's because we trained 2 days in a row, but i felt that our standard dropped from yesterday. we both made little errors which by now, should have been completely eliminated from our routine. that probably added to the frustration too. the problem mainly lies with the holds; chokes and armlocks are more straightforward and simple in execution. i think this is just a minor setback. should solve itself by the next training session, when we're both fresh and able to focus better. incidentally, i think i should mention that the sole reason i'm learning nage no kata is for my second dan grading next year. not because i have ulterior motives like wanting to outshine anyone or stuff like that. given the differences in our standards, a solid year of consistent training will probably only get me to where they currently are. it's not even taking their own improvements throughout that year into consideration yet.

that aside, another minor issue is this whole thing about needing a club. it's not an unreasonable requirement. and as i told the management, i'm in the process of solving the issue. problem is, the solution will only materialize in another 2 months at earliest. so, i'm kind of in a spot now. the easiest solution would just be to let me have the required time, while everything gets settled. but somehow, i doubt things will magically fall into place that way. hence, after some thought and discussion, i'm thinking of temporarily joining another club as an interim solution. wonder which club will take a 3-month member? if all goes well during the talk tomorrow, i may find a temporary home in SJC. if all goes well.

so, about the SJC thing. i've mentioned earlier that one of the coaches there asked me to help out in teaching a few classes. i don't know if he's desperate, or can see that i'd make a good coach, or whatever. but i've decided to take him up on the offer, maybe on a weekly or fortnightly basis. i don't know yet. right now, the plan is to go down tomorrow and speak to them to see whether or not a plan can be worked out.

recently, i've started to wonder if i'm taking on more than i can handle. physically, i'm ok. it's the mental load that's getting a little heavy. somehow, lab work is taking a bigger toll than i'd anticipated. and the sad thing is i'm just doing "normal" lab. nothing intensive yet. well, if it really comes down to sacrificing something, "national athlete" will be the first to go. after that, as much as it would kill me, SJI/CJC. if i still can't handle the stuff in my life after getting rid of those 2 things, i should really reexamine my work habits. for now, i think i'll survive ok.

tomorrow, i have a number of things to get done. first, the SJC talk. then, going to lab to set up 2 or 3 reactions. have to find time to go shopping for some essentials too. hope that i'll use the time productively tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Don't think I'm up for too much social interaction.-

Ulcers suck. i don't normally fall victim to ulcers, but when i do, they usually go away after a quick rinse with salt water, or a salt rub more for serious cases. this latest one, however, has stuck around for almost a week already despite a brief salt rub. don't even know how it happened in the first place. as far as i can recall, i didn't bite that particular area in my mouth (inner lower lip, 2 to 3 teeth to the left of centre, quite deep down), or eat anything sharp that might have caused a cut. it's nothing life-threatening...a minor annoyance at best. still, the pretty frequent stabs of pain aren't pleasant. or that could be because i'm eating chilli quite frequently lately, and the ulcer gets exposed to the capsaicin and whatever. think i'll try another (more prolonged) salt rub before bed tonight.

had a bit of a near miss today while driving. guess i was impatient after getting stuck on the AYE for 20 minutes(!), so i was driving a little faster than normal and not waiting as long. incidentally, i think that traffic jam just about killed all the fuel savings i'd accumulated for this tank. so, what happened was that i had started my usual U-turn near the SJF (to get on the correct side of the road to turn in), when another car came speeding down the road i was turning into. fortunately, we both jammed the brakes, so nothing happened. although that guy was going a little too fast, majority of the blame lies with me, i think, for stubbornly trying to turn even though my view was obstructed (another car was trying to turn up ahead as well, and obscured some of the oncoming traffic). thankfully, there were no injuries or anything...just 2 rattled-up drivers.

reason why i went to the SJF was for kata training. we did both katame no kata (full thing) and nage no kata (no throws). for the former, the basic form is more or less down. good enough to pass grading, we think, but not good enough to win competitions. for now, that's an ok-ish level of progress. i'm happy that i finally got the hang of sliding backwards on one knee! causes an ache in my right thigh (and the friction makes my left knee heat up), though, and i can't do it for more than 3 steps, or my legs lose strength and i lose balance. but it's a start. at least my left knee is in constant contact with the mat now. for the latter, i'm still a little shaky on the last set (side sacrifice techniques). and i realize that i was tired after doing a no-throw run. a throw run would definitely be worse. have to build up the stamina. have i mentioned my partner's going to alaska in 2 weeks or so, and will be gone for a period between 2 weeks to 4 months? yes, the range is a little very wide, but the duration of his stay depends on the data he gathers on-site. so...hoping for the best, that he won't be away for too long. it's difficult to train kata alone, after all, and while it's possible to find a temporary partner for nage no kata (only because all black belts will know at least a bit of it), the same can't be said for katame no kata.

in case you're wondering why i'm free enough to go to the SJF on a monday evening, it's because this week is recess week! just had e-learning 2 weeks ago, so having a week off is somewhat less exciting. not that i'm not grateful, though. i think this week will be balanced between lab work and preparing for my 2 presentations (the first one being organometallics, about a week later). have to email the professor tomorrow to get my choice of papers approved. other than that, it's the usual lab work i guess. hoping there's some good results soon. i'm seeing too much failure, and it's getting mildly frustrating.

-random thought of the day: Should get a carwash done soon.-

Posting before sleeping really helped. in fact, i slept so well that i missed group meeting today. feeling quite bad about it, especially since i'd wanted to do some lab work today. guess i'll have to make it up tomorrow. that might mean that i can come in later a bit on monday. which also works out, because i have to settle some other stuff.

so, suicide. it's not often that i think about it, but after reading the article yesterday, plus talking to my friend, it's hovering in my head again. personally, i'm not about to take my own life. i'm too afraid of pain. worse is if the attempt fails, and i'm left permanently disabled or something bad. plus, i believe that no problem is so bad or unsolvable that death is the only way out. so, all things considered, suicide is not a choice for me.

however, i do understand why some people may consider/attempt suicide. if their problems are way beyond their capacity to solve, and if there's nobody to share the burden with, it does sound like an attractive option. plus, it can be argued that a person's life is their own, and the decision on whether to end it or not should be left to them to make.

the other side of the argument is that a person's life is never truly their own. i mean, there are bound to be people whose lives you are a part of, and vice versa. so, killing yourself is kind of like killing a piece of someone else, for lack of a better way to put it. to me, it's kind of inconsiderate to knowingly cause someone else the pain of having you removed from their life. this is assuming that the someone in question values you, of course.

certain religious groups often advocate that all life is precious. but somehow, i don't think a drug addict dying of an overdose would receive the same attention/sympathy as a celebrity hanging him/herself. so, it's quite clear (at least to me) that lives are valued differently. i was thinking about it for a while, and came to the following conclusion: all life is equal at birth. the additional value comes with what you do with your life. but i think that's drifting a little too far away from the main point already.

to look at it from a very practical/economic point of view, i think suicide is wrong when the person still has some value. like, they're capable of being productive, or capable of providing emotional support to their friends/family. however, if that person causes a negative benefit to society, the sooner they go the better.

actually, i think the main problem people have with suicide as opposed to death by accident, illness, or natural causes is that suicide can be prevented. that also causes a correspondingly larger sense of guilt if/when it happens...you know, like "what could have i done to prevent this?" i would probably be more upset if someone i cared for killed him/herself as opposed to learning that they died in a plane crash. not that i wouldn't be upset in the latter case, just less so, i guess. i mean, i can't stop the plane from crashing, but i can at least try to talk whoever it was out of suicide.

or come to think of it, maybe it's due to the issue of assigning blame. for all other deaths, we can blame other things/people. we probably can for suicides as well, but the difference is that some of the blame goes to the deceased...as it does when they jaywalk and get knocked down, i guess. but anyway, what i'm trying to say is that it's hard to blame someone you love...though if someone i loved died due to his/her own carelessness, i wouldn't blame the other party.

while i'm quite sure there's still a bit more i want to say, i either don't quite know how to word it, or it's not exactly relevant here. so, that'll be it until the next urge to talk about it arises...which i hope is a long time away. having this float up too frequently can't be good for my mental health.

in less depressing matters, i attended a meeting with the SJF's new management today. i was quite...put off at some of the new policies and decisions, but looking at it objectively, i think part of it is due to my resistance to change, and lack of confidence in my ability. remember i said that my 4 roles in judo are prioritized as: grading, coaching, refereeing, competing? out of these roles, the only one i don't foresee much change in is coaching. all i'm worried about now is my NCAP practical certificate. refereeing should be more or less ok as well...i've worked with the new referee director in the past before, and she's generally nice and efficient (my friend's information about the identity of the new referee director was wrong, by the way).

grading is causing me some stress, though. it was only mentioned in passing, but i heard the words "point system" come up. while i think it'll be good for the standard of judo in the country (plus, it's more in line with the japanese system), i just don't know if i'll be able to make the required number of points (whatever the number may be). but well, the guidelines aren't out yet, so worry at this time looks (and probably is) premature.

finally, competing. there's a new national coach, so it's expected that things will change. the thing that worries me the most is the new training hours requirement, which is 20 hours a week (up from 20 hours a month). assuming an athlete trains 6 days a week, that's an average of 3 hours a day, minimum. granted that it doesn't have to be all judo; physical training and mental skills training do count as well. but still, 3 hours a day? seems a bit much. you know what? let's break it down. i think a schedule examination session is way overdue.

there are 24 hours in a day. let's say i take out 8 for sleeping, leaving 16. i take out another 10 for school work (including lab and preparing for lessons). that leaves 6 hours, 3 to 4 of which i can spend training, and 2 to 3 of which for travelling, meals, and other stuff. so actually, the time in a day is sufficient. just that my time management and planning is poor. as for training itself, the way i see it, 3 hours at a go is too much for kata. brief sidetrack: i have mentioned that i'm practising for 2 kata right? the full nage no kata is in preparation of grading next year. so is katame no kata, but in addition, it's also so-called "my" event in competition. suddenly, it doesn't seem like i have that much time during training sessions after all.

nevertheless, i think the 3-hour block can be broken down into 2 blocks of 90 minutes per day, or maybe even a 2 hour : 1 hour ratio. looking at my schedule ever since school started, i'm sleeping at 1:00+am and waking up around 8:00+am on average. should probably try to sleep earlier. on average, i reach lab around 10:30am, and leave around 10:00pm. so, the question is, where can i fit physical and judo training in? i was thinking of doing like 2 hours of exercise in the morning, and another 1 to 2 hours in the evening/night. problem is, i'm not really a morning person, so i don't know if i can drag myself out of bed to go work out. but that's a separate issue. with regards to the venue, i'm thinking bishan stadium might be a viable alternative. at night, i can use the school's facilities, like the track and gym. not to mention i can drop in on NUS training if need be. so...i guess that'll be the new routine. wake up, go to the stadium for a morning jog/PT, then to school for routine stuff, find the time to get in an evening workout, then go home. doesn't sound all that hard, right? i think the problem will be whether i have the consistency to do it every day. that, and my partner's going overseas in october, and his trip can possibly last anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months. really puts a dent in our training plans, but we'll survive somehow.

the other issue i have regarding the new administration is the policy that every athlete has to have a club. that came out wrong, actually. the policy's been around since the previous administration, so the issue's more on my part, because i don't belong to a club. like i said earlier, (some other people and) i've been working on a way to solve this, but results are slow in coming. guess i have to kickstart stuff, and that starts with an sms tomorrow. of course, the option to just walk away and become a hermit in SJI/CJC does exist, but barring any odd circumstances, i don't think that will happen. i mean, i'd like to do my part for the community, and continue to improve my own judo. and i guess earning higher grades satisfies my need for accomplishment and gives me motivation to press on.

prices for the iphone 5s have been released. continuing my current plan, plus trading in my iphone 4s, i'll be paying $282 for the 16GB model, $427 for the 32GB model. sounds pretty reasonable, right? 32GB is tempting, but i don't know if i'll have use for that much space. as it is, my 16GB iphone 4s is about only 3/4 full. on the other hand, i'm making more money now...though that isn't a valid reason to spend more. well...it's still early. i have until december to decide, after all.

incidentally, i was thinking about the fingerprint thingy, and have come up with what i think is a pretty good analogy. using your fingerprint to unlock your phone is kind of like using a very difficult password that people know about, but have difficulty replicating. sort of like using the first 100 digits of pi as your password. everybody knows where to get the information, but it can't be typed in without much difficulty. not sure if i'll end up using the feature in future.

sometime last week (i forgot exactly when), i received a call about a tuition assignment. i really don't know who keeps recommending me! not that i'm ungrateful, but i'd prefer to have singaporean kids, if you get my drift. anyway, i don't think anything will come out of this particular contact, since the kid didn't seem interested. no worries though. suddenly, it doesn't seem like i have much time to spare anyway.

well, i think that's it for now. this should tide me over at least for a few days, a week if i'm lucky. must get started on my library books; i realized a week has passed and i haven't read a single one yet.

Yes, i know the date header says saturday. but since i haven't slept yet, it's friday night to me, and the temporal references will be used accordingly.

even though i'm really tired, i still felt that i had to blog a bit before sleeping, if only to reduce the negative stuff swirling in my head. i realize that my capability to cope with this is in inverse proportion to my fatigue levels. and since i stayed in lab until past 1:00am last night, i was definitely not at 100% energy. so i guess the day started on the wrong foot already. second thing was that i read about a suicide somewhere. that dampened the mood further. then, i had to talk to a friend about something not quite pleasant. long story short is that there's friction between him and his lab group. i'm not complaining since i voluntarily tried to see if there's anything i can do. but this friend is...i don't know...let's just say his views are different. and he's extremely stubborn. so i don't think i got through to him that much, if at all. even with all the coaching training, i still found myself at quite a loss as to how to best approach the issue. i don't know. maybe it's because i've been interacting with him outside of a work/lab context, but i really don't see how these problems could arise. still, fact of the matter is that the problems have arisen. since we didn't reach a satisfactory (to me) conclusion today, we're meeting again on monday, this time with another friend with the other side of the story. hope things go better.

had dinner with another friend, who's also going through some issues. once again, i voluntarily talked to him (in fact, i asked to meet him), so i'm not blaming anyone. this friend has quite unique views on life and other stuff...views which i am able to respect, but probably not live by. anyway, for this case, the problem is caused by one of our mutual friends. i have no idea how someone so smart can, at the same time, be so dense. just doesn't make sense. as much as it kills me, my only course of action for this issue is to do nothing, and hope that the person involved will find a good way to deal with it.

i'm normally not too affected by other people's problems, but when they come in on top of my own issues, it can be a little too much sometimes. that's why i blog...to get rid of it. once again, it's not a complaint. i willingly got myself involved. anyway, what happened to me was that today, i received a piece of not-good news. that in itself was ok, since i was expecting it anyway. i was more upset with the way it was delivered. i just feel that the delivery was too...casual, not acknowledging the inconvenience that it would cause. i don't know. maybe i'm a little too touchy from being tired.

on top of all of that (or maybe because of all of that), i got careless during my lab work. spilled a flask full of my product (and a thiol) into the water bath of a rotary evaporator. thank goodness that (1) the rotavap was in a fume hood, (2) it didn't happen in my lab, (3) that lab's students were extremely nice about it. i should have just went home earlier and slept. lesson learned: don't do lab work if less than 100% confident about your (my) mental state. after that, i surrendered. just tried to salvage my product (got quite a decent amount) and went home. i figured that i'd better not try to settle my large-scale reaction. would be disastrous if i screwed up. after all, there's always tomorrow. and speaking of tomorrow, there's group meeting. i'd better sleep soon. will probably elaborate on some stuff in the future, especially the bit on suicide.

-random thought of the day: Why?-

Every now and then, i get the feeling that i made a colossal scheduling error. most of the time, i'm worrying for nothing. but this time round, i've been feeling it for the past 2 to 3 days, which makes me kind of worry more than usual. as far as i know, i haven't double-booked myself for anything...but that's as far as i know. i could have forgotten something and not known about it. i guess we'll see if/when it happens. to be pedantic though, by knowing that you forgot about something, you actually remembered the thing that you forgot, so it's no longer forgotten. hence, there' no way for me to know that i'd forgotten something, unless i remembered what i'd forgotten, in which case i'd have remembered it.

another possible reason for me feeling off could be because of several things going on around me. foremost on my mind is judo. last post, i mentioned that there's been a change of leadership in the SJF. i'm looking at this from 2 points of view - professional and personal. professionally, i've worked/interacted with some of those people before, and in general, they're nice. i figure that on a purely professional level, there SHOULD be no problems, unless they implement certain bad policies. the way i see it, i have 4 major objectives for judo. raise my belt rank, gain coaching accreditation, serve as a referee, and represent singapore as a kata athlete. out of these 4, the most important to me are grading and coaching. as long as these 2 aspects aren't affected, i have no reason to make noise. about the other 2 roles, i can give up being an athlete. i can even give up being a referee if push really comes to shove. sidetrack: i was due for promotion to national A referee, but i don't know if the new referee director will agree. anyway, i just hope that things go on as normal, or at least that the shake-ups won't be too violent.

on a personal note, i'm neutral towards most of the appointments, except one. it just makes me uneasy having to report to this particular person, especially since there's still some bad blood between us. nevertheless, i'm sure that as adults, both of us can put our personal feelings aside and come together on a professional level if/when the need arises. if things turn unreasonable this coming saturday, i may not have to work with this person at all. thankfully, my grading and coaching aren't (or in principle, shouldn't be) affected by this person. i don't know...don't want to kill too many brain cells by thinking too much about this. see what happens on saturday i guess.

lab-wise, things are going relatively ok. there's SOME progress, just not as much as i'd like. don't think i've caught the groove yet. not sure whether it's because i'm inexperienced or slack. probably both. still find that i need to be pointed in the right direction sometimes...not good. anyway, i'm scheduled to meet my professor tomorrow for a discussion session. with any luck, i won't get grilled too badly. on a somewhat related note, i find that my memory's deteriorating...for the important stuff, at least. like i can read a paper and still not catch some details. and i seem to have trouble remembering specifics of conversations, though i can usually give a general outline. hope the chemicals aren't spoiling my brain or anything scary like that.

to shake off the feeling of scheduling too many things, let's list what i can remember. N95 mask fit test tomorrow, possible kata practice sometime this week, GC-MS training on friday, meeting favourite SJI boy on saturday, nothing on sunday, recess week next week, meeting the JC classmates sometime then, presenting for organometallics on week 7, presenting for organic materials on week 10 or 11, organometallics literature report due on week 13, routine lab work in the spaces in between. that sounds about right. can't really think of anything that i'm missing out...and that's still making me worry a little. well, as i'm fond of saying, whatever i can't remember probably isn't that important.

maybe the reason i'm feeling this way is because i'm carrying too much mental baggage, not all of which can be unloaded on a public platform. have to find someone to talk to. but someones to talk to don't just fall from the sky. depressing. any volunteers?

-random thought of the day: I know what rotting cabbage smells like.-

Day 2 out of 3 of my first-aid course is over, and i've been enjoying it very much. the only dissatisfactory thing was that we were misinformed of the venue on the first day. but well...it's no longer a big deal. i'm quite surprised at how quickly time passes during the course! i think it's how the course is structured/paced. there's a lot of hands-on practice, so that kills significant time. plus, there's lunch and 2 breaks (one morning, one afternoon), so that helps as well. and speaking of lunch, i've been paying astronomical prices for lunch these past 2 days. yesterday's lunch was at an atas french place, so i still felt somewhat willing to pay $35 (before GST and service charge) for a 3-course lunch. however, today's lunch was a total rip-off. i had nasi padang (1 meat, 2 seafood, 1 vegetable) at this shop near the training centre. a meal like that would cost me $3+ to a maximum of $5 in NUS. considering NUS is subsidized somewhat, i'm willing to pay about $6 to $8 elsewhere. the stall (a few coursemates and) i ate at charged me $13, and it wasn't even air-conditioned! i really don't know how the price came up to that much. we came to the conclusion that the owner (1) makes a hell of a profit, (2) charges based on impression, (3) doesn't have many repeat customers. to be fair though, i liked their squid and fish, so it's not a completely horrible experience. but still...paying 3-4 times more for so-so standard food was quite unpleasant.

i've said this before, and i'll say it again. fate works in funny ways. like today, group meeting was scheduled. i had earlier enquired about missing half a day of the course, but later decided that it would make more sense to miss group meeting. ended up that i didn't have to miss anything, because my professor cancelled group meeting yesterday. in the 19+ months i've been with the lab, this is probably only the third time it's happened (other than for public holidays or festivals). such a nice coincidence. also, i met some very interesting people in the course. interestingly, a lot of people from varied backgrounds are taking the course. among those i remember are a couple of chefs, a taekwondo coach, an inline skate instructor, a teacher, a construction worker, at least 2 physical trainers, 2 nurses, some secondary school kids, and myself. in particular, i got to know the (a?) master trainer from true fitness. by some freaky coincidence, she was from CJC judo too! that was 20 years ago, though, so we've never met in a judo context. don't know if it's because of that, but we seem to hit it off pretty well! upon learning about my knee problems, she ever helped me tape it up for stability, and gave me a few rolls of tape of different brands to try out. i think that'll come in useful during training.

on the way to her office in great world city (we walked from the course venue near outram park MRT), she was telling me how to set fitness goals and pace myself. her starting point for me (and most of her clients) is walk for 10 minutes. then, slowly increase the intensity and duration. at first, i was quite sceptical. i mean, no matter how unfit i may be, a 10-minute walk as a complete workout session seems kind of like an insult to my fitness. but her point was that starting slow builds confidence. even then, i think i can afford to start off at a higher benchmark. maybe a 2 or 3km jog, or maybe even intervals (5 times of a 100m sprint, 300m walk/jog), accompanied with some light PT. and i can make use of the gym, too. the other takeaway is that i have to watch my diet. my current 1 to 2 meals a day actually slows my metabolism, making it harder to burn everything off. and yes, with my transponder, i no longer have an excuse. time to throw my sports shoes into the car.

after listening to all the stuff about goal setting, pacing, nutrition, and sleep, i realize that i have to change my mindset somewhat. i don't know when this idea got into my head, but when i think of a workout, i think of exercising until i am dead tired, like only capable of dragging myself home, into the shower, then into bed. turns out that that isn't necessary. that's where the concept of pacing comes in. have to ensure that i still retain some energy after i'm done. reminding myself that i can still go back to lab to run experiments might be a good idea.

the course material itself is pretty digestible, and most of it is relevant to judo. the only things that i probably will not need to use in a judo setting are first aid for cuts, burns, and animal bites/stings. the rest, like CPR/AED, treating fractures, sprains, spinal injury, nosebleeds, all have the potential to be relevant...though i hope to never have to use any of my knowledge. tomorrow's the test, which i think should go pretty well. after that, the next step is applying for inclusion in the NROC.

seems like there was a major upheaval in the SJF today. so far, i know that the referee director has stepped down. i'm sure that most, if not all, of the people in the other exco positions will be changed. since it affects me to some degree, i am really curious as to who's the new president and referee director. not too bothered about other (more administrative) positions, like treasurer. well, i guess there'll be some form of media release soon. at the worst case, i can find out from the people who were actually present at the AGM. makes me wonder how judo in singapore will change. well, i guess i'll be able to see (and experience) the changes for myself in due time.

like i mentioned earlier, the theory and practical tests are tomorrow. i wonder if the tests will really take the whole day. or maybe the morning will be used for recap/revision and teaching, while the test will be in the afternoon. whatever it is, i hope we finish reasonably early. think tomorrow might be a good time for a haircut and a library visit.

-random thought of the day: Feeling empty.-

So...full...

just got back from research group dinner at raffles city shopping centre's buffet town. the reason we had this dinner is because 3 of the phd students are leaving the group soon, and they decided to band together to buy everyone dinner. even though the cost was split 3 ways, it's still not cheap. but for me, the food was worth the price. i just hope i ate my (their) money's worth. even though there was quite a wide variety of food, i mainly stuck to the sashimi and other seafood. the oysters were nice! too bad i only got 2 rounds in before the queue became too long. really pity the guy on oyster duty...the oysters are freshly opened, so i think he doesn't really get to take a break. worse is if someone comes along and takes half a dozen oysters or so, depleting the stock. then the guy has to work double-time to keep the queue moving. i kind of suspect oyster duty is a punishment, but i'll never know for sure unless i work there, which is unlikely. i think this is a potential place for future meetings with friends and whatnot. there's no time limit, so we can eat our fill at a nice and relaxed pace. definitely worth considering.

going home, i took the train with the scariest phd student in the lab. he's actually a nice guy...just that i feel he's stern to juniors. i think he's the only one in the lab, who if i angered, i would be truly afraid. that's not to say that i don't respect my professor and/or the other students, and/or hold them in less regard. it's just that this guy is exceptionally scary. but in the train, he kind of gave me advice about research, and possible paths after university. oddly enough, he knows about my desire to move to japan too. i haven't really been very vocal about it...at least i think i haven't. but if my professor and seniors know about it, i clearly have been speaking about it to some extent. anyway, i felt kind of touched that he would do that, since we're not exactly that close. just before i got off the train (his stop was further than mine), he told me, "good luck, and work hard". don't know why i'm writing specially about that. as a reminder, i guess.

not everything went according to plan this week...for instance, the chem kids dinner was cancelled, and will be rescheduled sometime in the near future. no big deal; there are still many opportunities for us to meet. yesterday, my professor was hosting this japanese professor, who came to give a seminar on total synthesis of guanidine-containing natural products (more on that later). to my great surprise, he asked me to join them for lunch! seems like my intention of going to japan has left an impression on him. i got to speak japanese a little bit, but we stuck to english for the most part because i think the guest didn't want to exclude my professor, who doesn't understand japanese. the seminar was interesting, but incredibly chim. the thing that left the most lasting impression on me was that the professor's group took 69 steps to synthesize an enantiomerically-pure sample of pufferfish toxin. of those 69 steps, 29 steps are for protection and deprotection. incredibly tough, i think. while i had some difficulty believing it previously, i can now appreciate how an asymmetric synthesis of a natural product is good enough for a phd thesis.

lab wise, i think i've successfully synthesized an existing catalyst. now all i have to do is complete the last step, which is adding our modification. seems easy enough, but the yield isn't that good. i started with 1g, and got about 0.5g of product after the first step. used 0.25g for the second step, and i got around 0.2g of product. and there's still one more step!! looks like i have to synthesize more stuff, but it's hard when i only have 3g of starting material left. can't wait for when my 500g bottle comes in. seems like i'll have some stuff to write about in my small progress update. the master's student is a little clueless, but then i understand she has no prior research experience. not that i have a lot of it myself, so i hope it doesn't end up as the blind leading the blind. for now, things still seem ok.

look up 2 paragraphs, and you'll notice i came home by train today. this is despite the fact that i drove to school in the morning. the logical conclusion would be that i left the car in school overnight, and you'd be right to think that. you see, i have the first-aid course tomorrow, and it lasts the whole day. so, my initial plan was to park in school, leave it overnight, go to the first aid course by train, then go to school after the course, and drive home. that would have worked, except for one tiny detail - i left my slippers in the car! that means i'll have to make an extra trip to school tomorrow to pick them up, and that means getting up even earlier than planned. no big deal, i guess...just have to force myself awake. some quick planning...the course starts at 9:00am. we were told to be there 10 minutes early, plus the venue's about a 5-minute walk from outram park MRT. that means i have to be at outram park by 8:45am. that, in turn, means i have to collect my slippers and leave kent ridge by 8:20am. assuming that collecting my slippers takes 30 minutes all-in, i have to be at kent ridge at 7:50am, which means being at bishan MRT at 7:30am, which means leaving the house at 7:15am, which means waking up at 6:30am. i can't even remember when was the last time i woke up at 6:30am!! to think that i could have saved myself half an hour if i'd remembered my damned slippers. well...i'll survive somehow. just hope that i won't be too tired to pay attention.

this week was my fourth time topping up petrol since getting the civic, and being concerned about how my money is spent, i'm doing some monitoring. seems that each tank (i use about 4/5 of the 50L tank before refilling) lasts me a week and a half on average. i get about 400+km on that amount of fuel, working to about 10km/L. seems average, maybe even a bit on the low side. but i noticed something funny on the last tank, and it seems to be happening with this current tank too. like my speedometer, my fuel indicator is digital, with 20 (large) pixels representing 50L. so that's 2.5L per pixel. i'm not sure whether the pixel turns dark as soon as you start using from "its" 2.5L, or if it only deluminates after "its" 2.5L is completely used up. for a more conservative estimate, i'm using the former. so, for the previous tank and this tank, i can get up to 110km on 3 fuel bars. that's 7.5L, making my fuel economy about 14km/L. somehow, when i stop monitoring it so carefully, the economy drops until i'm at around 10km/L again as i'm about to refuel. makes we wonder if my fuel sensor is malfunctioning. then again, i suppose it's due to ferrying 4-5 kids on average to lunch after saturday training sessions. maybe my economy will improve this month, since there's no training. have to keep up the gas cap trick, too. seems to be working to some degree.

the iphone 5S and 5C were announced yesterday. i'm in no big rush to get a new phone, since my iphone 4S still works reasonably well after having the power button replaced. also, i figure that waiting for a while gives me more information on which to base my decision. like for instance, i can find out if there are any issues with the software or hardware, wait for them to be resolved, see if prices drop a little (hopefully), and ensure that there the phone i want will be in stock after the crazy buying frenzy has abated. personally, i'd get the 5S over the 5C. part of it has to do with the 5C being perceived as a "budget" iphone i guess. the other part is that the fingerprint sensor looks pretty cool, and (unlike siri,) has the potential to feature heavily in routine phone usage. plus, i can trade my current phone in for a $250 rebate off a new phone. there's no pricing information yet, but after the trade-in, i'm expecting to pay around $500 for a 16gB model. if i feel rich enough, i may even go for the 32gB. see how. i think i'll wait for my contract to expire, so that'll be this december at the earliest. still quite a long way to go.

guess that's it for now. better go sleep. have to be up bright (well, dark) and early tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Must chase for my NCAP technical.-

By now, i've got most of the things that a new grad student needs. transponder, a lab supplies account, 500MHz NMR training. all done within the past week. how's that for efficiency? in particular, i was extremely surprised at how fast the transponder took. my seniors told me to be prepared to wait for anything between 1 to 2 weeks, but i got it within 1 day of submitting my form. i guess the main thing i did differently was to approach the deputy head directly for her signature, and ask the transponder guy if he could speed up the process a little, which he did, and for which i am extremely grateful. minor negative bit was that he initially forgot to give me access to the S5 corridor, but i'm not complaining since that got fixed the next day. the only thing i'm missing now is after-hours access to the NMR lab; that should come in the next 2 weeks. it's actually not that important, since i'm sure i can schedule NMRs before 6:00pm. other than that, i think the only other things i might need are training in other instruments (like HPLC, and a refresher for mass spectrometer), but that's not relevant yet...maybe in a month or so. basically, i think i'm good to go for now.

presented my progress at the group meeting yesterday. it went ok, i think, though i was caught off-guard by a couple of questions. doesn't feel good to be speechless in front of the whole research group. have to prepare better for future presentations. on the bright side, i now have a plan of action for the next few weeks to a month. if all goes well, i'll be able to have some results in...2 weeks at the soonest. maybe even sooner with help from the master's student, whose skills i realize i'm not utilizing efficiently...or at all, for that matter. have to start pushing some substrate synthesis to her as well.

remember how i previously blogged about buying notebooks with a co-op voucher? well, i've been using the notebook assigned for my school use, but not the one assigned for personal use. it's not that i don't want to use it, but just that there's no good time and/or place to write. i won't write in school, because (1) i'm kind of afraid that my friends will chance upon it, and (2) i'm supposed to be working anyway. writing at home is kind of pointless, since i can blog, which basically serves the same purpose. well, there is one difference. i can't blog about some personal stuff here, so that's still floating in my head. maybe i'll come to a compromise. i know! in the car. that's worth considering. think i'll try it out tomorrow.

yesterday was the last SJI training for about a month. due to group meeting overrunning (there were 5 speakers total), i didn't make it down in time, but joined the kids for lunch instead. good news is that everyone (except one person, i hear) passed the grading. i'll definitely miss the kids (especially you-know-who), but they have to study for exams. looks like the next few saturdays will be kind of boring. might spend some extra time in the lab if results are slow in coming. jumping back to grading for a bit, upon learning that (almost) everyone passed, i gave favourite SJI boy the brown belt which i'd got for him in japan. i wasn't sure of the size, so i asked him in a kind of roundabout way before making the order. he told me that 210cm was just nice. something felt off to me then, but i went ahead with the order anyway. in retrospect, i should have went with my instincts and ordered the 235cm one. well, the current plan is to see how it fits him before deciding whether to order another one. somehow, i think i'll end up ordering one anyway. maybe not in the near future, but next year or so...whenever he grows and fills out.

went down to the dog shelter today. i like it there, except for the smell. you know how if you're in a bad-smelling place for a long enough time, you eventually become desensitized to the smell and can't smell it any more? that didn't happen today, despite me being there for about 5 hours. maybe that'll happen in a few more trips...though somehow, i don't think so. although i've only been there twice, i already know which dogs i kind of prefer. actually, looks are secondary. the main thing is that the dog has to be friendly, but relatively calm at the same time. i got a shock when one of the dogs put his mouth around my forearm. no, he didn't bite. quite scary at first, but i think it's harmless. i'd read about it some time ago, but didn't think that i'd actually experience it.

love is funny, isn't it? i happened to meet the shelter's founder today, and spent about 20 minutes talking to her. the one thing i didn't (and still don't quite) understand is why she would go through all the troublesome paperwork to rent the place and set the shelter up...paying for the expenses from her life savings, no less! her answer: because she loves the dogs. it's quite insane. it's not something that i would do, but that's maybe because i don't feel quite as much for the dogs. but if the situation was changed, i know what (or who, rather) i'd be willing to give up most things for. and it actually kind of scares me. why would i do that? i've asked (and been asked) that question many times. still no satisfactory answer. well...maybe not knowing is a good thing?

this coming week is going to be interesting. it's university-wide e-learning week, so no classes at all. but that means more time for lab work, which can be seen as both a good and a bad thing. that aside, there's a chem kids dinner on monday, a seminar by this japanese professor on wednesday (my professor is hosting him, so maybe i'll get to practise japanese a little bit), research group dinner on thursday (buffet town!), and first-aid course over friday and the weekend. since i attended (and even presented for) group meeting this past week, i don't feel so guilty about skipping. also have to chase for my NCAP technical (yet another delay!) and apply for NROC certification after the first-aid course. so, with my plans set out before me, i'm hoping that i'll make significant progress with research while training is off. hope the month or so passes soon.

-random thought of the day: The gas cap trick seems to be working!-