Fresh start

January is (almost) over and I am proud to say that I am able to stay away from fast food, bubble tea, and potato chips for the whole month!! Yay!! It is not only to stay away but I was not tempted at all. Even LINE dolls promotion from McD fails to tempt me. I have to admit that I am quite tempted for the Valentine's dolls set though :p But I read news that McD allows customers to donate the food. Anyway I shall see how good the dolls are because I think the official dolls from LINE store are still better: more cotton. Haha..

2015 also becomes a fresh start for my money management. I have always been interested to sign up for OCBC 360 account since last year. I did not do so because I thought it was troublesome to ask my company to change my bank account. I was also sceptical about meeting the other 2 requirements: 3 bills per month and $400 spending per month. I did not want it to be an excuse for me to spend.

I am soo stupid. I always thought credit card payment to other bank will not count as bill payment and I assumed so. I was wrong. That means I can easily meet the 3 bills with my income tax, phone bill, and credit card payment. Dang! The worst is, after checking my spending for 2014, I spent >$400 on my credit cards every bloody month. So yes, I could have earn close to 3x of interest from what I received last year. That is very very sad. But I guess it is better late than never. Ironically, once I have this account, there is very few things that I want to buy which means it is going to be difficult to meet the $400 monthly spending now. Haha.. I have stopped pre-ordering toys, especially the big ones, as I am literally running out of space in my room. I shall be good and help my sisters or my mothers do their online shopping then. Haha..

Oops I forget that February is also CNY. I am waiting for Kinokuniya to have their member sales as there are a few books that I want to buy. I guess I will meet the $400 for February after all. Lol.. I hope I don't spend so much and I can remain away from fast food, bubble tea, and potato chips.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

In the midst of the busy-ness of my hospital attachment, I am so glad that I am able to use the last free movie ticket that I have to watch this. Honestly, without the free ticket, I will not watch this as the reviews are kinda mixed. In addition, I watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug when I was home and that was quite underwhelming.

With the cliff-hanger ending of The Desolation of Smaug, it is pretty expected that The Battle of the Five Armies will open with Smaug destroying the Laketown. Sadly, in less than 5 minutes, Smaug is expectedly dead by the black arrow shot by Bard the Bowman. After that, all the boring part comes. Legolas and Tauriel departs for a place that sounds like "Gundahbad" to me for a reason that I can't fathom until the end of the movie. In the mountain, Thorin gets crazy over the jewels and the dwarfs spend half the movie to search for the Arkenstone while Bilbo is in a dilemma whether to surrender the Arkenstone.

Wealth and riches drive people mad but it makes a bad plot for a movie. Bard leads Laketown survivors to the mountain to get the promised part of the treasure as he helped the dwarfs on reaching the mountain. Add in the Elven King who also wants to get an elven heir loom hidden with the treasures. Yes, he is willing to send an army to fight over a necklace.

It does not make any sense to me that a handful of dwarfs dare to declare war. Or perhaps, it is weirder that such a large number or elven army and man do not dare to invade the castle straight away. I am sure it is to give time for the dwarf army to come. Lol. In the midst of their fight, the orc army arrives as they also want to claim the treasures. Thorin gains his sanity and decides to redeem himself by going after the orc's leader (is his name Azog or something?). Legolas and Tauriel are back to announce that there is a second wave of attack. But they are too late as Thorin, Kili, and another dwarf already went to the orc's camp. The climax of the movie is the fight between them vs Azog and another orc and end with the dwarfs and orcs' death.

You may wonder now, the title has 5 armies but so far we only have dwarfs, humans, elves, and orcs. Where is the 5th army? I only find the answer when I google it. The 5th army is the eagles that comes last. What the...

How do these eagles come? They are informed by Gandalf. One 'exciting' part that I did not mention is the fight of Saruman (he used to be a good guy), Elrond, and Galadriel to rescue Gandalf from his capturer. The battle ends with Galadriel going zombie-mode to chase away Sauron's eye on the sky. Come to think of it, it is just a CG fight against computer-made soldiers but I don't know why I think it is exciting to watch.

Despite my limited knowledge of the Lord of the Rings universe (as you can tell from how I don't know the characters and locations names), I still find the movie enjoyable to watch. I was expecting that I would be checking my watch as the movie runs for 2.5 hours but the movie was able to hold my attention throughout. Of course, it is less intense and exciting compared to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The movie was released 6 months ago so the fact that the cinema was still 80% full when I watched it shows that people enjoy this movie and it is a success. I still will not buy the DVD to re-watch it though. Haha.. I own The Return of the King because I think it is that good. Haha...

What's up?

Wew.. only 1 post so far in January. I never thought that catching up with my work and continuing with my study would be taking up so much time. For the past week, I have been away at a hospital for my attachment. I had PTSD thinking about it as it is the hospital whee I had all the bad experiences as a student a few years ago. I am so glad that the preceptor I am following this time is much nicer than the one I got a few years ago. I still have another 1.5 week and I really hope that I don't see the ex-preceptor that I hate.

I was expecting that I could relax since I am away from my usual work, from scolding people, and from being scolded. I was wrong. Haha.. Okay, honestly, the stress is less but there is still stress, a different kind of stress. I am not stressed over my lousiness as I know there are so many things that I don't know. In fact, my aim for this attachment is just to clear whatever I need to submit, not so much about the learning itself. My eyes are very tired as I am sitting in front of the computer the whole day. I don't mind working hard as long as it is not wasted. But out of the 10 cases that I clerked, less than half will actually be useful. Haiz.. Many of the cases are too simple or they are of the same/similar disease. T_T After reaching home, I have to continue tidying up the slides or replying my work emails. Pity my eyes.

Things still don't get better after my surgery. I am badly constipated again. Haiz.. This time I don't have any antibiotic to blame. I don't know if it is because I don't dare to push the shit out or if it is because I only take cereals nowadays for dinner. One thing which I am very sure is that the output is much lesser than the amount of food that I eat. So what happen inside my intestines sia? I even bought lactulose and dulcolax and they don't help. Sigh.. After taking dulcolax, I only have water coming out instead of shit. To make things worse, my right side is rather painful since last night. Of course what happened had happened. Worry also does not help anything but I am just hoping that the mesh does not get dislodge inside or something.

To make things happier, I will post some J-pop videos. It has been a long time since I am following latest J-pop. Having said that, it does not mean that I am updated to the latest things as well. Lol.. Sometime last year, I predicted that AKB48 would slowly lose popularity with so many familiar faces graduating in 2014. I am obviously wrong because they are still hitting 1m+ singles. In fact, their Labrador Retriever single hit close to 1.8m sales in total.

Although I am glad that they are still singing pop, rather than rock, songs, I still think their songs are too generic nowadays. The tunes sound somehow similar to their previous singles. Of course the good thing is that if people like their previous songs, they will like the new songs too as they are similar. Sadly, this lacks of creativity also extends to their video clip. As you can see from the Labrador PV, all their summer songs are simply girls in skimpy bikinis dancing on the beach. Bleah... And the dog is not that cute so that is another minus point. Haha...

Their single after that is Kokoro no Placard and the concept behind the PV is exactly the same as Koi Suru Fortune Cookie. A part of me feels that it is a nice approach to have them dancing and shooting videos with normal people who may be their fans too. Another part of me feels that it is too fake. After all, these extras are paid or something to do this. Do it one time makes it feel good. Repeat it and it invokes more of the latter.

Their latest single is Kiboteki Refrain. I am quite excited to see the PV as their graduating members like Atsuko Maeda, Yuko Oshima, Mariko Shinoda, and Tomomi Itano are appearing as cameo! Hooo... AKB48 official youtube channel will only put the PV a few months later so I shall just wait. Song-wise, I don't really like it. Lol...

I can't be bothered about Sexy Zone anymore after they are only featuring 3 members. It gave me a hope when I saw this video. I have never seen it previously and it was only uploaded 2 weeks ago. Is this something new?? Hmm... I miss their old songs so watching this is kinda nostalgic. I think they should hire the songwriter for Hey! Say! JUMP. HSJ's more grown up songs still retain the HSJ cutesy feel from their younger days. That's what makes them remain unique. I guess it does not help that Sexy Zone members don't really have unique voice. Generic voice + generic music makes them fall into obscurity like the most of Johnny's Associates boybands.

Happy New Year 2015!!

Happy New Year 2015!! I'm know I'm late. Lol.. I am usually 'high' when it is near Christmas and New Year but this time, everything took a back seat because of my surgery. Although there is a 1.5 weeks delay, I still must do what I usually do at year end and new year: looking back at the past year and my hopes for the coming year.

Considering health aside, I have to say 2014 was a year full of blessings for me. Work is always stressful but I am glad that I had the opportunities to do external things like being involved in Singapore Pharmacy congress and SEA Games 2015 planning. Despite the disappointment in the previous year, I felt very blessed that my decision to continue with the project paid off with winning the first Sustainability Award for my company. I really did not expect that and it was a huge relief, pride, and happiness that my hard work was greatly paid off. Near the end of the year, I was offered to do a clinical training. I am not interested in clinical things and I know that no way I will pass the interview even if I want. But now, the chance was offered in front of me and I decided to take the challenge. I also "broke" my limit by performing/dancing at company's D&D. Dancing is not something that I will ever consider but I did it although until now I still don't dare to watch the video. Haha..

I was a lot less anti-social in 2014. I went to Bintan, I went cycling, I participated in Spongebob Charity Walk, and a few outings with old friends who came to Singapore.

Now comes the bad part. Something is actually worse than health: my spiritual life. I sort of stopped going to church for the past 6 months. Yep.. it is kinda ironic that when life is going smoothly, I will just forget about the One behind it all. I honestly think that the hernia thing was a red flag from God asking me to stop, look back, and return to Him. Although all seemed lost, I still have to be thankful that I decided to get a health insurance earlier this year. At least the surgery did not really cause me financial disaster.

Talking about money, I destroy myself financially with my own spending on toys etc. Every end of the year, I feel that I spend way too much. But when I really count all the dollars and cents, I discover that my spending increases exponentially year-by-year. Sigh.. I think I spent about double of my 2013 spending.

For 2015, my hope is just to be healthy and happy. Fuck work as working hard also does not result in me getting higher bonus or better performance review. So I might as well focus on my health and well-being first. I also want to cut down my spending and save up. I am literally running out of space so I will definitely be forced to stop buying. In fact I am already not pre-ordering several figures that I will definitely pre-order if I don't have any space issues.

I am trying to lead a healthy life and I vow to avoid fast food, junk food, and bubble teas for a start. I will limit Starbucks (high sugar drinks lol) to once a month too. Haha..

Lastly but most importantly, I hope I can get my faith back. My aim to pray 1 rosary a day already fails so I hope I can at least attend mass regularly again.