Bye bye CB

I just had another nasty and disappointing volunteering session yesterday (since now is past midnight when I am typing this). I set out with a positive mindset to be helpful and bring joy but sadly circumstances turned me into a devil again. Last week I was already quite pissed with having 30 patients and yesterday, they had 43. I am not upset or angry because I had to work harder or spend longer hours. I am upset and angry because it was just impossible. If they are going to increase the load, then jolly well get another person to help with the dispensing. We ended past 1030pm just now and if I were to keep my cool and standard (i.e. no rushing, no scolding), perhaps we would only end at midnight.

If last week, I was scolding 25% of the time, today I leveled up to even blackfacing and throwing tantrum. It pissed me off when people started to get impatient and crowding at the door. That was not gonna make me able to do more quickly. While they had the guts to be that impatient, when their turns came, they still wasted time by not knowing their queue numbers, their IC numbers, and so on. There were still people who shamelessly asked for freebies. What the fucking hell man!

I am not making excuses that these external factors drove me nuts. However, the ultimate thing that really upset me is myself: I lost my cool, I was rude, I was not able to be as professional as I wanted to do. Basically I did not do what I intended to do and did the opposite. Today would be my last day volunteering until I do not know when. This is not the first time I am feeling so angry. I am not being calculative and I am alright with longer hours. What I hate is when people cannot plan properly and end up 'abusing' the volunteers by admitting more than the capacity of the volunteers on that particular day. This has been a perennial issue and that is why they find it difficult to retain volunteers. It sucks to reduce the standard of our practice just so that we can make sure everyone (yes including the patients) not waiting for too long and not going home too late.

I took a photo in full PPE and I said my goodbye that yesterday was my last day of volunteering. That is the truth and I am not sulking because indeed yesterday was the last session assigned to me. If they are going to approach me for June, I will definitely refuse at least for the first 2 weeks. It is not the physical tiredness. It is more of the mental burden and the guilt. It sucks wanting to do good but ending up hurting others and committing sins.

Let's end this rant with a moral question:

Is it better to help but end up hurting others and yourself or not help/do nothing so that noone gets hurt?

Dad loves car

Yesterday was the first night that I was able to sleep uninterrupted. It gave me hope that my sleeping pattern had returned to normal which turned out to be a false hope. Last night, I had interrupted sleep again and I had two dreams about my dad.

First dream was about me wanting to open an umbrella to take out things from the car. However, my dad said to let him do that and asked me to wait at the covered part in front of the house so that he could pass over the things. I even vividly remembered that at the end of this dream, I told him to be careful and not to slip.

Second dream was about I would be late for school (for exam!) because my sisters were hogging the toilet for too long. My dad turned out to be already waiting in the car to drive me. I noticed that he was reading the newspaper while waiting for me and he was wearing the shorts usually he wore at home. I was quite emo because of this dream awakened the childhood memories at home before I came to Singapore. It was dad who drove us (including my sisters) to school when I was in junior high school. It was just like the dream: it was always him waiting in the car and chasing after us while we were still busy going to the toilet at last minute, putting our socks and shoes, or even finishing the last bite of the breakfast.

I dreamt about my dad again during my nap earlier. There was something first (which I could not recall) and I only remembered when he asked me to wake up at 6am tomorrow to follow him to go to Puncak. His car was making noises and he wanted me to help him video it so after that he could review the Youtube video to investigate the noise. Haha... no idea why Youtube was specifically mentioned. I immediately woke up because I was giving him black face. Lol.. It is not that I hate to go to Puncak, it is just that only once in a blue moon that I will be happy to go. What made me black face in the dream was about the something that I could not recall. I was like "Eh got that something happening but you want me to wake up so early tomorrow to go to Puncak with you".

The funny thing is I just noticed that the common thing across these three dreams is CAR. Perhaps car is indeed his most favourite object in the house. Haha.. People say that perhaps my dad visited me to say that he is already in the better place and that is how he can send me the message in the dream. The realistic part of me think that it was just a coincidence. It was raining heavily and repeatedly last night, I was chatting with my sister and jokingly angry at her before I slept last night, and I am watching Youtube videos too much lately. These are why they appeared in my dreams. The fallacy with this theory, however, is that I have not been thinking of my dad lately so why would my brain carry such thought in my sleep.

Whatever it is, I do not want to overthink or be sad or cry about my dad. I would like to freely let him be in heaven than making him worried about him. Nonetheless, these dreams made me emo again with the realisation that with his passing, everything that he had worked hard for was also left behind. So what is the point of working hard and how should I make use of my life? Sigh...

One week on

Today is the seventh day to commemorate my dad's passing. I am thankful for my cousins who live streamed the mass from my home. Just looking at the living room helped to soothe my homesickness. I really prefer to stay home there than my fake home here. Haiz.. I did not cry or have those negative feelings that swarmed me last week so I think I am mentally better. Strangely, I still had difficulty sleeping throughout the night and still woke up a few times.

Life is slowing getting to normal for me as I start to be bothered with the useless things that usually bothers me. For example, weight. I really do not think I can even go under 60kg. Having lost 10% of my weight, I wonder what I have actually lost since I think the excess fats around my belly is still as much as last time. After taking break from diet and exercise last week, I am restarting again.

May is the first month that I see how circuit breaker helps to save my money. For the first time, I am unable to meet the minimum $500 spending for my credit card this month. I could have saved even more if I did not order lunch delivery last week because I was too emo to go out. I will usually order delivery on the weekends but after doing my finance yesterday, I managed to restrain myself for today which happens to be Hari Raya. For this coming week, I will either buy from hawker centre or eat the instant food I stocked up for covid. I already stopped stocking up for the past 2 weeks but I cannot eat the instant food everyday because I find them not filling.

I still did not get a photo in PPE because on Saturday, the clinic manager was roaming around instead of being at the admin station. I was also not in the mood because there were 3 doctors on duty so there were around 30 patients for the session. Time is tight for 1 person to dispense to 30 patients so I was easily losing patience. Perhaps I lost my cool 25% of the time to everyone who jammed my queue. So disappointed with myself as my habit simply does not wear off just because I am not doing this as full time job anymore.

I just finished another Thai series in the past week. It is surprisingly a diamond in the rough. It is so difficult to follow at the start as it is so full of angst and I prefer lighthearted and comedic shows. The characters are so frustrating to watch but at the same time they are so well written. I am so angry at how "asshole" and how "stupid" the characters are but I cannot get angry to the series overall as these types of people really exist in real life so everything is still within the boundary of realism. Thank goodness the ending wraps up the series nicely.

Coincidentally, one ongoing series that I am currently following on Saturday made me a little bit emo. It is a comedy so it was unexpected that for this recent episode, two characters are bonding over stories of their respective fathers' death T_T Hur hur...

Farewell, Papi

Usually bad things drive me to write more easily than when happy things happen. This time around, there are too many things going on my mind that I find it difficult to even start or think how and what I am going to write. My dad passed away on Tuesday 19 May at 1123 WIB. Accepting and being prepared for this for quite some time lessen the hurt but it is still sad. I had difficulty sleeping on Tuesday and Wednesday that I had to take chlorpheniramine to help. I waited until 2am and still I did not feel sleepy when lying on the bed. Although I avoided thinking, the mind just did not shut off. The drug worked within half an hour on Tuesday but on Wednesday, perhaps I only fell asleep past 3am. Thankfully I was able to sleep without the drug yesterday, maybe because physically I was too tired because of the lack of sleep.

I have decided that I would only fly home when he passes away and until last week, I did not even bother to check if going home would be possible. I told myself that deciding to go home meant I already abandoned hope for his recovery. However, as his kidneys still did not work, I decided to check with my office for possible travel arrangement on Friday in case something happened over the weekend. I received the clearance to fly back and continue working from Jakarta until all these coronavirus restrictions are lifted since I do not want to get quarantined in mass facility as I worry of ending up catching the infection there. Hope dimmed further on Monday as that was already the fifth day of almost no urine output and I only checked the immigration requirements that dashed all my hope of going home. Without a negative PCR test, I would be swabbed and quarantined in Jakarta until the swab result is out. There is no way I can get a swab test here as it is only for suspect cases and if I want to avoid quarantine upon returning here, definitely I will not want to get quarantined in Jakarta.

I am very blessed and thankful for my cousins who helped to live stream the masses and the cremation for my dad. Although I was not there, at least I was able to 'join' virtually. My dad's siblings also could not attend as all the travel restrictions made them stuck at my dad's hometown. He was cremated at the same place where my aunt was cremated previously. As I was present for my aunt, at least it gave an idea of the whole process too.

Distance eases the pain but creates the pain. Not being there made me think that I really do not belong to the family and that is not something easy to face. My mum called me and I could say my last words to my dad when he was in critical condition. However after that, it was silence for the next hour. I did not know if he was still surviving or he already passed. I was not involved or even updated with the funeral stuff at all. Noone even asked me if I would like to pay respect via web camera. Noone asked me for the photos and the video ended up re-using most pictures for my grandparents' funerals. The most painful part was seeing my cousins helping with the processions to carry my dad's photo, the cross, and all that. 

I do not bear any grudges since I understand that they definitely had a lot of things to settle and just did not have the time for me. Looking at this, I can see God's presence in my life. He had given me more than 17 years of preparation: to live alone and distant as if not having a family (how many family events have I missed? how many times family bothered about me when I am away?). It is not my first time having these thoughts so instead of destroying me, I can recognise that these are useless thoughts that do not change anything so I should not stop thinking these. Instead, I did what I could: praying and hoping that my prayers would somehow help in his final journey to heaven. I am prepared for parting not only since my dad had the cancer. It was right since 2002. Each time I left home, the goodbye could always be the last one if the airplane did not arrive safely. It was as if preparing me mentally that I only have numbered days with my family and to be ready for goodbyes anytime.

Some crosses are meant to be personal and noone can help me with these personal crosses. I believe this is one of my personal crosses as I doubt majority can endure all these circumstances that I experienced (not able to pay last respect, only spoke to my dad once after his last surgery, being left out from the funeral stuffs). Just like the past 17 years, I can only rely on God and prayers to sustain me in these dark moments. In contrast, I did not have to witness my dad's sufferings and I do not have to deal with the pain of dealing with his personal effects at home. It makes me cry when I think of items that remind me of him. It can be as useless as the washing machine box that he refused to throw. My mum and my sisters will be even more sad to see the physical things and dealing with these. These would be their personal cross that even I am not able to help.

Previously, one thing that always worries me is what rites my parents will have when they pass away. I am very relieved and thankful that my dad was able to accept baptism into Catholic faith and hence he could receive a Catholic funeral. He passed away slightly more than a week after the baptism. Since baptism cleanses away sins and after his baptism, he was mostly bed-bound and not able to communicate, I believe that when he died, he did not have that many sins. Hopefully that means he would not spend too long in the purgatory. That is one assuring thought.

I always remember my dad who says good people will not trouble others even when they die. So usually they die on Thursday or Friday so that it is easy for others to pay respect and all the funeral etc can be completed by Sunday. This makes me scared every time weekend comes. If this theory is true then my dad is indeed a good person. He passed away on Tuesday and after 3 day wake, his cremation day also coincided with the Ascension so we prayed that he would also go to heaven on the same day. In fact, this coming Sunday is actually Hari Raya so if his Thursday/Friday theory is followed, it will be more troublesome to arrange things on public holiday.

As promised, I will not cry or regret anything over his passing so that he has nothing to 'tie' him down to this world and he can quickly pass to eternal life. Now I am struggling with the idea that perhaps I should stop praying. Despite already accepting and preparing for the worse, the thought of God not granting a miracle means my prayers are unanswered. Having overcome this thought, now praying reminds me of my dad and makes me cry even when I promise not to. I know this, too, shall pass but for now is something that confronts me everyday.

My only 'regret' is never able to bring him to Disneyland to see Mickey. It is not exactly a regret since I asked him twice to join me and my sister to Japan but he refused so we just have to respect his decision. Few things I had in mind this year never came into fruition too. I was thinking to have another photo studio this April since the last one we had was almost 10 years ago. After exploring that his KrisFlyer miles could not be transferred, we already strategised to have it topped up to 25000 and he could use it to fly to Bangkok again. I was even thinking of instead of using my miles for a First Class for myself, I could use it for Business Class tickets to Europe for my dad and my mum. Now Bangkok will always remind me him. That is the first place he brought me overseas in 2008 and is our last year's trip there is our final overseas trip together. Thank God for my friend's wedding earlier this year which turned out to be my last chance seeing my father. Otherwise, last year's Bangkok trip would be the last one.

Farewell, Papi. Although my prayers for God to allow you to experience the Eucharist, Christmas, and Easter are not answered, I think God has given you the better option to be able to experience life with him directly in heaven rather than on this Earth.

For face.. with face..

First time is always the worse. Second time onwards will be easier. I was miserable last week because of the PPE but yesterday I was completely alright. I am not really bothered about the sweating as I think that is unavoidable. I was very happy that my mouth was okay as last week it was the most painful part. There were more patients (18) but fewer chronic cases so the session ended half an hour earlier than last week. Yay.

I did not manage to take a photo with my full PPE gear yet :( I asked but the clinic manager thought I was reminding her to take a group photo. T_T This is irony of life. Previously when I had the chance to wear PPE once in one or two weeks for work, I could not be bothered about it. Now that my work no longer involves PPE, the rare opportunity to wear becomes something special. Honestly, a part of me wants the photo to show off also la. But I am not that ridiculous to think that I am doing all of this just to hao lian. After all, my face is on the line. Thanks to the mask and the face shield, all the parts of my face which are pressed by the mask, straps, and the face shield are having a breakout. I can always share the group photos but I like photos with only myself in it. Haha.. I hope next week I will have my chance to explicitly and thick-skinly say "Can you help me a photo of me alone to update my profile?" Hahaha..

I finished another Thai series this week and then followed with a food show. From the few countries visited, I find South Korea and Hong Kong having the most uninteresting food. I am not enticed to visit them at all, although I have been to South Korea once. Bangkok actually has a lot of interesting food but last year I remembered more shopping than eating. Remembering this trip actually makes me very sad as it could potentially be my last trip with my dad.

My dad has been in ICU for more than a week now. I have accepted that medically things are impossible and only God's miracle can overcome and heal him. The past week has been an emotional roller coaster: breathing problems, paralytic ileus, hypotension, and now low urine output. Although I have been prepared for the worst since few years ago, I am still holding on to hope of God's mercy. God had helped in the previous colon and spine surgery, the latest x-ray showed smaller areas of white patches, and the intestines moved again without surgery, if it is His will, He can make the kidneys work again.

It is getting harder to hang on to the hope and continue praying but there is nothing else I can do. As much as I want to not be worried about it, I have not been sleeping well for the past week. I kept waking up every few hours for no reason. Sigh. My cousin secretly filmed my dad and sent them to my uncle. My uncle forwarded the videos to me -_- Sian... Honestly, I am okay with him filming and sending to my uncle since my uncle is also stuck out of Jakarta and I am sure he and the other siblings are very worried too. But forward to me for what :( It is heart wrenching to see my dad's physical condition. Now I know why my mum and my sisters keep crying when with him. More importantly, it makes me question myself if praying for a miracle for his healing is the best or it is actually prolonging his suffering. As much as I dislike it, of course I cannot tell my uncle to stop sending. I am sure he sent to me out of concern since I also cannot see my dad. While I am still holding on to the hope of miraculous recovery, my prayers are now added with hoping for the best for him and for all family members according to God's will.

On Friday, he was still awake and I recorded a video for him in case he suddenly would like to speak to me but I am uncontactable. However, because of the lack of urine output, his wakefulness is getting worse as all the toxic metabolites are not excreted. Since he is still responding when people speak to him or touch him, I asked my sister to just let him listen to the video. He was still able to nod so perhaps now I will record videos daily if it is going to help to lift up his spirit.

Into the frontline

One month ago I wrote that I made myself available for volunteering at the clinic where I am regularly volunteering but was subsequently informed that they had sufficient manpower without me. Earlier this week, I was contacted if I would be available for the next 3 Saturdays. Hmm.. I wonder what happened.. I am no saint and honestly I am scared if I am putting myself to risk of coronavirus. It does not help that for the past few weeks, the migrant workers form the majority of the COVID cases here. In addition, there are reports of healthcare workers getting infected in the past few days. In the end, I decided to fulfil my promise from 2 years ago and I said okay for today and the 23rd. I did not want to overpromise 3 Saturdays in a row since I did not know if I could survive a 3 hour session in full PPE.

I just finished my session today and oh boy.. I am so exhausted. My 7 years of experience in primary care only exposed me to PPE for chicken pox or shingles and I did not need goggles as I am already wearing glasses. Today, I had to put on goggles and because it did not fit (my glasses is too wide), I had to wear face shield. So essentially it was my first time with the full PPE.

My previous experience with PPE was for less than 10 minutes per session, although I had one session for almost an hour when I was stuck in the isolation room while waiting something from the doctor and the pharmacy so that I did not have to de-gown and gown up again. Today I survived 2.5 hours in the PPE. I was not really bothered about the sweat but what 'killed' me was the N95. At the 1 hour mark, I felt like I was wearing my braces again. Add the dryness, the taste in my mouth was unusual and I was worried if I was bleeding inside. After that, I had to tone down and slow down in my counselling so as to relax my mouth a bit.

Thank God for this experience. Now I can really emphatise with those photos of healthcare workers with wounds because of the masks (yes N95 is that pressing to the face) or when they are so exhausted in their PPE (yes even I had to sit down in one corner for awhile to just cool down the sweat, bear the pain, and prepare to continue). So really salute and respect to these people who have to do this 8 hours (or more) a day for 5 days (or more) a week for the past and the coming few months.

During the usual clinic operating hours, there are 30-40 patients in 2 hours. Because of the current situation, there were only 15 patients just now and there was no URTI at all. Majority was chronic follow up. Honestly, I cannot imagine dispensing to 30-40 patients as usual with the full PPE. It is impossible.

So after today, I informed the clinic that if they still need manpower next week, I will be available since I know I can survive. Haha.. And for anything longer than 3 hours with PPE next time, I know my limits lah hor.

Gundam Wing

Gundam Wing is my favourite anime and perhaps is the only full anime series that I have re-watched for a few times. The first time I knew Gundam Wing from Endless Waltz which is actually the 'closure' of the series. I followed the main series on TV at Sunday mornings and I remember having to wake up very early. Because of violence, Gundam Wing was aired at 6am or something. I cannot remember if I watched in full as the only episode that was stuck in memory from watching this on TV is the fencing duel between Dorothy and Quatre. After that, I re-watched in laptop at least once in university and once in 2012. These were rushed watching so nothing much was stuck with me. Thus last week was my first time watching it properly. Although it took me only about 4 days, I did not rush and I stopped in between as and when I wanted to.

Gundam Wing story can roughly be divided in 3 arcs. The first one is the one making sense, followed by the confusing middle part, and finally towards the end that has nice fightings but does not really salvage the story. So I am not surprised and I agree that Gundam Wing may not be one of the better Gundam series in terms of the stories. A lot of history and loose ends become clearer after Endless Waltz or from reading the manga prequels and no wonder I was so confused when only watching the anime series. To be fair, let's consider it from a fresh perspective as if someone is just watching the main 49 episodes.

As with other Gundam series, Gundam Wing starts with the conflict between colonies and earth (governed by United Earth Sphere Alliance). The story begins at year After Colony 195 (AC 195) with Operation Meteor which involves the colonies sending 5 Gundams, disguised as meteors, to attack OZ, which is the major military arm of the UESA, on earth. The 5 Gundam pilots only know the existence of one another from their missions. The first part of the series on earth is the most exciting one as it culminates with OZ's plot to take over UESA and in the process making Heero kills all the pacifists from UESA. This effectively breaks down the peace-making effort and makes the colonies 'disown' the Gundams whose mission is originally to fight for the colonies.

Things start to get messy from here. With no support from the colonies, the Gundam pilots decide to return to space (i.e. the colonies). We learn that OZ is part of Romefeller Foundation which takes over from UESA and want to rule both earth and colonies. They are promoting peace by military strength and this results in militarisation of the colonies. With mobile dolls, there is no need of manned mobile suits so essentially Romefeller is selling weapons. Eventually the Gundam pilots come across one another in one way or another since they still have the same aim of fighting OZ. 

Meanwhile on earth, as a result of OZ revolution, many countries previously oppressed by UESA become more independent. Sanc Kingdom takes the center stage with Relena Peacecraft advocating total pacifism which puts her in direct opposite of Romefeller's militaristic view. Treize does not support mobile dolls and this results in OZ being split into his supporter against the rest. The situation in space is getting more chaotic and the plot involving the Gundam boys is getting more non-sensical so I shall just summarise that this part sort of ends with Quatre and Heero returning to earth to defend Sanc Kingdom which seems to be the only party opposing OZ.

The third part is the most action packed of the whole series. Romefeller is scheming to attack Sanc Kingdom with the excuse that Treize Faction is escaping to Sanc Kingdom to attack and Romefeller is coming to defend Sanc Kingdom. Relena turns out to be a badass: instead of fighting back, she decides to surrender to stop the war, staying true to the total pacifism that she is advocating. Ironically, Romefeller and Relena both desire peace just in different manner (i.e. militaristic vs pacifist). Romefeller sees Relena's influence and crowns her as Queen of the World in order to make all her supporters support Romefeller too. Relena reluctantly agrees of being 'used' this way but ends up using her position to continue advocating pacifism.

Meanwhile the newly completed spaceship, Libra, has been overtaken by a colony revolutionary group White Fang which declares war with earth. Suprisingly, Milliardo Peacecraft agrees to be the leader of White Fang against earth. Treize 'dethrones' Relena in order to defend this earth. Treize sends all mobile suits on earth to space for the final battle vs White Fang. The Gundams, now with Peacemillion, supports neither and their role in the final battle is to stop White Fang's attempts for direct assault on earth, firstly by its beam cannon and lastly by dropping the whole battleship on earth. It is then revealed that both Milliardo and Treize's aim is to have a massive war in order to traumatise everyone on earth and colonies so that both sides desire peace and no more war.

As much as I like Gundam Wing characters, each of them is very one dimensional. Cannot really blame them for that since this is a 90s series and things were simpler back then. The 5 Gundam pilots actually share very little screen time together so it makes their relationship, particularly towards the end when they are supposedly working as a team, rather weak. Sorry, but still Wufei is really a pain in the ass because his 'justice' motivation is so confusing. The rest is more simple minded but at least it makes them more understandable. In all, the whole dynamic of the characters and their interactions are another reason weak point of Gundam Wing.

I still think that Gundam Wing has the best Gundam designs compared to other Gundam series. The reason is simply because the 5 Gundams are so specialised and unique that they are very different from one another. Wing can transform into bird mode and it has its buster rifle for massive destructive force although it also has a beam saber. Deathscythe is specialised for stealth combat and as its name suggests fights with a scythe. Heavyarms relies on artillery. Sandrock is specialised for close combat with gigantic heat shotels. Shenlong is equipped for both close and distant combats with its beam glaive and its extendable dragon arms. Thus it is unlike many other series whose Gundams can be rather generic with each of them can fight with beam sabers and shoot some bullets.

I am not gonna discuss much about Endless Waltz other than it takes place a year after the main series (AC 196) and Wufei is still an asshole here. Haha..Overall the plot is smoother and makes more sense than the main series. How I wish they have more stories on what happens between the main series and Endless Waltz, especially on how the characters could have interacted with one another. At least that will explain how in Endless Waltz, the Gundam boys (minus Wufei) are more chummy and trusting with one another. And it is nice that the waltz in the title is not only a gimmick for an interesting name. It is actually explained that history is a repeated waltz of war, peace, and revolution.

Gundam Wing has a sequel with Frozen Teardrop and thank goodness it is only in novel. I read reviews to avoid this as it is going to destroy all the good memories with Gundam Wing. I am so tempted, though. So perhaps I just hope that it will never be translated to English hahaha...

Nevertheless, thank you, Gundam Wing, for being an anime that defines my childhood and my life. Life sounds exaggerating but even until now I will still collect Gundam Wing merchandises when I find any. Hehe...

First week without online delivery for lunch is surprisingly a blessing. I have stayed at my current location for 8 years and only now I know the shortcut to Midview City and the existence of a hawker center there. It takes less than 15 minutes for me to leave, buy lunch, and return so it is actually very near. Returning to 'normal' lunch does not make me hungry and that means I have been overeating and overspending for the past 2 months. I hope I will not get bored with the food options and most importantly to be able to go below 60kg soon with lower calorie intake now.

Do dreams reflect hidden desire? Two nights ago I had another unusual dream: I traveled somewhere and saw a statue of Our Lady of the Sun (what the?? I don't think Mother Mary has that title so I wonder how my brain made up such thing while sleeping). The statue was so white and pretty but I did not take a photo. When I wanted to return to take a photo, I realised that I already left the park. I wanted to re-enter from the exit but my sister asked me not to be crazy and asked at the entrance if we could re-enter using the same ticket. We re-entered and upon reaching the statue, it was not according to what I saw initially. The white-ness was actually due to some bright light shining from across which was already turned off. Somehow we knew the VIP who ran this place and asked him if he could switch on the light. To make things even more messed up, at the end of everything, I was wondering what the name of that place. Sacre Couer came to my mind (definitely because I saw my friend's photo on facebook there) but I knew it could not be that because I had been there and there was no such statue. So yeah.. Have I been praying too much? Or am I desiring to travel which is not possible due to the current coronavirus situation? Haha..

My new 2TB portable hard disk arrived on Tuesday, which was more quickly than the estimated 5 working days. With less than 40MB/s transfer rate, I had to transfer by several batches to prevent both old and new hard disks from becoming too hot as I am still haunted by 2 broken hard disks with my current laptop. I realised that I have waaay too much data that I cannot even remember what I have. I have the complete 49 episodes of Gundam Wing and last week I was busy finding where I could stream it online -_- Hahaha. I finished binge-watching over the long weekend last week. With a clearer mind after reading the Glory of the Losers and re-watching the anime, my next aim is to have an anime post on it.

Broken streaks

This week I finally let go all the things I have been holding on and avoiding since February: junk food, fast food, dinner food delivery, and bubble tea. Ironically, they all ended with regrets since I did not really have what I wanted and I could only settle with whatever I could get hold to.

When I did groceries two weeks ago, I was complaining about absence of offers for potato chips. This week, I did not even see any stock of potato chips that I normally buy. I was like an idiot looking at the the potato chips several times trying to decide whether to buy something or resist. In the end I bought 2 cans of Pringles and I do not like both the satay and pulled beef flavours.

For unhealthy fast food, I had Pastamania last Sunday, and Starbucks and Popeyes' yesterday. Popeyes was a double pointer as that marked my first dinner food delivery as well. Pastamania was actually satisfying and my 'regret' was it was an overeat for me. Haha.. Starbucks did not fill me, though my main drooling was for one of the drinks and not the food, and resulted me in having to have Popeyes dinner. Popeyes was not bad but for their prices of mac and cheese and popcorn chicken, the serving sizes are too small. I still cannot get bubble tea but I succumbed to adding $1 to upgrade my milk tea from Thai restaurant to add bubbles. Clearly it is not going to be as good as my favourite Koi bubbles and I am right.

On the bright side, since these were mostly misses, it made me want to 'avoid' them more instead of 'trying to find something satisfying'. At least this will put back my diet on the line. I have been emoing too much this week because I really cannot go under 60kg. This unhealthy obsession even flowed over to two nightmares about my weighing machine is actually broken all my weight loss so far is actually due to faulty machine.

I have been in a bad mood and I really wish bad karma and recession will befall on unscrupulous businesses. First mention goes to Deliveroo. They sent less than 12 hour notice to inform shit changes coming into effect yesterday. Minimum spent is raised to $18 for free delivery for Deliveroo Plus. So what is the point of subscribing? No matter how it is sugar coated, it is clear Deliveroo just wants to capitalise on higher volumes of delivery during this period. What a dick move. They forget that this circuit breaker at most last for another month but them losing customers will be permanent. I have been on Deliveroo Plus right from the start and am too lazy to check on others. Thanks to their stupidity, it made me check out on Grab and Food Panda. Although these two are not much better (since both are also suspending their subscription plans... clearly also taking advantage of current coronavirus situation), at least their subscription plans are cheaper than Deliveroo. Another week before the end of my current subscription month and after that, bye Deliveroo. More people are using Grab or Food Panda to begin with and now Deliveroo did this to the minority who still uses them so 'good' luck to them.

Second is Harvey Norman. I have been paying attention to the prices of external storage drives in the past half a week. This morning I saw Samsung SSD 1TB for $10 (red) and for $33 (gold) and so I bought. They called me to cancel as the prices were wrong. Seriously what the fuck? I don't care as it was their mistake. I already made the payment so seriously fuck them la. Imagine if the situation is reversed in which a customer already made a payment for something and customer said that it was a mistake to buy and would like to cancel, they would not agree to the cancellation. Shame on you and remember karma!