Doraemon's Time-Travelling Adventures in Singapore

God works in a mysterious and miraculous way. Today is the last day of the Doraemon exhibition and as what I wrote yesterday, I sort of give up of any possibility of taking photos. After thinking about it last night, I decided to just let it go. However, somehow after gym today, I was considering if I should just go. It was not raining and it would be just nice that I would arrive at Singapore National Museum at exactly the opening hours. I set up my mind to just take photos of at least the outdoor Doraemon. A part me was hesitating as there was no point for me taking photos which I could find online anyways. I decided to go since I would be washing the clothes I was wearing so might as well sweat a bit. I was also hoping that somehow I would be lucky to meet a random friend there to help me take photos.

I reached there just few minutes before 10am. I hesitated again when I saw the queue to enter. I tried to take photos from outside the barricade but I had to zoom quite a lot and I would be risking blurry photos. By the time it hit 10am, the queue moved quite quickly so I decided to go since I was already there.

The queue just prior to 10am

I did not meet any friend but I met a stranger whom I would think of as an angel sent by God so that I could take photos with Doraemon. His phone was broken and he said he needed to take photos of the Doraemon for his project. He asked if he could use my phone and then I sent him the pictures. Since my main aim was also the Doraemon, I did not mind. As a return of the favour, I was just being thick skinned and asked him to help take photos with Doraemon and that was how I fulfilled my wish.

I did not retake the Doraemon-only photos that he took. I would be able to take better photos but I was already too happy with the chance of getting my photos with the Doraemon. I had some irritation since I wore ugly clothes and I did not bring my camera. Not to mention the glare from the sun and I did not QC my photos since my face was not thick enough for that. Haha.. Yeah I know I should not be complaining since I already got more than what I was hoping for today. Anyway since there is no way to take photos without the mask, I would not be happy. I hope this will return again someday.

Moving on to the exhibition itself, there are 13 Doraemon statues (inclusive of the Dokodemo door) outdoor. The one with Dokodemo door is considered 'outside' the exhibition as anyone can take photos of it without officially considered as visitor to the museum. To access the other 12 outdoor Doraemon area, we need to be considered as a visitor to the museum first. There is a notice to limit to 15 minutes in the outdoor area which is more than sufficient. Today I had 2 rounds (once just the Doraemon and once with me) and it only took me about 10 minutes. If I were to be picky and QC to retake some photos, it would still be within 15 minutes. Anyway I do not think it is not really enforced if the area is not too congested. They do watch and warn people who are touching the statues which is forbidden for infection control reasons.

Inside the museum, there is another queue near the cafe to enter the area to take photos with the yellow Doraemon and the time machine. I did not go there today since I already took photos here during my first trip. The queue was long at that time since the photo area is quite small. They only allowed around 8 people to enter each time. I did not keep track of the time but after certain period, they would ask the group to finish and allow the next group.

The merchandises in the shop are not impressive and I do not think there is anything really special or unique for this particular exhibition. To me it is like putting random Doraemon merchandises.

There is one final bit of Doraemon in the end of the Singapore History Gallery. This gallery depicts Singapore through the years since it was known as Singapura in 1299 up to present days. There is Doraemon bit at the end which is meant to be the section of the future.

I am not a fan of Doraemon so I only consider the exhibition so so. I do not mind going since it is free. I do not think it is worth going if there is a fee. The outdoor area is not exactly a good idea. It rains more often than not in these last 2 months so I think there is more time that the section is closed. That is ironic since this section is the main attraction after all. It is also exposed to elements. When I went there in early November, the grass patch was still grassy. Today the grass was mostly gone and the soil was rather soggy. I think it would quite muddy if it just rained. Overall, it is still okay as a cheap thrill and entertainment in the midst of getting stuck here because of COVID.

Blue Christmas

The perfect Christmas for me is to just enjoy a quiet and relaxing time at home. 2020 obviously is an extraordinary year and against my will, I cannot travel and have to be stuck here for Christmas. This is my most emo Christmas so far simply because there is nothing that I can do. During FYP, I could accept that my grade and future were at stake. In addition, I experienced my first midnight Christmas Mass and walking home from Holy Cross back to PGP because there was no bus running after that. Sadly I did not manage to secure any slot for Christmas Mass this year and I could only followed it online. Two years ago I did not go home because I just switched job. This year I could not even concentrate for work at Christmas' Eve half day. Sigh.. How to survive next week.

I had my appraisal and I was happy that I did not have to resort to any toxicity. Honestly though, if there is a chance of jumping ship, I would consider because I am sian after knowing how toxic these current bitches are. Of course ideally the best will be for them to jump for whatever reason since I am actually enjoying the flexibility here.

Somehow I have been having dreams that made me thinking of and being sad about my dad's passing. The dreams were not about my dad per se but they were the things that reminded me of memories with him or my unfulfilled wishes such as to go to Japan with him. Not everything is in the good side though. With my current state of loneliness and being stuck here also awakened my unhappiness about living alone and being homeless here. Haiz.. all the prayers saying that I accept my cross etc feels like me bullshitting myself. I know this is an inner devil that I will always have to fight for the rest of my life. Not to mention that one of the prayers during Prayer of the Faithful on the last weekend was specifically about those celebrating Christmas this year who have lost someone this year :(

I have been spending too much time with Genshin Impact lately. If not because of the limitation of iPad battery, I think I would be playing non-stop. Once a gamer is always a gamer. Huhuhu... My sleep is also disrupted as I have been taking a nap in the late evening and waking up past midnight. Then I will play until 4am before going back to sleep. I even cancelled my gym and pretended to not feeling well so that I can siam my aunt's invitation to go to her house for dinner tonight.

Aaargh I don't give a damn about people anymore as noone also gives a damn for me. Noone is helping to take photos with Doraemon which is going to be over tomorrow and I am getting very sick with the people in my house who keep cooking and making my room smell. Fuck la.

Toxic week

I did not work this past week as it was a year end appraisal week. It was my turn to be in the office and at the start of the week, I was tempted to request to work from home instead since it would mostly be online communication. In the end I did not request that as I really needed the double screen. It was quite stressful this time as the timeline was very tight. Everything had to be completed within this week while I only had time to prepare from last Thursday. Due to some IT issue, I could only start on Friday afternoon so it was a mad rush. Thank God everything was completed.

I am not looking forward to prepare for my own appraisal. Sigh.. I realised that I spent so much time dealing with people but that is not a big chunk of my own KPIs. So overall, I think I would not do that well on paper, especially with the recent toxicities from the bitches. Haiz.. My boss told the big boss about the recent saga as my big boss was hinting about it and seemed to try to get me to talk about it again. It is difficult to remain on the moral high ground. I hate hypocrites and people who do dirty politics so I have to prove that I am not one of them. I just have to remain objective and mention about the situations, instead of the people since really I actually have no issue with the bitches. How to even have issues when I work so little with them this year. Now my "issue" will be the broken trust. These bitches simply destroyed whatever working relationship there is.

Coincidentally, my friend who is a lecturer in a polytechnic told me a few days ago of a vacancy in case I would be interested to apply. I am actually quite settled in with my current work but because of this recent bitchiness, I would be considering another job if there is. I was ready to update my CV this weekend but my friend just informed me the latest update that the vacancy is not confirmed yet. Oh well, after all the vacancy was not officially advertised yet. When my friend told me about it, it was more of registering of interest or something.

The toxicity somehow also spilled over to other aspect of my life for this week. My gym is closed until new year for renovation so I temporarily have to go to Orchard branch. It is a new branch and I am interested to try. It is good that when it opened, I did not transfer my membership there. Going there is quite stressful because of the traffic to Orchard area. I was always worrying whether I would be late. The gym itself is much bigger and brighter but I prefer the more compact, cosy, and dimmer Holland Village. Haha.. It is nice to see some familiar faces as some coaches have been permanently assigned to the new branch after its opening.

I donated blood on Tuesday and had my haircut. I was very suay with my haircut because the other customer who was in the shop with me was a crazy guy. He quarreled, argued, shouted, and screamed at the auntie cutting her hair. The conversation was in Mandarin so I did not really understand. What a reminder my crazy front line days dealing with such crazy customers. Anyway the auntie was equally stupid. I think she had no customer service training as well since she retaliated and the best part was she took photo without permission. Of course that triggered the crazy guy even more. Wew...

On Thursday, I also received an emo update that the clinic where I am currently volunteering will no longer operate on Saturday from next month. Sigh.. If I am interested to continue, I will have to go to Mandai which will open on Saturday. Bleah.. I have never been there and it seems to be more troublesome to go there as compared to Geylang :( Nevertheless, I have decided that I will give it a try instead of following my lazyness. After all, I have always wanted to participate in some volunteering activity. Finding one which can be done on Saturdays and make use of my license is already a rare opportunity.

My spiritual life also took a deep dive this week. Work is really a huge destroyer. I felt so bad despite completing the last 3 days of the Novena this Monday-Wednesday. I felt that I was just watching the Mass out of obligation as I wanted to participate. Sigh.. I ended up feeling very irritated with the priest for the very boring Mass and so on. I also skipped my evening prayer for the whole week as I was too tired although that partly because of gaming.

The shittiest part of the week was when I was filled with so much anger and prejudice towards the maid in my current rental place. On Thursday, I realised that I ran out of my working pants and I thought she stole it :( Oh my gosh! I was filled with all the dark thoughts that she stole it and perhaps gave it to someone and so on. In the end, I found them. I could not find them initially because after ironing, the pants were put in the same hanger with the working shirt. That was really a wake up call for me to not to lose my cool at work with others especially with all the bitchiness going around.

The only good vibe for me this week was that I sold Spiderman golf balls that I bought from USJ in 2015. Initially I also got agitated with the buyer for asking so many questions despite me sending the photos. I did not accept any nego and the buyer agreed with the $35. Yay. The best part is she arranged for a courier to pick it up from my office. I think she needs it urgently for gift purpose. I never set up any Paynow but I set it up this week to facilitate this transaction. Haha..

Next week is Christmas and I hope that next week will be better. I have to be thankful that I get Christmas and New Year weeks as my working from home week. There is a high chance I will be emo again because of my appraisal this coming Wednesday but I have been preparing myself not to lose my call. All of us have our own strengths and weaknesses, let's say 80:20. I will accept the '20' but I will not my '80' be affected by the toxic bitches. I have prepared my punchline: Appraisal is about me and I am not going to compare myself with others. Highlighting others' weaknesses change nothing about my own strengths and weaknesses so I am not going to be like others who think by highlighting my '20' can help with their own 80/20. Oh perhaps, they are 70/30 or 60/40 and hence jealous of me :p The last sentence, of course, is just in my mind. Haha.. I am not going to let myself be as bitchy as these bitches too.

No Zhongli

I am still spending too much time on Genshin Impact that even the excitement of revenge was not enough to make me write a post about it last week. Lol. After my rant in last post, I did my statistics for enquiries and thank goodness: data proved the bitch wrong. I am not going to talk too much and let the evidence speak for itself.

Ironically, I still had a bad week overall because I did not get Zhongli in Genshin Impact huhuhu... As expected, my good luck would not continue after pulling Childe quite quickly previously. On the bright side, I got all the 4 star characters from this current banner. I really needed fire and ice power so I finally can progress with the game. Although the reviews for Zhongli have been terrible, I don't care because I focus on enjoyment by playing with cool characters haha... Yeah I can say that now although during playing, I will be cursing when playing with my underleveled characters.

My diet was more successful last week as I kept a clean sheet from any potato chips despite few temptations of really grabbing a bag on a few days. I made an exception on Saturday as I wanted to spend my Garrett voucher. I was happy that I could try the seasonal flavour: Dark Choc Cocoa. No way I would buy it without a voucher at $10.50 for the small one. Haha.. I am a savoury person and $10 worth of potato chips would give me more joy. I enjoyed it much better than expected as it is not as sweet as the normal caramel version. As my voucher was $10, I was paiseh if I just bought one Dark Choc Cocoa and only paid 50 cents. I added a small bag of the Cheese Corn (which is only $5.50) and that was a mistake as I could get a bigger bag of potato chips with that price.

I went to Church again for Mass yesterday and I had 4-day streak of gym. I could go again today but I decided to give my body a break. Year-end appraisal is coming so it is going to be a relatively toxic week ahead. Not that it is making a big difference as currently I am also still sore with the bitch. I know I am supposed to be forgiving bla bla bla but that is easier said than done.

Justice always prevails

God works in miraculous way. I felt very irritated with myself for withholding myself and over the weekend, I was scheming on how to craft my feedback on the bitch during the year-end appraisal. I say 'scheming' because revenge will easily cloud my mind and if I follow my emotion, I may end up spewing things which may backfire.

The stress over the weekend was worth it because today I had the chance to say those things. My boss was concerned if I had a conflict with the bitch. So basically the bitch just self-destructed since I had nothing on my side. Initially I had reservations of keeping them until year-end appraisal as I do not want to be seen as trying to engage in politics. Well today was not appraisal so I was able to say everything without heaviness in my heart since it was feedback session hehe. I thank God for protecting me from going bonkers and only said the objective things and avoid the subjective stuff. I know I always do the right things so by staying with the objective stuff, people will not be able to tear me down.

Another complaint that I received was that I seemed to avoid enquiries. I have been tasked to get statistics for enquiries so this will be a good time to update this statistics and see if objectively I really did few enquiries. I will do that tomorrow and I hope the data will show otherwise. That would be a perfect weapon for me retaliate at the bitch so that she learns to think before spewing rubbish and stop making a fool out of herself as usual.

My diet plan for this Advent already failed from yesterday. I did not manage to secure a gym slot yesterday. With no banana at home, I had to order delivery for dinner. Another reason was that I got $8 voucher from Deliveroo so I wanted to use it ASAP. Today I wanted to be good but all the bananas were green so they were inedible tonight if I bought them. I ended up having snack as my dinner. Huhuhu T_T Why are temptations keep coming when I try to be good boy for this Advent?

Advent is coming

I have been wasting my time and my life for Genshin Impact. Previously I complained because the game kept crashing on my iPad. After the game update a few weeks ago, it becomes more stable and I am able to play. I know it is a waste of time if I am spending too much on a game but it is difficult not to get hooked initially when the game still feels fresh and exciting.

I finally went to attend Mass at church last weekend. Since I am already going out for work and for gym, there is no reason of being worried of COVID anymore. Anyway my main reason for finally going is that the church is gradually allowing more people to attend which means we are back in the main church and not at the chapel anymore. It is still 1 weekend mass per month so I chose last Sunday to coincide with the Feast of Christ the King which marks the closure of a liturgical year.

I woke up at 530am and reached the church at around 650am. It was still kinda rushed with the social distancing at the entry. I felt kinda irritated with people who did not know how to queue properly. Seriously what was the rush with seats guaranteed and assigned anyway. I think all the available slots were taken which was a good thing. I have signed up for December and the good thing about me liking 7am slot is that it is the least popular slot. 9am and 11am are mostly full while the 5pm only has few seats left. 7am still has 50 over slots hehe... Unfortunately, all the slots for penitential service are already fully booked when I checked last night.

The Devil does not like me to good works and I have been feeling very shitty this past week. I was asked to write a 400-word article for Landings and last weekend was ruined because of that. I woke up at 630am on Saturday with the intention of completing the writing. I had writer's block and after 12 hours, I was only halfway through. Sigh.. Ironically, it is always easy to just type long rubbish blog post like this. Haha.. I continued on Sunday and 'die die' I wanted to finish it as I did not want to prolong my misery.

I am supposed to attach a picture that depicts my faith and the problem is I don't take photos at places of worship. Even all my travelling photos are usually taken outside a church building and not inside. To capture the majesty of the building, usually I am small in the photo which is not suitable for this current purpose. I decided with a photo with a statue of Jesus outside Rue du Bac. That is the most acceptable although I still think it is quite lousy. The one with both me and Jesus' face facing the camera is shadowy as we were there at late afternoon. So no choice but to choose the one to 'avoid' the shadow and Jesus' face is not facing the camera :( All this shit always happened just like previously when preparing for faith story.

At work, I am feeling more and more irritated with few bitches. I have decided that I will say something for the upcoming year end appraisal. Hehe.. Previously I did not say anything in mid year but things do not improve. The evil part of me is actually saying: Hey bitch, you want to play gutter politics, I am going to show you how to really play dirty. No point saying during mid year since it will not change anything but when I fire my salvo for year end, there is higher chance that this will affect your bonus.

Yesterday this crazy bitch went bonkers after I asked one innocent question in the group chat. She kept on and on and then my boss sort of  'defended' me even though I did not say anything further and I also did not message my boss privately. Hehe... Seriously I don't know what happen with this bitch as last year she was not like this. I suspect she may be jealous of me because of my promotion this year as that is the only thing that changed as compared to last year. Anyway it is going to be easy to 'tear her down' as when usually she goes bonkers, she makes herself looks stupid and unprofessional on her own. When something is already 'bad', it is quite easy to make it 'terrible'.

By the way, this is a different bitch from the one I wrote previously. I also received good update for this bitch yesterday. Higher management has decided that the issue is indeed for the bitch's team to handle, not mine. See la, want to taichi, taichi to wrong person, now still end up as yours. Aaah.. revenge is sweeter when it is done by karma and I am not even involved in anything that befalls on these two bitches.

I failed my diet plan for November completely. Tomorrow is the start of Advent and this time for real, I am going to stick through with no junk food, no potato chips, no fast food, no bubble tea, and less food delivery. To ensure this plan does not fall through, I forced myself to finish whatever I have at home this week until I am having sore throat. Phew... Anyway the only thing I am not able to stop is the bottled sweet drinks after lunch. Everytime I skip, I always feel very weak and hungry at around 5pm and it will make me skip gym or ordering delivery for dinner. So it is more reasonable to spend the calories for a bottle of drink than ending up overeating and not exercising.

Now I am also starting to pray the Chaplet of St Michael (which is also called as the Rosary of the Angels). I try to do it daily but I have failed in the past 2 days because I was too tired of gaming. Jeez. Personally, my priority is still my daily rosary so it is going to be sometime before I can pray both diligently everyday. I feel the prayer in Chaplet of St Michael is petitionary which complements my daily Rosary which is more like a contemplation. Honestly I am more and more distracted with my own personal prayer.  Gone is my Consciousness Examen that I promised early last year.

Just to keep in memory the awkwardness from the very first experience of praying the Chaplet: I thought the Chaplet beads are the same as the Rosary beads meaning there is no 'correct' side to start the circle. I was wrong haha.. The Rosary is symmetrical with 10 small beads and 1 large bead from whichever side. There is no 'first' large bead as the first Our Father is using the center bead. The Chaplet of St Michael that I have, however, starts with 1 large bead (after the center bead) + 3 small beads. Thus the other side ends with 3 small beads. Thus the chaplet is no symmetrical. I started from the wrong side during my first try and I was finding the order kinda awkward. Lol.

Continue binging

I continue to mess up with my diet plan. I had this 6 mini burger set on Sunday. The size is smaller than expected but the whole thing is still definitely bigger than what I normally have for lunch. I did not how it happened but I ended up seeing 1-for-1 KFC popcorn chicken in the app. I had that for dinner and I bought it again for lunch today. It was my first time going to Thomson Plaza for lunch since the start of working from home and it was all just for KFC. I was punished for that with the super heavy rain and numerous water puddles thanks to the ongoing construction work around Thomson Plaza. I pre-ordered through the app so I had no choice but to go and collect despite the rain. Sigh.. I also bought and finished two bags of Kettle's potato chips. I think this will be the end for all this rubbish eating for now because now I feel quite sick of them thanks to my indiscriminate eating for the past 3 days.

The weather has been wonky recently. I usually enjoy the rain but since the Doraemon disaster, I feel quite irritated with the unpredictable rain pattern. I worry if the next time I go, it will be raining and I miss the chance again. It aggravates my moodiness and now I feel like quitting work. Previously during the continuous working from home, I sort of enjoy working from home. Now with the alternating schedule, I end up hating both working from office and from home. Haiz.. God please call me home soon so that all this shitty life is over for me.

Ruined plans

This week turned to be a complete opposite of what I set to do. I ended up eating one pack of potato chips every single day and I wrapped up the week with McD for lunch yesterday. I also added the Hershey's Sundae which is currently in the menu and I also bought instant noodles for dinner. There is no more excuse to repeat the same failings for this coming week onwards. I received an encouragement that my working clothes looked oversized which means my weight loss has been successful. Sadly instead of making me more eager to continue with the weight loss, I lowered my guard this week.

The rain completely ruined my plan to take photos with Doraemon today. It was raining since I woke up at 630am. The rain got lighter and the sun was out that I took a gamble to still go in the hope of the rain stopping by the time I reached National Museum of Singapore. Instead of reaching at 10am as planned, I reached 15 minutes later and there were already quite a lot of people there. Haiz I thought Doraemon would not be that popular. Not too long after that, it started to drizzle again and they closed the area with Doraemon at the grass patch. I decided to wait it out by looking at other things inside the museum but the rain did not stop. Doraemon and I always do not go together with rain. It was also raining when I went to find Doraemon at Takaoka last year. At least the rain stopped by the time I reached the park and I managed to take photos without umbrella and all that.

No choice but to return on another day. I ask my friend to accompany again sometime on a weekday. I am not a fan of Doraemon. I suppose because of covid and the feeling of being cooped up at home for so long make this Doraemon exhibition more exciting than usual. I especially cut my hair earlier than usual this week so that I do not look too ugly in photos today. I have to cut again next month since it is going to be ugly again. Sian.. I also wasted one pitta mask today. I wore it so that I did not look too ugly in case I could not take off the mask if there were a lot of people.

Talking about Pitta mask, this mask is indeed not meant for health purpose. After getting used to wearing 3-ply medical masks almost daily for the past few months, pitta mask does not actually press on the nose that much. It is much easier to breathe although my glasses will still fog. I remember when I wore it at Disneyland last year to protect my face from the winter air, I felt it was quite difficult to breathe. Pitta mask also does not 'suffocate' the mouth so it is quite okay to put it on after food. Yesterday I was so irritated after the McD lunch as I had to put on my mask before walking to the sink to wash my mouth and I felt that it was contaminating the mask.

On the way back, I dropped by at Robinsons in Raffles City. The closing down sale is a fake news. 5%-20% off is like normal sale. I thought I would 'support' by buying some underwears, which I need, but with only 5%-10%, I think it is better for me to wait for 11.11 or Christmas sale elsewhere.

False anticipation

I am not a big fan and I could not be bothered about A380 restaurant by Singapore Airlines as much as those who waited past midnight to compete for the reservation. All were sold out within less than half an hour and SIA added a second weekend. I still did not bother. Last week was the first weekend and after reading the reviews, one of the blogs I follow wrote that there were still limited spaces available, mostly single seats. That got me excited but alas, it was just a 'waiting list' and in the end, I was not contacted. Huhuhu T_T If it is just food for $53.50, I could easily pass but after reading the blogs, I got excited with the pre-boarding activity as there is a caricature draw. I even planned for my 'heritage' attire so that I could get a free umbrella. Haiz.. Oh well it did not happen. What made me less emo is to know that this weekend ended up fully booked as well. I feel a bit lazy if there are so many people.

The monthly spending on food and grocery serves as a proxy of my weight. My food expenses for October is the highest since May. That is worrying because in May, I was still still ordering lunch delivery. I stopped my Deliveroo Plus in June and since then I rarely ordered food delivery anymore. My grocery expenses for October is as high as July when I was still buying Yakult to help with my bowel movement. I already stop that and I no longer buy red dragonfruits after the price increase which means that the spending is mostly caused by potato chips and those bottled drinks.

I am very happy that I managed to resist the gluttony temptation in these past few days with the excuse to 'celebrate' my anniversary of coming here. With October just ended and Christmas is just around the corner, it is time to renew my diet commitment: to avoid bubble tea, potato chips, bottle drinks and fast food and to cut down on food delivery. Yesterday I managed to resist bubble tea for lunch but I was so hungry and wanted to Grab for dinner. Luckily because of the bad weather, the options from Grab were limited and I ended up not ordering. Today, however, was not that successful. I went out today so I had a burger from Monster Curry. I usually avoid Monster Curry since their serving size is too big for me but this burger is a new menu. I finished my lunch at around 12pm and yet I was hungry again at around 4pm. I ate the last cup of instant noodles in my room and I am now hungry again for dinner. I have a $4 off voucher in Grab which has been tempting me since yesterday so I just decided for once and for all to just use it tonight for dinner. I hope this is going to get rid of the temptation to order any delivery just to make use of vouchers subsequently.

I went out to Suntec to collect my Singapore Mint orders. I realised that I have not been past Takashimaya leisurely for almost a year after realising that Decathlon now exists in Centrepoint. Last year when I was looking for my ski warm attire at Decathlon, there was no Centrepoint branch yet. I also just knew that Marina Mandarin Hotel has been re-branded to Parkroyal now. Wow..

For the ongoing Doraemon Time Travelling Adventure Exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore, I was thinking of getting a Doraemon-themed t-shirt from Uniqlo. I did not buy in the end as the price is $19.90 for Doraemon line.  Wew -_-" That is 1/3x more expensive than the Disney line or the manga line while I am not really a fan of Doraemon.

I thought I could see the Doraemon on the bus on my way to Suntec. I mistook Singapore Arts Museum (the one opposite Cathedral) as National Museum of Singapore which turns out to be the one near YMCA. I ended up calling the museum to ask if I have to wait until the official opening hours to take photos with the Doraemon statues at the field outside the museum. The person answering was a rude uncle. It looks like I have to pray that I will be lucky with both the weather and the crowd as I cannot go early :( The rude bastard said there would be security guard stopping people from entering before the opening hours. Oh well at least I got my answer.

Today happens to be the All Saints Day. It was a good thing that I was busy in the morning as the usual Sunday Mass livecast was having some technical problems. The video was still not up when I was going to watch at around 3pm. Thus I ended up watching the Mass by Church of St Mary of the Angels. That was my first time since I have been only following the Mass from the Cathedral. The duration is shorter (~40 minutes) but I find the pace quite fast. I prefer the slower pace of the Cathedral but I guess when I am pressed for time, I have an alternative.

Lastly, I finally decided to register for physical Mass attendance. I think it is no longer acceptable to use an excuse of trying to avoid crowd as I am already going to gym, going to Orchard and going to office as close as usual already. Seeing that the 7am Sunday Mass will be at the main church makes me even happier. Hehe.. Each person is still limited to one weekend Mass per month so just nice to choose a 'special' Sunday which is the feast of the Christ the King which marks the end of Church calendar. Christmas is in December so let's see how the arrangement will be for next month. Meanwhile, I am feeling damn sian as tomorrow is my turn to report to office again. Bleah..

18 years of homelessness

I celebrated this miserable day simply this year with only a bag of cassava chips and a cup of bubble tea. Normally I would go for something more extravagant like expensive restaurant or ice cream but I decided to just settle with bubble tea this year since I really do not want to go beyond 60kg.

Honestly, I feel quite different this year. I do not think I am as emo as in other years. Perhaps I am slowly accepting to this life. It does not matter whether it is in a positive sense (i.e. God's way) or in a negative sense (i.e. I am tired of fighting anymore). Another reason could be the aftermath of the eRetreat over the weekend and the end of Landings run yesterday. In fact, my group had an online rosary just now. My past self would just come up with an excuse so that we would have it on another day as I just would like to drown myself in sorrows on 28 October. Anyway, I did not really feel good with a group rosary and I prefer to have a private time when I am praying.

Yesterday was the conclusion of the Landings run and the concluding sharing reminded me that I am not a junk. I should not be too harsh with myself and learn to look at things from God's perspective. I am meant to have this current life, with all the goods and the bads. I just come to realise that the message in my perpetual calendar for 27 October reads: May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. What an apt message since I always associate 28 October as a day when my life turned to shit 18 years ago. I only realised about this coincidence now since in previous years, I am not diligent in reading the perpetual calendar daily.

One interesting thing was after my visual rosary, some of my group members thought I was very good with prayers or leading prayers. Ooops... Leading prayer is my big weakness since I am never really taught on how to pray. Sometimes I also think in my native language when I pray so saying a proper prayer in English is very awkward for me. Well it was good to clear the misunderstanding as it meant to give credits to the deserving Ones. The credits obviously go to God and Mother Mary. With tonnes of rosary videos in Youtube, it is divine providence that I could find the one that I used in the end and others found the images and music in that video powerful.

Currently what makes me emo is my right back pain. Huhuhu... I did swings for the very first time on Monday and I was worried if I did something wrong as my back and the back of my thighs felt more sore than usual. Today what I feel with my back is pain. Bleah.. It reminds me of the back pain that required physiotherapy previously. Maybe something is indeed injured there since a few years ago and now it happens again at the same spot. I hope it gets better tonight and I am already prepared to skip gym tomorrow if the pain still persists.

Anyway looking back at my old posts, I am quite surprised to realise that I actually did not post emo stuff on 28 October every year. I thought it would be like end of year review or birthday post that I will remember not to skip. Haha.. Maybe it is true that I am getting numb and already sort of accept this life as it is.

Relationshits

Politicking at work is normal and expected. But at least if you want to do it, do it with more class instead of some gutter politics. I was very pissed last week with one of my colleagues from another team. Firstly, the issue is not really something within the control of my team and secondly I am not in charge. The bitch was just using my name just because she did not dare to use my boss' name. What irritated me even more that she usually complains about how her subordinates are lazy and like to taichi stuff and yet now she is doing the same thing. What a hypocrite.

Instead of retaliating in the same way, moving forward I will show her how to play politics with class. Previously she would use me as a bridge if she needed something from my boss but she did not dare to approach directly. I would not entertain her anymore when she has such issues. I usually try to settle things 'behind the screen' as much as possible, especially when there is a problem, so as not to embarrass the culprits. Next time if it involves her or her team, I will just skip that and go directly to the group email which includes her boss. After all, in our common tasks, usually her team is the one causing the problem. So in all, it is her loss since usually her tasks and teams are the one having more problems and then will require help or input from my team.

Leaving this bitch aside, something interesting from my old place poped out again last year. My godma forwarded me a screenshot of my old photo (taken for World Pharmacists Day a few years ago) in a recruitment advertisement. I was not even aware that the photo was used for this purpose as I only knew that the photo is still being used in the 'About' page of the corporate Facebook page. I find the tagline very hilarious: Make a positive move. The word positive and me do not go hand in hand. Haha.. I joke with my friends that this screenshot is a perfect meme material to beware of scam because the positive move is actually moving out of that company. Lol.

Something related to my previous post that I did not write then is another factor that sort of spoiled my mood for the weekend retreat. I decided to block my mum on Whatsapp on Saturday morning. I have been ignoring her for the past one month with the hope that she would speak to my sisters when there are issues at home instead of running away from the problems and texting me while there is nothing I can do. Unfortunately, things do not change and I am just fed up with her repeating words about my dad (Mum, please, dad is gone. Thinking of him is not going to help with anything) and 'Do you love me? Do you care?' (Excuse me, do you even love/care for me? You are the one leaving me homeless for so long.) I know this is so un-Christ-like but I am just running out of the capacity to love and care about others.

It suddenly dawns upon me that it is end October and it is not a surprise that my mood is getting worse recently. In fact, tomorrow will be the 18th year of my homelessness. Bleah.. Clearly I have not gotten over it :'(

Hectic, disastrous, tiring weeks

The past two weeks have been hectic and irritating for me. Two weeks ago was the week that I had to return to office and I found it very tiring because of the need to wake up very early. The commuting time is really a waste of time. Surprisingly that was also the week that I went to gym for 5 sessions. Something that never happened for so long. The Friday of that week was particularly spoiling my mood. Firstly, I received an email from my Thai mail forwarder that the box set I pre-ordered since March was finally ready for shipping. I was pissed because they did not do a proper bookkeeping and initially wanted to charge me for shipping fee and service fee again. Although it was finally settled after a few emails, the experience got me quite worked up. Anyway I will not be using them anymore since I just found out a few weeks ago that vPost also has a service in Thailand now.

My photobooks from photobook worldwide also arrived and I was initially very excited. Sadly they arrived in a trashed condition. I have not really scrutinised if the quality of the print is much better now as I was so pissed that that they 'saved' on shipping which was the cause of the damaged condition by forcing two books into one shipping envelope. I asked for a refund but they said they would reprint and resend. The replacements should arrive sometime next week and I shall see how before giving an updated review as compared to the last time I ordered from them few years ago.

The inability to hold my tongue made me suffer for half of this week. Every time I buy the kakiage from Teppei Shokudo, I will get gastric and yet I always cannot resist. I had it for lunch on last Sunday and despite taking omeprazole before bed, the pain woke me up at around 3am for me to take antacid. I think my hernia thingy also contributed because otherwise the pain would not last until 3 days despite medicines. Bleah.. As a result, I skipped gym for 3 days and I also Grabbed on Tuesday.

Wednesday was another overeating days as my Landings group asked for a meet up before the retreat. Ironically, we ended up eating at the Grumpy Bear which I am quite bored of. Haha.. That was one of my frequently ordered Deliveroo at the peak of the circuit breaker. Honestly without the 30% off, the original prices are too expensive. Even in the restaurant, we ordered the bundled for 5 and that kind of thing.

I had the first ever eRetreat experience this weekend which I think was quite disastrous too. I was so tired on Friday night that I just KO-ed before 11pm. As a result I woke up at 5+ on Saturday morning. I did not want to sleep again as I was scared that I would overslept. I was so hungry too and that was how I ended up Grabbing McD breakfast. Sigh.. All the overeating this week cost me almost $100 and I already gained 3kg since the week I had to return to office. I feel so shitty since all the effort to lose weight and cut down on food for so long just got busted that way.

Anyway back to the eRetreat, I kept feeling distracted. There was even someone knocking for survey and despite saying that I was in the middle of a meeting, he still tried to small talk. He even asked if I had any drinks. Gosh.. I happened not to have any since I just finished the stock in my fridge. Suddenly I remembered the Dasani from my McD breakfast and he did not mind water so that went to him.

The eRetreat was the best that it could be since it was a virtual. It was no fault of the organisers of the distractions I faced. It is just that over all, I did not feel that I really retreated from my normal life to be able to focus. It did not help that I felt irritated with myself. I failed my promise of daily rosary yesterday. I was chionging a drama and I was left to pray at 1115pm. I fell asleep after 2 decades and I woke up past midnight. I was like: fuck it and went to sleep already. I know that there is nothing wrong and it is not a sin or what but I just feel angry and irritated with myself to break my own promise. I hope it is a lesson for me to prioritise my daily rosary in order not to break my own promise as when I am busy, I tend to leave it until past 11pm as the last thing I do before the day ends.

I kinda like series which have inter-connected characters and split to few parts with each part focusing on few characters. This approach feels better than combining everything into one part with all the characters.  The series I was chiong-ing yesterday was quite special for me. I finished the first part last week and that was the part with the high school students. This next part is more mature as the characters are not studying anymore. I am very surprised that I think this part is better since usually I am a sucker for high school stories. Not to mention that there are touching parts that made me cry. Now I am quite excited to watch the third part which will focus on a married couple. Although I read the reviews that this part is quite boring, I will give it a chance.

That's all for tonight. I actually still want to rant about work with what happened last week but perhaps that will be for another post on another day.

Affirmation

Resting too long for gym will eventually turns into laziness. I had to drag my feet yesterday to return to gym because I had been resting since Sunday. That turned to be a blessing in disguise as I unexpectedly bumped into my ex-staff when I was shopping at FairPrice after gym. It was nice that we still recognised each other just from the eyes and forehead since we were still wearing mask. We ended up having around 15 minutes of catching up in the instant noodles alley. I actually told myself after last Sunday that I would stop eating instant noodles. Normally that means I would not even go to the instant noodles section but somehow yesterday I decided to do so.

I honestly cannot bother and am not interested with my old workplace already. However, I got snippets which made me very happy with where I am now while my ex-colleagues are still dealing with the same old shit. Huehehe... What really struck me was when she said that she hoped I would be back as time might just be as bad as when I was still around but at least she found it more enjoyable. For me, that was an affirmation that regardless of what shit my bosses were saying about me, at least my decision that welfare of my staff came first was appreciated by them. After all, that was my priority back then instead of bootlicking just to win favour from bosses (which would not happen anyway) and pushing things top down to the ground staff.

I messaged my ex-student who then became my ex-colleague about my unexpected encounter and I was rewarded with another snippet. She was sharing how a new trainee would be leaving for a greener pasture and another trainee who CMI. I never recruited CMI people and the staff I hired back then were all good catches. People were criticising me back then why I was so slow in recruiting and now they should learn that my QC was good.

With that, I hope the assholes who were complaining that I was strict back then now are enjoying their shit. At least I was strict for the things that mattered instead of being strict just to push agendas from the top.

This is a reminder for me to be patient when things do not go my way and to trust in God's timing. Yes I still have some bitterness but at least now things are better for me and I should be grateful for that.

Visual Rosary

Leading prayer is something I am terrible and terribly scared at. Thus, I sort of 'cheated' to volunteer to lead prayer tonight since tomorrow is the Feast of the Our Lady of the Rosary, it is apt and just nice to pray a decade of rosary for my Landings group.

I expected that it would be a walk in the park to just find a Youtube video to play. I was so wrong. There are so many videos on praying the rosary but I find most of them have the people reciting the prayers so fast. Perhaps that is normal speed of how the Angmohs speak but I find it even faster than my usual auto pilot praying mode. In the end, I had to view quite a lot of videos to find something at reasonable pace, a soothing voice and not boring, nice visuals, preferably with nice background music too. The good news is that I was able to find one. I think the pace is still quite fast but this one meets all the other requirements.

The bonus is my effort is not only to be used once as I think this can be something I use for my daily rosary after trying it today. Initially I thought the images would be distracting. I think some are quite distracting, especially for the Sorrowful Mystery, but overall I think the images help to focus. The song at the end of each deacde allows me to have my own prayer and meditation. I normally do this at the start of the decade but it is fine to do it at the end too.

Now I just have to download the other mysteries from this channel since watching directly from Youtube will be interrupted by the advertisement. Thank God and Mother Mary for allowing me to find this gem to help me more to pray the Rosary.

In addition, now I know how to embed Youtube video again as I tried to share this video with this post. Previously I thought this function was gone as blogger was updated and I had to use insert video function. Apparently now I just have to switch to 'HTML view' and paste the embed link/code. In the past, I could simply paste the code to the 'Compose view' but doing that now will just result in the embed code being displayed as text. It is still not as convenient as last time but at least I finally find the getaround.

Devil's work

Why am I so unlucky this week? After the demise of the custom clay figure of myself, my home internet connection was dead on Tuesday. I was still awake until 2am and the internet was fine. Not sure what happened in the morning but because of that I had to sacrifice a day of annual leave since with all the restrictions, I could not suka-suka want to report to office. It was really a waste since without internet, there was really nothing to do at home. That was one of the reason why I spent the morning to dust my Tsume statues and I was done by around 2pm. I continued with refining my faith story until it was time for my afternoon nap.

To make it worse, it was my turn to share my faith story for Landings. I had no choice but to download Zoom and use my phone. I really think the devil does not like me to be a good boy and shit kept coming to me since the past week when I was starting to prepare my faith story. Trying to see a silver lining, at least this gave me the experience of using Zoom through phone. I also got to know the data consumption. Around 2.5 hours of Zoom call used up around 1 GB of data and zapped my phone battery to 30%.

I had no choice but to go to office on Wednesday T_T The reason was not so much about taking another leave but because there was a meeting that I needed to complete before October. I really had office adjustment syndrome. I was supposed to be happier with 2 screens but I had to get used to the screen brightness as well as office is more well lit than my room. There were only around 5 people in the office and I kept being distracted whether I should put on or remove my mask. Sianz.. why did these people come? When I told my boss to register for office attendance, she told me it would just be me and someone from HR who would be in the HR room anyway. So I thought I could remove my mask.

Majority is still working from home as the MRT crowd as well as the traffic around my office was like CNY eve. When I reached, I was shocked to see only 1 lift was operating. I thought they were saving electricity haha.. I was just being too early since later on all the lifts were working. Lunch was also not stressful as there was no need to fight over seats. However, lunch hit me with another adjustment syndrome as I felt anything above $4-5 for lunch was expensive. I decided to walk over to MBC to get the Taiwanese fried chicken. At least that would be something I enjoy. Sadly the stall was gone. Bleah... Some stall were not open so I ended up walking back to get a pathetic $6 for rice and chicken at one of the newer stalls near my office.

Another distraction in the office was taking selfie. Lol. I usually hate taking selfies but I just had to immortalise this pathetic occasion of having to work in the office when there were very few people. My first (and best try) had my company logo as mirror image. Yep, I never did selfie so I did not know that the selfie camera had mirror or no mirror mode. I was okay with taking selfie since I had to put on my mask so that covered half of my ugly face.

Thank goodness the internet was fixed on Wednesday. Alas, after I logged off, the bummer email came. From next week, my office reverts back to staggered work schedule. Knnccb! I know the inevitable will eventually come but I was not expecting it to be so early. The thing that I hate the most is still having to wear mask. If there is no need to mask up anymore, then it is not a problem to be back in office. On the bright side, at least now the staggering is into 3 teams so that means 1 week in every 3 weeks to be in office. It is still better than alternate. The best part is thanks to my seat position in the center of where my team is sitting, I will not see the bitches around HAHAHA.

No more TGIF since now it is counting down to end of WFH huhuhu T_T

Duo Me Doll sucks

I feel like shit to discover that the custom figure of myself broke. I had it done in December 2018 so it is barely 2 years old. I took a good care of it by not storing it in an airy cupboard and away from light and heat. I even open the cupboard door occasionally to let cool air in. What is more painful than seeing $200 gone just like that is that I never even had the chance of taking photos of it. I did not expect its lifespan will be this pathetic. The previous custom figure of myself (Lilliput Island) lasted longer and it was much cheaper. In fact, other than the initial chip on the hair, the figure still retained its condition at least until the last time I saw it in 2017.

This Duomedoll is actually quite disappointing right from the start. That's why I have been lazy to take a photo. Similar to the previous one, the hair was already having some problem since the start. However, overall this Duomedoll is not similar to the photo that I sent. Since having a customised body only cost $20 more, I decided to choose the iconic pose of Heero Yuy. The body was quite disappointing: the 'neck' is too long,  the raised arm is more muscular than the relaxed arm, the shirt is tight (unlike the original picture), there are white discolourations and the body is not upright but slightly bows to the front. Although I appreciate the creativity for the base, the bricks look lame. The details of the shoes are good though.

The cracks are not obvious in pictures but they are so obvious in person

The source of inspiration

The dismembered head

I tried to remove the head in hope of gluing the cracks together. After dismembering my own head, it is not a surprise that the lifespan of this shit is so short. Instead of being sculpted as a whole head, it was done like how we played plasticine when we were kids. There is a wire that connects the body to the head. Inside the head, this wire is 'wrapped' by a layer of the clay and then the rest of the head goes around this layer. The hair is a separate piece pasted over. While the layer around the wire remained intact, the rest of the clay making the head simply disintegrated into many irregular pieces. I really wonder what the initial material was that it can disintegrate naturally until this bad. I threw away without taking any photos of the broken state as it is just making me emo.

I wanted to throw the body so that I am not reminded by this $200 shit anymore. However, I decided to still keep it since the body seems quite sturdy and has not shown any sign of disintegration. I think it is clear that the materials used for the head is simply of a lousier quality. If only the quality of the head is as good as the body :( While I know things do not last forever, I knew my gut was right that I was buying shit as the guy could not speak English. Anything coming from THAT country cannot be good and yep I am right.

Breaking the head of the figure feels like breaking my own head as I am having a headache now. Haiz.. This evening I was in a good mood and I wanted to complete my faith story. Now this shit happened and my mood turned shit again. Damn it..

One thing for sure: no more clay figures now. I will consider if it is made of resin though. So sad that previously from Lilliput Island is more long lasting, cheaper, but unable to make a customised body while this Duomedoll can have customised body the head (which is the most important part) does not last long.

Drowning

Hehe perhaps my dream of dying may be coming to reality soon. After the dream as a ghost, last night I dreamt of drowning -although it was not the drowning until dead kind. I was going into the pool but surprisingly the pool was deeper than expected. Since I cannot really swim, I can only resign to my fate to go all the way down under the water until my feet hit the bottom of the pool and kicked myself up. When I re-surfaced, I was coughing out water. The dream had got to do with my phlegm when I was sleeping because when I had a bit of cough and phlegm and funny whitish thingy from my mouth.

I woke up early and would be in time for my gym but I decided to cancel. Bleah.. Now my arms and shoulders cannot take it after push ups and bend over rows. That was why I skipped on Friday and I ran out of banana for breakfast this morning. That was my excuse this morning. In order not to repeat the same excuse for tomorrow, I had to do groceries today to get banana for breakfast tomorrow. Although I promised not to KFC again, that did not happen. Haha.. Since I would be going over to Thomson Plaza, might as well get something for lunch and KFC was the choice. I managed to skip the bubble tea today though.

I am not a fan of One Piece but I am pretty sad to find out that One Piece at Tokyo Tower had permanently closed. I went to Tokyo for a few times and not a single time I visited Tokyo Tower. That is why I never visited the One Piece theme park. Although I am not following the manga or anime, it is really amazing to see those life-size character statues. It would have been very nice photo opportunity and I am a sucker for this kind of thing. Sigh.. One Piece is a super duper popular series and I really do not expect the theme park would close. Lessons learnt: next time just get a chance to visit this kind of anime related stuff quickly before it is gone for good.

An exciting new is the update on the Gundam at Gundam Factory in Yokohama. Recently they did some tests and I am quite blown away with the range of movement. Having a Gundam that can fly to the space may no longer a just a dream perhaps in the next life time. Looks like if the whole COVID situation is over, I have to apply for a visa and go to see this next year because I see the event period is only until October 2021. No idea what will happen after that but I definitely do not want to miss this. Aaah but of course if I die before that, I will be happier also.

Toys I cannot own

I am quite emo with Tsume's recent announcement of making HQS+ for the 5 Bronze Saints to accompany the recently released Athena HQS+. I do not collect HQS+ as scale 1/4 is simply too big for me :( In addition, they started with HQS line since 2013 (with Gemini Saga that I did not buy previously because I was still poor and barely out of school) and that line is not even halfway done.

Even though I know I won't buy Seiya, I was still tempted :( Surprisingly it is only 699 Euro, which is half of Athena's 1499 Euro's price tag. At the local shop that I am patronising for Tsume, Seiya goes for $1230 which is only $30 more than HQS Camus whose original price is 100 Euro cheaper than Seiya. Why like that. Damn.. Tsume is really money minded bastards and that Camus is more expensive than necessary just because of the Aquarius lady which is even bigger than Camus himself. It is unnecessary waste of resources. Oh well as much as I complain, I will still continue to be willingly ripped of for HQS :( When is Aries Mu coming..

Since I give Athena HQS+ a miss, I became tempted at random 1/6 garage kit statues of Athena to go along with the rest of my HQS. After spending a few hours googling and thinking, I decided to be sane and not to buy garage kits since I will not be certain of the quality. Anyway I have to give credits to Tsume because a lot of these unofficial Saint Seiya garage kits actually copy Tsume's style for the base. Seeing how random companies can churn up statues faster and cheaper, aaah if only Tsume is less money minded, they would go even further.

I also missed out on keyblade-shaped conductor baton from Kingdom Hearts concert merchandise. This time it is a set with 2 different keyblades. I received an email about it earlier this week and there were only 41 sets remaining. Sadly with the ordering opened at 3am here this morning, all were gone by the time I woke up. Apparently when I googled, this was put on sale some time last year. How come I was not aware at all? I always read my emails, even those promotional advertisement, before I delete leh. Oh well :( I am not really a big fan of Kingdom Hearts but since I already have the conductor baton from the previous concert, it would be nice to have more keyblades for the collection. Now the only hope of getting this is if somehow they are holding the concert in Singapore again like previously and they will produce more of these merchandises.

Just a random thing to end this post: I finally start wearing the sandals that I bought in Taiwan more than a year ago. Haha.. My old pair was finally near its end of life with a part of sole coming off. It was getting irritating as it made me feel that I stepped on something when I walked too fast.

Nothing special about the sandals, except for those green lines hehe...

Gosh.. I should be working on my faith story instead of blogging random things.

Ghost

Blood donation and diet do not go well together. I think I am still in the process of recovering since I have been feeling quite lousy from Sunday. My plan to keep spending for food in September to less than $200 is a failure now. I ordered Grab Food for dinner on Monday and yesterday because I felt weak on Monday and I was having headache since Tuesday evening. Yesterday was quite bad because I was avoiding taking medicines. I bought 2 packs of potato chips, 3 ice creams, and a bottle of milk tea in attempt to get rid of the headache but they did not work. That was why in the end I still ordered delivery for dinner. Luckily today I felt better and I went to gym again.

The headache and tiredness yesterday brought a very weird dream. For the very first time ever, I was a ghost in my dream. Haha.. It was like as if I was a ghost who could not pass on until a living couple helped to get my medical files. After knowing what happened to my health, I was satisfied but as I was about to say thank you to them, they could not longer sense my present. It was so random but there are 2 things I remembered very vividly from the medical files. First is a brief medical history of myself since I arrived in Singapore.  It was signed by an uncle who is a doctor but the funny thing is that I never consult him for any health problems in my life. Haha... Second is something to do about hernia. I saw multiple MRI images which made me finally realise where the lump was prior to my surgery last time. I remembered seeing black and white MRI images but I did not recall any details of the hernia itself la. Anyway it was so random and sadly I still woke up to reality of living. Bleah...

I was planning to do minor revision and addition to my Landings faith story although the usual recommendation is to re-write and not to re-use those done in the past since with time, the way I look at or feel about certain past things may no longer be the same. Looks like God does not wish to be naughty since apparently I do not have the old file. Huhuhu T_T I found a record in my 'sent' email but that was barely 1 page long. It seems that I typed halfway before sending it to my work email and to finish it at work. I printed it out last year but did not keep the completed digital copy. My weekend will be for this and my online photobook progress has to be put on hold again.

I seldom rant about work nowadays but this week I really get very irritated and upset with bitches at work. I am too lazy to type into the nonsensical and wasting time details but I think my work relationship with them is done for. I keep telling myself to exercise self-restrain and not to explode because perhaps I am just being a bit more sensitive due to my low energy. But honestly, I feel that what they have been doing is already undermining the spirit of teamwork and most importantly, my trust. Seriously these childish bitches should learn to think before saying irresponsible or useless things or making emotional decisions without thinking the long term consequences. In the future, they will complain again over their own stupid decisions done emotionally in the past. Really damn fucking stupid bitches.

For now I can only be thick skin as defense mechanism. Fiuuh... I am higher than them and I have more things to deal with. I simply do not have the time to deal with nitty gritty stuff that these lowly people are bitching about. Haiz.. I am really not looking forward to phase 3 since it means I have to see these bitches again. Can they please quit or something? Or I don't mind if I die so that I do not have to deal with them anymore.

KFC weekend

My worry of returning to indiscriminate junk food indeed becomes a reality with frequent trips outside as I am returning to gym. My physical fitness has not returned and I still cannot go every alternate days or go two days and rest for one day. Now I am still in the stage of going once and resting for two days and yet I cannot resist the junk food. This past week alone I finished 3 bags of Kettle's potato chips as Cold Storage was having a sale ($3.65 each) and the Korean BBQ flavour is not available in Fair Price.

This weekend is particularly disastrous. Yesterday I still did not feel 100% fit and skipped gym again despite already skipping for 2 days. Yesterday I slept in a bad position and my inner right elbow is having a bit of pain until now. I skipped gym again as push ups, mountain climbers, and any other hand movements will trigger the discomfort.

I went for blood donation this morning and this was the excuse of my KFC weekend. I got some promo codes since last week and I managed to suppress my desire until this week. Haha.. There were 2 promos that I was eyeing and my initial plan was to have one today and the other one next weekend. Well I could not resist yesterday and I downloaded the KFC app. It makes ordering for takeaway so convenient and that is the reason why I had it again today. Haha.. I went for my donation right when the centre opened at 10am and I was not expecting to end near 11am which is the starting of the normal menu for KFC. Anyway after having both promos on two consecutive days, my cravings are fulfilled and I have deleted the promo codes. No more KFC next week.

With all these rubbish diet, obviously I gained some kg and now am back to 60 again. Sian.. Plus I decided to get XL-size bubble tea from R&B. I seldom go to Thomson Plaza and anyway it was my first time buying from R&B so when I saw XL-size (which is a normal size available in any other bubble tea shops), I decided to just YOLO it. That was the main culprit from the bad sleeping position since it made me so full and uncomfortable when sleeping.

On the bright side, I find it a miracle that my junk diet has not really affected my food spending this month. I manage to limit the junk to weekends and groceries and currently I only spent less than $150 this month for food. Wow!! If I can keep my discipline until the end of this month, this will be the first time ever that I will spend less than $200 for food in a month. Let this weekend be a turning point and no more junk food from now on. I am sort of bored with my weekly bubble tea already so it will be quite easy to skip that subsequently.

Another good news is that I have solved my agony over blocked Youtube series. Thank goodness for Opera browser which has VPN included so now I am done with the series that I was watching halfway and now I can follow the new series every Sunday. Hehe..

Cash Advance

The weather has been very cooling recently that even without turning on the aircon, it is colder than usual nights when I switch on the aircon. The coolness makes me keep sneezing and very sleepy though. It was so bad today that I even forgot to take spoon after buying lunch. Worse, I withdrew cash from the ATM using my credit card. I was surprised that I could do that. It made me realise that I unintentionally used the Cash Advance which has additional charge of 8% or $15 minimum. I was emo but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as when I checked my credit card statement, I realised I made the same stupid mistake last week and I could see the $15 already charged.

I was totally unaware that I also used my credit card last week but I remembered seeing 'Balance $0' on the screen which made worried since I knew I still had balance in my bank account. I immediately checked my balance and I thought everything was fine. It was because I only withdrew $50 last week. Anyway being charged $15 for $50 withdrawal is just ridiculous. I was blessed that the customer service lady was willing to waive the charges for me and taught me how to link my credit card to my bank account to prevent this Cash Advance thingy if I commit this same silly mistake again in the future.

I decided to be gung-ho on last Thursday and did jump pull up since there were only 3 sets. It was a huge mistake since I suffered the pain and sore in my arms, shoulder, back, groin and thighs for 3 days. I went to gym again yesterday although I was not feeling 100% but I survived. I should stick with the squat pull first until perhaps around 1 month of being regular at the gym again.

I signed up for a free online course on mentorship. I still have to deal with students as well as team members who behave like 'kids' so I decided to see if there are new things to learn. It was quite awkward to switch on my webcam throughout but I suppose I was just being too obedient since some people did not switch on. Haha.. I sort of feel that it was a waste of time since I did not really learn something new in terms of skills or approach. Perhaps one takeaway for me is seeing the shifts in mindset in terms of career. The emphasis nowadays seems to be at transferable skills. Unlike in the past when people used to stay for decades in their job and job-hopping was shunned, job-hopping and rapid changes at work are expected nowadays. I am glad I had the opportunity to change job 2 years ago since it is really good to broaden my horizons with different settings and environment. Oh one interesting thing was that I think one of the trainers was my JC classmate. Haha... I was not close to her so I did not bother to ask but from the name, the face and the way she speaks, it really reminds me of her. At least she is one of the nicer ones and not one of the bitchy ones that I disliked in class previously lol.

I start to take my eye supplements again after many months of not taking. I have not been buying since I already fulfill my $500 monthly credit card spending. After being 'forced' to use online shopping during circuit breaker, now I am enjoying that to get my dehumidifiers. I need at least $40 to get free shipping so while browsing for more items, I saw my eye supplements having 40% off as well as $22 off for $100 promotion. It was really a good deal. Previously I always waited for buy 2 get 1 free promotion in the physical store which came to around 33% off. So $500 for this month is settled and I need to resort to weekend delivery meals hehe.. Next month should not be a problem too with my skin doctor appointment and time to replenish my Centrum.

Bad week for entertainment

This year is a bad year for mobile games that I am playing. After Final Fantasy Mobius was discontinued in June, I just received the in-game notification that Detective Conan Runner: Race to the Truth will end in October. Sigh.. The good thing is that I have not spent any cents for this game. I also did not spend too much time for playing as I am only interested in collecting the cards and animation for summer, Halloween, and Christmas. I did not even get all the Christmas special cards last year and there will not be a second Christmas for this game. I will definitely miss this game for the nice illustration of the cards and the game relatively has low time commitment.

I am damn sian since Thursday after GMMTV started blocking some of their series. One series that I am in the midst of watching (I only watched 1 episode daily during my lunch break) is affected. Darn! It is not available in kissasian. I think they only update the series by popular actors since for this particular series is divided into 4 sub-series and only the 2 with the more popular actors are available. Looks like I am not going to complete this. Bleah... The worst is a new series that I am eagerly waiting also kena. This is a sequel of the series that I completed in just 2 days in July. Tonight will be the second episode and I will emo again tomorrow if I cannot find where to watch.

A silver lining from this is my discovery that Line TV is now available in Singapore too. Previously I need to wait until someone uploads in Youtube for series that do not officially get uploaded in Youtube. Now I can catch those series directly from Line TV. Sadly the series that I want to watch and get restricted by GMMTV is also restricted in Line TV. Huhuhu...

I am lucky to sell my WBMA Takara Tomy Twin Drazeros - Gold Version. I have no idea what series this is from and I cannot even remember how I get this. I have put it up on Carousell since 3 years ago and it is really a good surprise to find a buyer for this. The buyer is in Malaysia and he actually asked his uncle to pick it up from my place. Yay. With carousell limiting free active listings to 30 items now, any successful sale from there is really miracle. Haiz.. There are still so many items that I hope to flip to no avail. So irritating that some people ask if the items are still available or ask for meeting locations only to disappear after that. Well, I can only hope and wait patiently.

Towards normalcy

I am running out of gym suspension. Initially I planned to finish everything before returning but a part of me is still holding on to the very slim hope that things may return to normal by the end of the year and I would like to have some suspension when I fly home for Christmas. Thus I reactivated my membership on Sunday. I went again on Monday and today.

Another push to go on Sunday was to help my sister check out Winnie the Pooh t-shirt that she wants to buy online. I remembered seeing the pop-up store at Takashimaya so it would be good if I could check the physical item first. The pop-up store is no longer there unfortunately. Seeing the crowd on Sunday, I really thought things were returning to normal. After gym, I reached Orchard around 1030 and the crowd at Tangs and Lucky Plaza was already mamma mia... Takashimaya Department Store only opens at 11am nowadays and there was a long queue of people waiting to enter too. I am wrong, though. When I went to gym on Monday and today, the MRT crowd is definitely smaller than pre-covid days. Similarly for my bus rides home. That means there are still a lot of people working from home. Honestly, I hope this continues.

After exercising on my own in my room for the past 5 months or so, I had an idea that perhaps I do not need gym anymore and I will not renew my membership after this. Oh boy how wrong I was. Haha..  Now I am already aching everywhere despite the 2-day break. Somehow exercising is more tiring at gym. Although the main difference is only the weights, I suppose the larger space enables me to work harder and less reserved. In my room, my space is only one stretch of the floor and I have to be conscious not bang my desk and my bed.

I wanted to skip again today but decided to go since I wanted to cut my hair. It has been 2.5 months since my last hair cut and it is actually still not that long. I just cannot stand it anymore because the sideburns and the fringe are irritating to my face while the back is pricking my neck. Anyway this is another benefit of working at home. In the past I already have to cut at around 4-6 weeks as my hair will already be unpresentable It will be okay once it grows a bit longer (i.e. at 2 months or so) but between the 4th-8th weeks is usually too ugly already.

One downside of starting to go out again is realising the worsening of my visual acuity. Sigh.. Every time I think about my eye health, it makes me want to just die. Everyday I pray for it but it seems that my prayers have not been heard. I don't know why I find it so difficult to be discipline with eye breaks when I am at home. Actually it is harder to do so in the office as it will mean I am frequently out of my desk. But now I really do not have objects at long distance to stare. Haiz.. God help me...

Ups and downs

Things changed so quickly yesterday. When I bought snacks at lunch time, the mini market uncle asked if I was studying here. Hehe.. Maybe the mask helps. Or perhaps my voice is simply like girls voice because in the evening, someone called me as SISTER! Ouch.. Sadly the 'astronaut suit' PPE was not available so I chose blue that I never tried before. I blamed it on the blue PPE because previously in all the time I was in yellow one, I was always a mister. Haha..

It was my first time volunteering again since CB ended so it took quite awhile to adapt to the breathing through N95. It was not as terrible as the very first time for the breathing but my skin is still as sensitive. I have maskne (mask acne) around the cheeks and chin already. Bleah.. I was also not as impatient as previously although ironically, I lost my cool right at the first patient. Lol. Other than him, I was ok for the rest yesterday. I lost my cool because this person kept cutting me, instead of letting me finish first, even after I said to wait until I finished then I would address his concern. He kept asking about the insulin needles when I already said later I would go back in the clinic and bring the needles for him. I was even sarcastic, "I am out here and the needles are inside. They will not magically appear here." before I went in to look for the needles.

Today is the last day of the Novena in honour of Assumption of Mary. Although I started on it grudgingly because I find it rather sian having to follow daily mass, some homilies for this week are quite relevant for me. The most memorable one is on how seeing Christ in others. It is a reminder for me during volunteering to not just focus on the 'clearing crowd' part. I know I am there for my professional role but I am also there to volunteer so I should not forget about the volunteerism spirit. Perhaps this helped me to be calmer yesterday until got mistaken as a sister (which is how we call nurses) for the care and concern. Lol... Or perhaps it was because the weather was cooler and it also had been quite sometime since my last duty so I was not so agitated.

My mum and younger sister received their baptism yesterday morning. Sadly, the family whatsapp group turned 180 degrees south in the evening as a cousin of mine delivered her baby prematurely. The baby only survived for a few hours. I have been tempted to leave the group since last week and now the push is getting stronger. For no reason, I am quite pissed with the congratulatory messages when it was already said that the baby was premature. Someone asked the weight and the baby was only 700gr as she was still in the 2nd trimester. I have no children but I know usual birth weight is around 3kg. These people who said 'congratulations' are mothers themselves. Either they did not read or they could not be bothered or what.

At the start of this month, I bought Aladdin 'Group Hug' figurine from Enesco from a dodgy website (www.shop4sg.com). I never saw this website before and its facebook page is full of stupid memes, instead of looking like a proper shop. But since its price is the cheapest (SGD 93 with free shipping vs elsewhere is all above USD 100), I decided to buy after checking that their address can at least be googled. Haha.. They accept PayPal so if it turns out to be a scam, at least I am protected.

The shop is legit and I received the item earlier this week but they sent me a damaged item. Sigh.. On the bright side, at least their live chat is responsive but that is the only good words I have. I was only given the options of 25% partial refund or return for full refund. The person LIED that there was no replacement stock. When I told her that the website still showed available stock, she said that the stock is not in the warehouse so she cannot arrange a replacement. Fuck! Is that even my problem? That is the shop problem. Really a stupid reason. The packaging box came super crushed and I could not re-use it to ship back. With the COVID, there is no way I am going to take all the trouble to ship just for a refund. I will be in worse state than before I even bought this: I will be back to square one (have my money and no item) but spend extra hassle to arrange for return shipping. I made the correct choice to make this purchase as guest since there is no way I will buy from this website again.

Miserable weekend

I successfully did not order lunch over this weekend but I feel miserable. As it was my first time not ordering delivery on weekends, I just find out that most of the eateries at Midview City are closed on Sundays. To avoid boredom, my plan is to have bit more 'extravagant' for lunch on weekends even if I am still buying them from the same place as weekdays lunch. Looks like it is not going to happen. In the hawker center, only Thai and Indian food stalls are open. I initially wanted to have Shan Cheng for lunch but it is also not open on Sundays. So there goes my plan of having something plus fried dumplings for weekends. It seems I can only do that on Saturdays as what I did yesterday. Even more shocking is the nearby mini mart is also not open on Sundays. Sigh.. I have enough coins and I was craving for a cold drinks just now. Aaargh...

While my wish is granted to save on money and calories, I feel life is meaningless this way. Haiz... Patience patience... 5kg more and that's it..

Diet frustration

It is so frustrating when you already set your mind on something but your body simply does not allow you to do that. Starting this week, my goal is to cut down on the unnecessary snack and bottled milk tea as I am running out of ideas on what to do to continue with my weight loss. Last weekend I only bought 2 bottles of milk tea with the intention of at least halving my daily intake to alternate day. Well it was partly because of the guilt of failing to resist the temptation of potato chips. I am also restricting the potato chips I buy from the mini mart near my place to only when I have enough leftover coins from lunch. This whole week I have been feeling slightly giddy in the morning and after work which make me suspect that I am going hypoglycaemic. My nap was just disrupted earlier since I was so hungry and I decided to skip the diet for tonight.

Since I have to withdraw money for my rental payment, I decided to do it today and grab something from the bakery nearby. There were only leftover breads so I only bought 1 and then I bought potato chips from the mini mart. Haiz...I don't know if these things are indeed better than the original temptation to just order delivery. Bleah... Please just let me lose the final 5kg and I can get over and done with all these self-inflicted torture.

I decided to take a break from watching dramas for now and I want to focus on creating photobooks for the 7 holidays that I have not done so. It is not easy for my eyes too and at most I can only do 3 pages a day. Maybe my giddiness is also due to eye strain? I don't know.. The last drama I finished over the National Day weekend is called Who Are You. It is a remake of a Korean drama with the same title. I think the theme of twins swapping place is not that original but somehow I am pretty hooked with this that I wanted to complete the 18 episodes as quick as possible. Haha.. So far I am able to resist picking up new titles and I have only been doing photobooks this week.

With the National Day over, there is no more public holiday until Christmas. With the lockdown still going on, I am emo when I realise that I have not even used finish the leave balance from last week. If I do not use finish them by this year, they will go wasted. I still have not touched compassionate leave (3 days) for my dad's death as I initially plan to fly home and use the leave. If I still cannot travel by Christmas, these 3 days are wasted too.

Meanwhile I will be back to frustration over diet again this coming weekend as I aim not to order delivery for lunch even on the weekends. Hehe.. yeah it is time to just eat simply from hawker centre everyday. I also will stop going to FairPrice to get fruits since my diet cereal is expiring in November so I should start finishing them first before returning to my banana and red dragonfruits.