[New Prince of Tennis x Zoff] Collaboration Collection - School Line: Shitenhoji

I purchased this together with the Seigaku design so I will go direct to my opinion specifically on this Shitenhoji design as my other comments are already in the previous post. The details for the whole collection is here while the details for Shitenhoji design specifically is here.

Just to reinforce that practicality still trumps fanboying, I actually am not a fan of Shitenhoji in the series. I suppose partly because other than Kintaro and Shiraishi, the rest of the characters do not really get enough limelight. The characters representing Shitenhoji here are Oshitari Kenya and Zaizen Hikaru. Honestly, I cannot even remember who is who without googling. Haha.. Kenya is the one looking like Shiraishi and Hikaru is the one looking like any other black-haired PoT characters. Wow.. looks like Takeshi Konomi is running out of character designs as the story progresses. After all Shitenhoji is the last school being introduced since Rikkaidai in the National Tournament finals is already introduced during the Kanto Tournament.

While green is my favourite colour, lime green is not and it is worse when combined with yellow which I dislike. What really got me interested in this design is the inverted half-frame design. Usually half-frame will be frameless at the bottom but this is frameless at the top. My degrees are very high and my lens will be heavy.  I usually avoid frameless out of concern of the weight of the lens. That is not really a concern with this half-frame design since the support is the bottom. Enough justifications (read: excuses) and let's go the photos.

Everything that I received

Lens wipe: their gakuran is almost identical as Seigaku's

Can badge

The case design is based on the school emblem

The inner design of the case is rather plain

Honestly I am quite excited about this design as it is my first time ever

The temples take the colour scheme of Shitenhoji's tennis uniform

Racket head as the tip of left temple

Racket grip as the tip of the right temple

In total this costs me 7700 yen (price) + 500 yen (forwarding fee) + 1510 yen (EMS). Of course the forwarding fee and EMS are inclusive of the Seigaku spectacles.

NB: Tagging this post as 'Toys' for ease of searching in the future.

[New Prince of Tennis x Zoff] Collaboration Collection - School Line: Seigaku

I saw this Prince of Tennis spectacles after I came back from Japan last April. After about one month of deliberation (because I think Zoff's quality is not as good and because I already have 2 new Digimon spectacles), I decided to succumb and pre-ordered. The item was sent in November and I procrastinated with taking photos. In the end I only took photos in order to test my new camera and for me to get used to it just before my Japan trip last December. If not because of the Prince of Tennis Chinese drama that I just finished, perhaps these photos will still be in my hard disk doing nothing. Haha..

New Prince of Tennis x Zoff Collaboration Collection has 10 different designs. The 'School Line' (going for 7700 yen each after tax) has designs based on the schools tennis uniform: Seigaku, Hyotei, Rikkaidai, Shitenhoji, and Higa Chuu. The 'Private Line' has designs based on specific characters: Ryoma, Yukimura, Atobe, and Shiraishi. The last one design is called the Megane☆Seven based on this subunit. The 'Private Line' and Megane☆Seven design are more expensive at 9900 yen each after tax. Each comes with specially designed case, lens cloth, and can badge.

While seemingly cheaper than the Digimon x Megane Ichiba spectacles, these prices are just for the frame without the lenses. Ouch! My lens from Megane Ichiba is 1.74 and to have this lens in Zoff, it will be an additional 9900 yen (after tax). In Zoff Singapore, it is $118 but there is an additional charge (I asked before but now I forget how much) since my frame will be considered as not bought from shop. So in total, this Zoff spectacles cost me more but has lousier quality (the plastic is so thin and flimsy that it feels of a weak build) than Megane Ichiba.

For more details about this collection, you can click here. Even until now I am still unable to access that page properly. Haha.. Last time it did not work in my Chrome but it worked in Edge. Today I tried in Edge, as well as Firefox, and the page still did not display accordingly.

Ultimately I bought this with the intention of wearing so my main consideration is the practicality of wearing them, rather than just for the characters. The crazy me bought two: Seigaku and Shitenhoji. This post will be specifically about Seigaku design and the specifications can be referred here. Somehow the designs for the 'Private Line' are more outrageous and I cannot imagine myself wearing them so I was not even interested in any of them. Lucky for me since the 'Private Line' is more expensive.

Of all people, the chosen ones for Seigaku design are the Golden Pair. Gosh!! Kikumaru is my favourite character so the temptation was even bigger for me. But hey, practicality comes first. After all Oishi and Kikumaru are depicted just in the boring Seigaku school uniform. Haha... So the main practical reasons are the square shape and the blue colour. Previously I mentioned that I was considering Yamato's design because of the colour so finally now I have a blue spectacles. That is all for the text and let the pictures speak more about the actual item.

Everthing that I received

Lens wipe

Can badge

The case design is based on the school emblem

The inside of the case is rather plain

The frame colour is dark blue although somehow it always appears more like black in pictures.

The temples take the colour scheme of Seigaku's tennis uniform

Racket head as the tip of left temple

Racket grip as the tip of the right temple

I feel less impressed as compared to the previous Digimon spectacles but my bias towards Prince of Tennis still makes me not regretting this purchase. Hahaha. Since there is no degree, I treated this as buying other toys. Thus instead of using a proxy, I used a forwarder service (Big in Japan). In total this costs me 7700 yen (price) + 500 yen (forwarding fee) + 1510 yen (EMS). Of course the forwarding fee and EMS are inclusive of the Shitenhoji spectacles.

NB: Tagging this post as 'Toys' for ease of searching in the future.

Out of body experience

Lent just began and the temptation to fail what I am going to give up this Lent is already so huge. Today is not as bad as yesterday and I am glad that I successfully resisted the temptations in these past two days. The desire to slim down is also a motivation for me. Yesterday at gym, I felt that this body was no longer mine as the belly has never been this hard fat before. I know I am not slim but usually when the stomach is empty, I can 'suck in' my stomach and the belly is soft when pressed. Perhaps my weighing machine is broken since it does not show much weight gain. Bleah...

I remember an advice I read before the start of this Rat year: to watch my mouth in order to prevent conflict. I kept reminding myself this as this week I felt like losing my cool with colleagues. I hate to clean others' mess and I hate it even more when the person making the mess made it as if the mess became my responsibility. Fuck sia. One day later, everyone was pretending busy and no time to look into the enquiry. Typical irresponsible people. The same fucker asked me to do because my task list seemed to be the shortest. Do not use my efficiency to cover your own slackness and fake attempt to siam from the enquiry. Fiuh.. I had to google 'slackness' since I do not know the noun form. Lol. Initially I thought it was 'slackiness'.

Few weeks ago, I got very irritated with my laptop which had been slow to start up and all that. It got better after that. After a few rounds of slowness and normalcy, I finally notice that the slowness is always caused by Windows Update. I have to be patient to wait until the installation is completed and everything is back to normal. I was too impatient in the past since I assumed it was my laptop dying.

Wow.. clearly I have not really been myself this past few days with these virtues of patience and self control.

While the local situation of coronavirus seems to be improving, the situation in other parts of the world is worsening. My company is extending WFH arrangement which of course is greatly appreciated. Hehe.. I read with envy that the healthcare workers will be receiving a month bonus. Welcome to the private world when risk of recession means I may not even get a bonus next year. I have to remind myself that a month bonus is nothing compared to WFH for a month. I hope the WFH is extended until end March at least since I am really enjoying my after work nap.

Currently one thing constantly bothering me is my dad who has not been feeling well. My intuition is similar to what I felt before my grandma passed away. Sigh.. I do not want to think too much about it but really: am I ready if my dad has to go? My worrying is not going to change anything so what I can do now is only pray and pray and pray.

The Prince of Tennis Chinese Drama 2019 (奋斗吧,少年)

Tokyo DOGS was the last drama that I watched and blogged about. Since then I have not watched any other J-dramas. I watched a few (less than 5 titles) web series in Youtube but I was procrastinating and ended up never wrote about them. Now that life has been kinder to me, I finally have the time to watch and write. Never I imagine I would be watching and writing about Chinese drama as usually I avoid them. However since I love the Prince of Tennis (hint: it is the third anime icons I put in the sidebar of this blog page), I cannot overlook this. I know there is a Chinese live action version previously in 2008-2009 but until now I give up on finding a good quality to watch. The 2019 version is airing in Netflix so I can find a streamed version with crisp image and perfect subtitle. Thanks Netflix!

I am not exactly sure of the actual title of the series. For me, 'The Prince of Tennis Chinese Drama 2019' seems to be the clearest. Netflix calls it 'The Prince of Tennis ~Match! Tennis Juniors~' which is not an exact translation of the Chinese title. The Chinese title seems to be '奋斗吧,少年' (Fen Dou Ba Shao Nian) but I also find promotional pictures with '网球少年' (Wang Qiu Shao Nian) as the title.

It has been more than a decade since I watched the anime and read the manga so I cannot really remember the details of the story in the manga or anime, especially since this drama is based on the early part of the series. What makes PoT special are the characters and their special moves. These are not easily forgettable. This Chinese drama is superb with the visual. I did not check what Chinese names correspond to which Japanese names but from the uniforms and the actors, I am able to roughly remember who they correspond too. I am still amazed that they can find real people whose look resemble the anime characters, which are imaginary. Of course not 100% of the actors can really look like the anime character designs but I would say there are quite a lot whose physical appearance resemble their corresponding cartoon characters.

The drama is quite faithful to the original manga. I would say it is 70-80% according to the manga.  They did a good job by not changing anything about the characters and their skills. Most of the changes are mostly about changing orders and still taking the elements from the original manga. For example, in the drama Yu Qing (Seigaku) battles No 6 High School (Rokakku) before Xing Yao (Hyotei). In the original, the order is Hyotei first. The Ichinen trio is replaced with one classmate of Lu Xia (Ryoma) and 2 sophomores but eventually it is still 3 'commentators' of each match. One of these sophomores, Huang Jing, is actually based on Arai in the original.

Unfortunately, things which deviate from the original story are the weak links. This is where I think it is obvious that the writers suck. Halfway through the series, a few episodes suddenly become very draggy and boring. Golden Pair's argument is dragged until so many episodes that it makes both Da Yong (Oishi) and Jia Le (Eiji) very petty which are not their anime/manga personalities. Si Yang (Tezuka) leaves the team twice for his arm injury and the team simply fall apart. It is understandable to happen once. But for that to happen twice consecutively is just lame. The biggest fail is how things feel so forced for Lu Xia (Ryoma) to find a better reason to play tennis. It feels so naggy and draggy. So please la, just follow the original materials instead of trying to make changes and end up making things bad.

As a sports drama, the matches are so bad as they do not invoke any adrenaline rush. It is okay for the special moves to be animated because after all we know they are not realistic. However, it is quite disappointing that most of the matches are fake. It is obvious that the actors were just hitting air and the balls were added digitally. I mean it is okay to do that but at least for a bit of realism, there should be some with actual balls. It is so obvious from their muscle tension when they are hitting air and it is so fake when they are supposedly struggling to hit a powerful ball but the facial expression and the arms do not show the struggle. Another thing that bothers me the most is the sweat. During few dramatic moments, when they show the characters are tired or struggling, the sweat is so exaggerated. During the non-dramatic moments, even after a long rally or after the game is running for quite some time until the middle of the match, the characters do not sweat at all despite the sun.

The opening song is sung by the cast which is a nice homage to the anime which has many of the theme songs sung by the seiyuus. Somehow I find the ending song quite familiar and after searching a bit more about it, it is sung by Hu Xia who also sings Na Xie Nian, the theme song of the Taiwanese drama You are the Apple of My Eye. No wonder the voice is so familiar as that song is one the few Mandarin songs in my Youtube lists.

The opening song. I cannot read the title (正少年) except for the last two words are Shao Nian.

One interesting fact to mention is that Li Na (perhaps the most successful Chinese tennis athlete in real life) also appears as cameo here. It is revealed in the last episode that she plays as herself when Lu Xia (Ryoma) was introduced to her.

Anyway it is good to see this drama has pretty good reviews. I personally think it is so so and that partly because I am a PoT fan. If I am not a fan, I think this is less than so so. The ending hints about National Tournament and I hope they will make season 2. Even so, I don't think I will re-watch this series as it is actually pretty boring as a drama. Lol. Having said that, I actually completed 40 episodes x 45 minutes each in 8 days so it is not really super boring la.

Watching this drama is bittersweet for me as I am brought back to my younger days more than a decade ago when PoT is really a big thing. I remember that I hate to read manga online but PoT was an exception because I could not wait to read the closure of the National Tournament. I also had GBA emulators and bought joystick for my laptop to play PoT games but I never really got into the non-GBA games. Sigh.. sad facts of working life. I also collect the CD singles and albums and now I need to dig which portable hard disk they are at as they are not transferred to my current laptop. Perhaps it is also time to check out if I can find the various OVAs and movies that I have not watched. After almost a decade since their releases, they should be more available online.

Gearing up for Lent

I don't know how I ended up with recommendations of the 2019 Chinese drama Prince of Tennis in my youtube video recommendations. I knew about the series last year but I am not into Chinese series since I do not know where to find the subbed versions. In fact, I am not even into Japanese dramas as well. I did not manage to find the subbed episodes in youtube and I decided to ask my sister for recommendations on where to watch Chinese dramas online. I finished 40 episodes from last Sunday until yesterday. I am amazed that I still have this kind of stamina and now the theme songs keep haunting me.

The work from home week has been a blessing. It saves me 2 hours of commute and at 530pm I could already sleep on my bed instead of on MRT seats. Hehe.. The only problem is my eyes since I do not have far away things to look at to rest my eyes. My eyes feel very tired and sometimes my head is painful. I won't complain though because WFH is good. Hehe.. With the improving coronavirus situation locally, I think this week will be the last WFH and everything will be back to normal next week.

I start to go to gym again and the alternate day arrangement to go to office makes it very conducive for my alternating exercise and rest days. I went for my dermatologist appointment on Saturday and I did not manage to get into to any gym slot. So even when I wanted to go for consecutive days, I could not. Haha.. Yesterday I was so tempted to skip because I wanted to finish watching Prince of Tennis but it seems that watching a sport series was a good encouragement to get into shape. So I went to gym so that on the way home, I could buy KFC chicken skin. Hahaha... It is pretty expensive at $3.50 but at least it is more substantial and look more like the actual skin in their fried chicken compared to the KFC chicken skin I bought in Bangkok last year.

I basically lost control for my diet last week. Not only with KFC on yesterday, I also had Subway (to try the cheese garlic bread), Long John's Silver (lunch with colleagues), McD (to try the McGirdles with bacon) last week. I also had 4 packs of potato chips in total. I always made an excuse to try new ones and avoid Kettle's which I like. All 4 packs were disappointing and I really should just stick on Kettle's when I have cravings. Haiz.. Anyway I realise that Ash Wednesday is coming in two days time. Thus I promise once Lent begins, I will stick on to no fast food, no junk food, and fruits for dinner (i.e. avoiding Deliveroo for weekend dinners).

Unexpectedly, I fall into the habit of online shopping again. Sigh.. Firstly I saw Gundam Wing merchandises at Gundam Cafe. My friend was having honeymoon in Japan last week so I am lucky to have him helping me to buy. I did not go into Gundam Cafe at all when I was in Japan because there was a long queue and I did not know that there would be Gundam Wing merchandises. It led me to getting random Gundam Wing keychains and music box (again! this will be my third!) from Yahoo! Auction Japan.

Things are getting worse when I found out Prime 1 Studio 1/4 figure of Phoenix Ikki. I found a local seller at Carousell and basically I bought it. Gg.com. When I was browsing the store, I found out about Kids Logic 1/4 Saint Seiya Statues with Digital Sound System. Goddess Athena and Gemini Saga were already sold out and they are planning to make all 12 Gold Saints. Wow.. As much as I am tempted, I am not too disappointed because Kids Logic quality does not seem to be very good based on the 2 Shurato figures from them that I own. Not to mention that I do not see any use of the speaker so it is like a waste of money. And how will I keep 12 1/4 scale statues sia... Having said all of these, I will definitely buy if they release Aries Mu :)

WFH, not WTH

Earlier this week, things were improving with fewer cases reported and I was expecting that the end of the whole current Wuhan virus saga may come soon. However things overturned quickly and suddenly that things are looking worse now. In the era of insane connectivity with social media and fake new etc, it is difficult to decipher what is truth and what is lie. I chuckle when I read commentaries from smart alecs who may not even be medically trained and compare this Wuhan virus with H1N1 for example. Hello... H1N1 had a cure back then as compared to no cure now.

Nevertheless, it does not matter whether we are trained medically, epidemiologically, and whatever, we just see the responses to assess. After all, actions speak louder than words. Chinese new year and money are very important so the fact that the holiday was extended and lockdown was initiated during CNY period really meant something. Not to mention at that time, the number of cases was still low.

As of yesterday in Singapore, the Catholic Church has suspended all Masses and activities from 12pm today indefinitely. With Mass suspended, there is no reason for me to go out on weekends anymore. Initially I was still considering to attend Novena this morning but I chickened out when thinking everyone would be chionging as only morning sessions would be available. One case also attended Church of Christ the King last weekend. Yeah I am a coward. In addition, doctors are instructed to give 5 days MC for URTI cases regardless of whether the person is suspected of Wuhan or not. I better not have any URTI as 5 days MC will quickly deplete my sick leave allowance and this is only February.

There were anecdotes of nurses in uniform getting ostracised or even abused by the public. It takes two hands to clap and in this case, I think both sides share the guilt. Yes there are members of public who overreact but at the same time, I think the nurses should also just bring change of clothes to avoid any potential altercation. We cannot control how others behave but we can only control ours. So instead of hoping people will understand etc, they should do what is within their control. It is like those people who sneeze and cough in public transport. They may not carry the virus but if they choose to sneeze and cough in public, they should not be upset if others around them feel wary.

Of course it is good to see that majority is not behaving like this and shows their support for the nurses and healthcare workers. Praise from others is one thing but self-praise is no praise. I am sorry but I feel quite disgusted seeing my friends in healthcare who are posting that they are heroes and all that. Come on! All of you are just doing your daily work. It is not as if you are taking care of the patients with the Wuhan virus. Haha perhaps this is why I left because I simply do not fit into such culture.

From next week my company has finally decided to activate the split team arrangement. At any one day, half of the team will be working from the office and the other half from home. Ideally I hope that the switch will happen every 2-3 days or every week. Now that it is changing on an alternate day basis, that means I have to commute daily with laptop. Oh well I should not be complaining, that is just a small inconvenience. After all it is better to be WFH (work from home) than to be WTH in my old job.

Hard push

Sometimes you need to be pushed hard enough to overcome inertia. Continuing my banking woes story, as expected and no surprises, both Donki and UOB do not help. Donki customer service is especially useless: does not address my concern at all and play it down as mere 'miscommunication' and the person still has the cheek to ask me to send the receipt so that they can speak to the staff. Pui.. I hope someone makes a bigger screw up and will make a bigger hoohah to screw Donki back. No point complaining only so I shall show my displeasure by not shopping from them anymore. I have been regularly buying Tokucha which supposedly can help with weight loss. I guess it is time to conclude that it is not helpful and I can finally let it go. Haha.. I spent almost $1000 so far according to my Donki app and so yeah, that's it. With Donki regular spending out of the picture now, it is time to monitor my spending and decide if it is time to axe UOB card too.

On a positive note, I received my letter of increment on Monday. This is my first round of complete appraisal cycle and I am ecstatic with my increment, performance bonus, and promotion to Assistant Manager. This brings my pay to be comparable to what I would be earning if I never changed job in 2018. An 11.x% increment for promotion is comparable to 10.x% increment for promotion in my old job. There is no more corporate bonus here so overall the annual earning is less too. What is priceless is the appreciation and recognition of the work. My performance bonus is 1.6 which is higher than the average (I was told the average is 0.8). I would not be able to get such number in my previous job even if I were to run out of saliva to do all the sucking up.

Honestly I still harbour some anger and unhappiness over the favouritism shit in my previous workplace. However looking at where I am now, it is a blessing in disguise. It is another case of me being pushed to the breaking point that made me decide to leave the familiarity, take the pay cut, and just try to look for a better opportunity. Now I just have to be myself (no more acting, no more fake positivity), I get my work life balance, I am being appreciated for who I am, and I need not to endanger myself with risk of Wuhan virus exposure.

Thank God for opening the right doors for me and sending angels along my journey so far that I am able to just be myself and yet arrive at where I am today. I promise nothing will change. I will still consider my work as helping my boss and helping my colleagues instead of for my personal gain. After all, I cannot be bothered about the new title. All I care about is the money and my work life balance. Hehe..

I am still struggling with my prayer life and this good news potentially triggers my pride and will push me even further from God. However, I choose to see this as something to be thankful for and even though I feel very distant right now, I will keep on praying even if it is just a lip service to say thank you, God.

Banking woes

Yesterday DORSCON level was elevated to orange and Singapore suddenly went into a frenzy mode to hoard the groceries. I need to replenish my bananas and dragonfruits every two days so I was worried that I would be run out of food. Luckily my colleagues who are experienced homemakers share their wisdom: perishables cannot be hoarded so do not worry about running out of food. Anyway I still have L-men stock untouched ever since I switched them for dragonfruits so I should be fine.

I wore mask when attending Novena this morning and most people were actually not wearing masks. It is actually quite funny to see that the older people were not wearing while the younger people were wearing. Climbing the stairs and then reciting the rosaries while wearing mask made me breathless. I think I will not wear it for tomorrow Mass.

The panic hoarding still continued. There were already people queuing before FairPrice opened. Luckily I usually shop at Don Don Donki which is still well-stocked. Their shelves for noodles are emptier than usual and their rice shelves are empty but I do not think we will run out of food yet la. Prevention is better than cure so I take this as an opportunity to buy things that I normally will not buy: instant pastas. Lol. I only bought 2 cups of instant noodles and 2 cups of instant pastas hor. I also got my banana and dragonfruit at least until Monday. Usually I will not queue when the queue is crazy but I do not know when this madness will die down. Thanks to the self-checkout kiosks, the queue was not that bad. I think people looked at me like an idiot who only bought 2 fruits while I looked at them like idiots stock up toilet paper for what.

Hmm so what have these got to do with this post's title eh? Sigh.. I want to bitch about my bad experience with airmiles hunting. Firstly I finally cancelled my Bank of China World Elite Master Card in December. This is the most disgustingly dishonest bank that I am happy to end the banking relationship. I could tahan their dishonesty at the start for the sake of 5 miles/foreign currency spending which ended up to be 'transaction processed overseas'. It took me numerous phone calls in early 2019 to get miles as promised. Their T&C was finally updated sometime in March last year to reflect the actual 'transaction processed overseas' definition. The customer service officer helped to rectify my 2018 points in Jan 2019 promised to look into my Jan-Feb 2019 turned out to be a big lying bastard. Now the finality that made me close my card is the lie about annual fee waiver. BOC's definition of annual fee waiver request is a request to redeem the points for the waiver. What the fuck? Using points = waiver? Because of this unforeseen lie and stupidity, I ended up with close to 7000 orphaned points. What could have worth perhaps about 2000 krisflyer miles ended up as $10 Takashimaya voucher and the remaining orphaned points wasted. Damn! After this, never ever I will have anything to do with BOC anymore.

Next is an honest mistake that just happened this morning. I unintentionally used my UNI$ for Donki voucher: something that worth 6000 miles ended up as $30 voucher. WTF. I go Donki every week and this is the first time ever that that UOB rewards can be exchanged to Donki voucher. The thing is I used UOB One Card which usually deals with SMART$. My UNI$ is all from another card. So when I was asked about rewards when using my One card today, I presumed it was the SMART$. I know I am partly guilty for not asking more details but the Donki Staff had a share in the problem too. She did not specify what rewards (in comparison, Cold Storage cashiers always specified 'Would you redeem your SMART$?' instead of 'your rewards') and only AFTER the transaction was completed that she went through with me what I redeemed for how much. By then, there was nothing could be done. UOB also has a share in this. How can my card that has got nothing to do with UNI$ can suddenly be used to redeem UNI$! Haiz.. I called UOB and was informed there was nothing could be done. Bleah.. I am trying my luck and making noise via email and to Donki as well. Hoping for a miracle.

Damn sian la.. 2020 is really looking up to be a shitty year.

Reflecting 2019

This is the worst episode of food poisoning I have ever experienced. Last night I spiked a fever at 1am and even after taking panadol, I could not really sleep. Without even being asked if I need any MC, doctor straight away gave me another 2 days so it must be quite jialat. I knew when he tapped around my tummy, everywhere had gas sound and it was louder than when I went to see doctor on Tuesday. My tongue was also all white which showed how dry or dehydrated I was. Looking at the bright side, at least I have the time to complete this 2019 reflection which is long overdue.

Thank God for my 2019 which has been a smooth sailing and full of blessings. Other than the most recent screwed up by my sister who spoiled the year end holiday, I could only recall one other thing that made me so upset in 2019: misunderstandings with colleagues at PH. I still have to get used to how childish and how sensitive they can be. Bleah.. Surprisingly I did not find any blog post about those incidences. Either I have matured to just consider these childish behaviours as normal or they are just insignificant happenings in my life. Either way, both are not really that important or bother me that much until I have to bitch about it in the blog. Hehe..

The three things I promised earlier for 2019 were on spirituality, personal health, and finance. I am pretty happy with some achievements in these aspects. I would say I am pretty proud as well because usually new year resolutions are meant to be broken after all :p

My spiritual life is definitely more alive than in 2018. I am able to attend Sunday masses regularly (minus the times I was overseas) and not begrudgingly. I continue to participate in Landings although there was a period of time in which I kept having the temptations to skip and stop. Thanks to my godmother, attending Novena to Mother of Perpetual Help has become my regular Saturday activity. I feel more positive when going for my monthly volunteering session. So overall I am fulfilling my promise to use the free Saturdays that come with my new work for less selfish purposes.

With my lack of purpose in life, I even went for a vocation retreat to explore if religious life is my fate. Although I said I was keen to explore, I did not hear any update. Well I have made myself available but perhaps that is not God's plan for me either.

I skip to finance first which I have successfully achieved the re-recording of all my expenses since my previous record was destroyed with my crashed computers. I have not really analysed to see how I can improve since I am planning to track back my spendings for my past overseas trips. I am sure that my toy spendings have been reduced because of my lack of space and in exchange, my money goes to my overseas trips but I do not know how much damage those overseas trips have caused me.

Now personal health is the one I am not happy with my 2019 progress. I got myself injured again and after recovery, I am going to gym 4 times a week at most (on alternate days) as I am worried of another injury. Because of my eyes, I was advised to eat more banana and red dragonfruit. Banana replaces bread as breakfast while red dragonfruit replaces L-men for dinner. However, I cannot maintain the discipline for dinners and I am eating junk food more than what I should be.

As a recap, I think I traveled way too much in 2019: twice to Japan, thrice to the Philippines (for work), once to Taiwan and Thailand. I would like to return to be a home-boy this year as I have been away from home for too long and I need to repair my finances. Nevertheless, I have no regrets as I always dream of work travels and I am happy to explore new parts of Japan or being to Taiwan for the first time.

Work also deserves a special mention because after one year, I still do not have the feeling of waking up with 'I don't feel like working'. I hope this is going to continue this year.

In all, 2019 has been funtastic and I am really grateful to God for that. My wish list for 2020 will be:
1) Rest
I would like to put a pause to spending my holiday for overseas trip. Instead, I would like to return to spending holidays just resting and being a useless boy at home like the old days. It is time to spend more time and reconnect with my family.

2) Purpose in life
Truth to be told, I still have no purpose in life and I still pray to die so that I can be heaven like right now. I do not know if I really should try finding a girlfriend but even then also where to find. Sigh.. After the spiritual high last year, I am very aware that I start to feel slowly drifting away from God. Even though this is expected, it is very worrisome for me.

3) Finance
This is a continuation from 2019. Please finish tracing back all the overseas spendings and put financial planning back in order!

4) Health
Diet control! Discipline! That is what I really need to work hard for. I am not too worried about gym because as long as I do not injure myself, so far extending gym regularly has not been an issue.

The start of 2020 has not been kind for the world but let's pray for the best.

Weekend trip home for friend's wedding

I just went back to Jakarta over the weekend to attend a friend's wedding. I was contemplating if I should cancel and sacrificed the air ticket since Changi airport is considered a high risk area. I am not that worried if I kena the wuhaha virus but I am more worried if I am spreading it. I wore N95 that a colleague helped to buy when she went back to Malaysia over the CNY. The airport was not as scary as what my colleagues described last week, not sure if it was because I was taking a late evening flight. It was less crowded than usual and surprisingly, not that many wore masks. Perhaps it was 50:50. In the transit area, there were fewer people wearing. Perhaps they were just transiting and hence not that informed and worried about the latest happening. I decided to take of my mask since it was unfitted and uncomfortable. It was too small and the nose part interfered with the nose pads of my spectacles. I normally choose aisle seat but as precaution, I chose a window seat with 8 seats surrounding mine unoccupied. Initially I did not want to remove my mask so I was preparing not to eat the meal. Although I already removed the mask, I was just not in the mood to eat. By the way all the air stewardesses were also wearing mask.

I reached home past 1am and it was later by another 5 minutes, it would be a nightmare thinking on how to bring down my luggage as it started to rain heavily. After catching up for a short while with my dad and elder sister, I finally slept at 3am. I have been away for so long (almost 2 years) that my room does not feel like my room anymore: new aircon, my things on the bed were rearranged elsewhere, thick layer of dust, dim room light which has not been changed yet, and a new plain green bedsheet which clashes with wall colour that makes me eww. All these changed in the morning when I woke up as I felt that the feeling of restfulness was more shiok. The feeling of home with all the childhood memories and nostalgia is different compared to hotels or my rental room in Singapore. This is the longest period I have been away from home and clearly that does not change my feeling.

It was still raining although it was not as heavy as earlier. It got me worried because the sudden flood on the New Year's Day earlier this year occurred so rapidly within the few hours of heavy rain after the countdown. I wanted to go to Mal Kelapa Gading and the rain almost disrupted the plan. I refused to take the risk of dashing through the flood water and thank goodness there was GoCar. Rp 15000 just to 'cross' the road seems expensive but when I convert it to $1.50, it seems reasonable.

My main reason to go was to get cashew nuts for my landlord. We ended up spending more time taking photos with Disney's CNY decorations. My sisters were more excited but I was not so. Firstly the decorations were just cardboards and secondly I was in a hideous outfit. I could not find my jeans so I was in my old berms. I only took photos with decorations that blocked the lower half of my body. After knowing that some of the decorations were moveable, I went a bit thick skin with the bao and ingot decorations.

The manga industry in Indonesia seems to be dying. My sister has been telling me that there are not that many to buy anymore. The ~1.5 years worth of comics are just as many as ~6 months worth many years ago. The comics section in Gramedia is much smaller now. Even when I want to force myself to find a new series to collect, most of them are just not appealing. I ended up starting Edens Zero (Fairy Tail has ended and Edens Zero is the next title from the mangaka, Hiro Mashima) and Fate/Grand Order -turas realta- (Fate is a popular series that I never get to know further other than from its merchandises so this may be a good introduction).

I went to my friend's wedding in the evening. There were only around 5 of my junior high school friends there. One of them was quite unexpected since I did not know if he was close or in the same clique as this wedding friend. So it was our first encounter after almost 2 decades. Now come to think of it, it is quite curious how I get closer to my friend until I am willing to have a weekend trip for his wedding. I do not remember we were ever classmates at school last time. More than a decade later somehow I agreed to visit Japan with him and then another time 2 years later so I really owe it to him for going to Japan twice a year after that.

It was raining again in the early morning and the drain outside the house was already full. When I arrived (barely 2 nights ago), the drains were still empty. In some of the streets which are lower than my street, the water already spilled over to the road. Thank goodness it was not really flooding and I was able to go to airport with no hassle. Before that, we had lunch at a steamboat restaurant. I am not a fan of steamboat but since this was my father's choice, I decided to be guai.

That may turn out to be a mistake since I am sick now. I felt lightheaded on Monday afternoon but I was alright in the evening. I felt lightheaded again on Tuesday morning which I thought because I had not eaten breakfast yet. After I had breakfast, I felt like throwing up. Nearing the middle of the day, my colleagues started to notice that I looked to tired and unwell. I told them that I would see doctor after my meeting in the afternoon.

It seemed that I had food poisoning. I have been very tired in the past 2 days and did not have time to shit in the morning so maybe all the toxin was still inside me. I still shit once daily: not diarrhea but there was little solid and it was dirty black. Eewww... After afternoon nap, I woke up with a fever and the news of local transmission of the Wuhan virus which made me even more worried though I did not have any cough and flu symptoms though. I felt better this morning but after my lunch, I felt lightheaded and nauseated again. Gosh.. I still cannot pass motion as smoothly as I want so I think most of the toxin is still in me. Sianz... It really sucks to fall sick until you cannot do anything other than resting. Not to mention that with the ongoing wuhaha... damn... If I am still unwell tomorrow, I do not mind to get another MC until the weekend although that means I will be using one third of my yearly quota sia...