Advent is coming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue binging

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

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

Ruined plans

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

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

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

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

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

False anticipation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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