Ups and downs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miserable weekend

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

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

Diet frustration

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

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

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

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

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

Old records

I am reminded of my later father again. My Gundam Wing comics have been sitting on top of a box since I finished reading them and I finally decided to check my plastic container box where the other Gundam Wing comics are to see if I had space. They are now well protected in the box at the expense of the DVDs of Japanese dramas and movies. Aaah.. what a trip down the memory lane as these DVDs were from more than a decade old. I bought them to kill time during the half a year break between the end of JC and the start of university.

The most surprising finding is the first M1 contract when I started my post-paid number. It was such a coincidence that the date was 02/08/08, exactly 12 years ago, although I did not blog about it on the same date. With the contract, I got a $0 Sony Ericsson K660i which I gave to my father. I remembered signing this contract at Changi Airport while waiting for my dad and sister to take the plane back home. They got worried as I was taking too long and I spent more than half an hour to choose a 'nice' number haha.. Sigh.. how sad to think that my dad who still had fighting and living spirit had passed away while myself who has been wanting to die is still forced to live. Anyway, despite the 'sentimental' value whatsoever, I still threw away the papers hahaha...

Another surprise from that box is the annual health screening slips from NUS. Haha.. So it is not my delusion that I was not as fat as now a decade ago. Lol. The journey for weight loss continues as I started to exercise again since I stopped around a month ago because of the hernia scare. Everything feels good for today. Food-wise, I just realised that Deliveroo quietly increased minimum order fee to $12. The usual Thai food that I order is just nice at $10.80 (when the previous minimum order fee was $10). While the $1.20 is small, it is not worth forcing the extra calories by ordering something extra to meet the minimum. Looks like I have to start buying from hawker center daily now hehe.. Or perhaps I can start by cutting down the Deliveroo to once a week instead of every weekend. Stupid Deliveroo because in the end I will just order less frequently from them and they will be collecting less fees.

At least now I am back to these numbers, thanks to COVID

I am still emo about my laptop and I am still waiting until the uncle comes tonight. I hope he does not come at 1am again like in April. I ran Dell diagnostics and it did not give the same error message like previously when the HDD was dead. So likely this time the Windows is the issue. Haiz.. I wonder if I should invest in a Windows installation CD or create an installation file in a thumbdrive. Previously I hate myself for never be bothered about creating system restore point. Now there are 2 (from a week ago and from two weeks ago) and yet even after successful back up in the Advanced Troubleshooting, I still cannot go back to Windows upon restarting. Same thing with the Reset this PC. Bleah... Previously during the HDD death, the reset was not successful.

Sad how my living spirit is determined by the life of my laptop. Without laptop, I simply have nothing to do so what is the point of living. Bleah.. That's why I keep saying that I am satisfied with my life already and I don't know what I still want to do anymore that I do not see any value of living with no more good things that I aspire and only bad things that happen.