Doraemon's Time-Travelling Adventures in Singapore

God works in a mysterious and miraculous way. Today is the last day of the Doraemon exhibition and as what I wrote yesterday, I sort of give up of any possibility of taking photos. After thinking about it last night, I decided to just let it go. However, somehow after gym today, I was considering if I should just go. It was not raining and it would be just nice that I would arrive at Singapore National Museum at exactly the opening hours. I set up my mind to just take photos of at least the outdoor Doraemon. A part me was hesitating as there was no point for me taking photos which I could find online anyways. I decided to go since I would be washing the clothes I was wearing so might as well sweat a bit. I was also hoping that somehow I would be lucky to meet a random friend there to help me take photos.

I reached there just few minutes before 10am. I hesitated again when I saw the queue to enter. I tried to take photos from outside the barricade but I had to zoom quite a lot and I would be risking blurry photos. By the time it hit 10am, the queue moved quite quickly so I decided to go since I was already there.

The queue just prior to 10am

I did not meet any friend but I met a stranger whom I would think of as an angel sent by God so that I could take photos with Doraemon. His phone was broken and he said he needed to take photos of the Doraemon for his project. He asked if he could use my phone and then I sent him the pictures. Since my main aim was also the Doraemon, I did not mind. As a return of the favour, I was just being thick skinned and asked him to help take photos with Doraemon and that was how I fulfilled my wish.

I did not retake the Doraemon-only photos that he took. I would be able to take better photos but I was already too happy with the chance of getting my photos with the Doraemon. I had some irritation since I wore ugly clothes and I did not bring my camera. Not to mention the glare from the sun and I did not QC my photos since my face was not thick enough for that. Haha.. Yeah I know I should not be complaining since I already got more than what I was hoping for today. Anyway since there is no way to take photos without the mask, I would not be happy. I hope this will return again someday.

Moving on to the exhibition itself, there are 13 Doraemon statues (inclusive of the Dokodemo door) outdoor. The one with Dokodemo door is considered 'outside' the exhibition as anyone can take photos of it without officially considered as visitor to the museum. To access the other 12 outdoor Doraemon area, we need to be considered as a visitor to the museum first. There is a notice to limit to 15 minutes in the outdoor area which is more than sufficient. Today I had 2 rounds (once just the Doraemon and once with me) and it only took me about 10 minutes. If I were to be picky and QC to retake some photos, it would still be within 15 minutes. Anyway I do not think it is not really enforced if the area is not too congested. They do watch and warn people who are touching the statues which is forbidden for infection control reasons.

Inside the museum, there is another queue near the cafe to enter the area to take photos with the yellow Doraemon and the time machine. I did not go there today since I already took photos here during my first trip. The queue was long at that time since the photo area is quite small. They only allowed around 8 people to enter each time. I did not keep track of the time but after certain period, they would ask the group to finish and allow the next group.

The merchandises in the shop are not impressive and I do not think there is anything really special or unique for this particular exhibition. To me it is like putting random Doraemon merchandises.

There is one final bit of Doraemon in the end of the Singapore History Gallery. This gallery depicts Singapore through the years since it was known as Singapura in 1299 up to present days. There is Doraemon bit at the end which is meant to be the section of the future.

I am not a fan of Doraemon so I only consider the exhibition so so. I do not mind going since it is free. I do not think it is worth going if there is a fee. The outdoor area is not exactly a good idea. It rains more often than not in these last 2 months so I think there is more time that the section is closed. That is ironic since this section is the main attraction after all. It is also exposed to elements. When I went there in early November, the grass patch was still grassy. Today the grass was mostly gone and the soil was rather soggy. I think it would quite muddy if it just rained. Overall, it is still okay as a cheap thrill and entertainment in the midst of getting stuck here because of COVID.

Blue Christmas

The perfect Christmas for me is to just enjoy a quiet and relaxing time at home. 2020 obviously is an extraordinary year and against my will, I cannot travel and have to be stuck here for Christmas. This is my most emo Christmas so far simply because there is nothing that I can do. During FYP, I could accept that my grade and future were at stake. In addition, I experienced my first midnight Christmas Mass and walking home from Holy Cross back to PGP because there was no bus running after that. Sadly I did not manage to secure any slot for Christmas Mass this year and I could only followed it online. Two years ago I did not go home because I just switched job. This year I could not even concentrate for work at Christmas' Eve half day. Sigh.. How to survive next week.

I had my appraisal and I was happy that I did not have to resort to any toxicity. Honestly though, if there is a chance of jumping ship, I would consider because I am sian after knowing how toxic these current bitches are. Of course ideally the best will be for them to jump for whatever reason since I am actually enjoying the flexibility here.

Somehow I have been having dreams that made me thinking of and being sad about my dad's passing. The dreams were not about my dad per se but they were the things that reminded me of memories with him or my unfulfilled wishes such as to go to Japan with him. Not everything is in the good side though. With my current state of loneliness and being stuck here also awakened my unhappiness about living alone and being homeless here. Haiz.. all the prayers saying that I accept my cross etc feels like me bullshitting myself. I know this is an inner devil that I will always have to fight for the rest of my life. Not to mention that one of the prayers during Prayer of the Faithful on the last weekend was specifically about those celebrating Christmas this year who have lost someone this year :(

I have been spending too much time with Genshin Impact lately. If not because of the limitation of iPad battery, I think I would be playing non-stop. Once a gamer is always a gamer. Huhuhu... My sleep is also disrupted as I have been taking a nap in the late evening and waking up past midnight. Then I will play until 4am before going back to sleep. I even cancelled my gym and pretended to not feeling well so that I can siam my aunt's invitation to go to her house for dinner tonight.

Aaargh I don't give a damn about people anymore as noone also gives a damn for me. Noone is helping to take photos with Doraemon which is going to be over tomorrow and I am getting very sick with the people in my house who keep cooking and making my room smell. Fuck la.

Toxic week

I did not work this past week as it was a year end appraisal week. It was my turn to be in the office and at the start of the week, I was tempted to request to work from home instead since it would mostly be online communication. In the end I did not request that as I really needed the double screen. It was quite stressful this time as the timeline was very tight. Everything had to be completed within this week while I only had time to prepare from last Thursday. Due to some IT issue, I could only start on Friday afternoon so it was a mad rush. Thank God everything was completed.

I am not looking forward to prepare for my own appraisal. Sigh.. I realised that I spent so much time dealing with people but that is not a big chunk of my own KPIs. So overall, I think I would not do that well on paper, especially with the recent toxicities from the bitches. Haiz.. My boss told the big boss about the recent saga as my big boss was hinting about it and seemed to try to get me to talk about it again. It is difficult to remain on the moral high ground. I hate hypocrites and people who do dirty politics so I have to prove that I am not one of them. I just have to remain objective and mention about the situations, instead of the people since really I actually have no issue with the bitches. How to even have issues when I work so little with them this year. Now my "issue" will be the broken trust. These bitches simply destroyed whatever working relationship there is.

Coincidentally, my friend who is a lecturer in a polytechnic told me a few days ago of a vacancy in case I would be interested to apply. I am actually quite settled in with my current work but because of this recent bitchiness, I would be considering another job if there is. I was ready to update my CV this weekend but my friend just informed me the latest update that the vacancy is not confirmed yet. Oh well, after all the vacancy was not officially advertised yet. When my friend told me about it, it was more of registering of interest or something.

The toxicity somehow also spilled over to other aspect of my life for this week. My gym is closed until new year for renovation so I temporarily have to go to Orchard branch. It is a new branch and I am interested to try. It is good that when it opened, I did not transfer my membership there. Going there is quite stressful because of the traffic to Orchard area. I was always worrying whether I would be late. The gym itself is much bigger and brighter but I prefer the more compact, cosy, and dimmer Holland Village. Haha.. It is nice to see some familiar faces as some coaches have been permanently assigned to the new branch after its opening.

I donated blood on Tuesday and had my haircut. I was very suay with my haircut because the other customer who was in the shop with me was a crazy guy. He quarreled, argued, shouted, and screamed at the auntie cutting her hair. The conversation was in Mandarin so I did not really understand. What a reminder my crazy front line days dealing with such crazy customers. Anyway the auntie was equally stupid. I think she had no customer service training as well since she retaliated and the best part was she took photo without permission. Of course that triggered the crazy guy even more. Wew...

On Thursday, I also received an emo update that the clinic where I am currently volunteering will no longer operate on Saturday from next month. Sigh.. If I am interested to continue, I will have to go to Mandai which will open on Saturday. Bleah.. I have never been there and it seems to be more troublesome to go there as compared to Geylang :( Nevertheless, I have decided that I will give it a try instead of following my lazyness. After all, I have always wanted to participate in some volunteering activity. Finding one which can be done on Saturdays and make use of my license is already a rare opportunity.

My spiritual life also took a deep dive this week. Work is really a huge destroyer. I felt so bad despite completing the last 3 days of the Novena this Monday-Wednesday. I felt that I was just watching the Mass out of obligation as I wanted to participate. Sigh.. I ended up feeling very irritated with the priest for the very boring Mass and so on. I also skipped my evening prayer for the whole week as I was too tired although that partly because of gaming.

The shittiest part of the week was when I was filled with so much anger and prejudice towards the maid in my current rental place. On Thursday, I realised that I ran out of my working pants and I thought she stole it :( Oh my gosh! I was filled with all the dark thoughts that she stole it and perhaps gave it to someone and so on. In the end, I found them. I could not find them initially because after ironing, the pants were put in the same hanger with the working shirt. That was really a wake up call for me to not to lose my cool at work with others especially with all the bitchiness going around.

The only good vibe for me this week was that I sold Spiderman golf balls that I bought from USJ in 2015. Initially I also got agitated with the buyer for asking so many questions despite me sending the photos. I did not accept any nego and the buyer agreed with the $35. Yay. The best part is she arranged for a courier to pick it up from my office. I think she needs it urgently for gift purpose. I never set up any Paynow but I set it up this week to facilitate this transaction. Haha..

Next week is Christmas and I hope that next week will be better. I have to be thankful that I get Christmas and New Year weeks as my working from home week. There is a high chance I will be emo again because of my appraisal this coming Wednesday but I have been preparing myself not to lose my call. All of us have our own strengths and weaknesses, let's say 80:20. I will accept the '20' but I will not my '80' be affected by the toxic bitches. I have prepared my punchline: Appraisal is about me and I am not going to compare myself with others. Highlighting others' weaknesses change nothing about my own strengths and weaknesses so I am not going to be like others who think by highlighting my '20' can help with their own 80/20. Oh perhaps, they are 70/30 or 60/40 and hence jealous of me :p The last sentence, of course, is just in my mind. Haha.. I am not going to let myself be as bitchy as these bitches too.

No Zhongli

I am still spending too much time on Genshin Impact that even the excitement of revenge was not enough to make me write a post about it last week. Lol. After my rant in last post, I did my statistics for enquiries and thank goodness: data proved the bitch wrong. I am not going to talk too much and let the evidence speak for itself.

Ironically, I still had a bad week overall because I did not get Zhongli in Genshin Impact huhuhu... As expected, my good luck would not continue after pulling Childe quite quickly previously. On the bright side, I got all the 4 star characters from this current banner. I really needed fire and ice power so I finally can progress with the game. Although the reviews for Zhongli have been terrible, I don't care because I focus on enjoyment by playing with cool characters haha... Yeah I can say that now although during playing, I will be cursing when playing with my underleveled characters.

My diet was more successful last week as I kept a clean sheet from any potato chips despite few temptations of really grabbing a bag on a few days. I made an exception on Saturday as I wanted to spend my Garrett voucher. I was happy that I could try the seasonal flavour: Dark Choc Cocoa. No way I would buy it without a voucher at $10.50 for the small one. Haha.. I am a savoury person and $10 worth of potato chips would give me more joy. I enjoyed it much better than expected as it is not as sweet as the normal caramel version. As my voucher was $10, I was paiseh if I just bought one Dark Choc Cocoa and only paid 50 cents. I added a small bag of the Cheese Corn (which is only $5.50) and that was a mistake as I could get a bigger bag of potato chips with that price.

I went to Church again for Mass yesterday and I had 4-day streak of gym. I could go again today but I decided to give my body a break. Year-end appraisal is coming so it is going to be a relatively toxic week ahead. Not that it is making a big difference as currently I am also still sore with the bitch. I know I am supposed to be forgiving bla bla bla but that is easier said than done.

Justice always prevails

God works in miraculous way. I felt very irritated with myself for withholding myself and over the weekend, I was scheming on how to craft my feedback on the bitch during the year-end appraisal. I say 'scheming' because revenge will easily cloud my mind and if I follow my emotion, I may end up spewing things which may backfire.

The stress over the weekend was worth it because today I had the chance to say those things. My boss was concerned if I had a conflict with the bitch. So basically the bitch just self-destructed since I had nothing on my side. Initially I had reservations of keeping them until year-end appraisal as I do not want to be seen as trying to engage in politics. Well today was not appraisal so I was able to say everything without heaviness in my heart since it was feedback session hehe. I thank God for protecting me from going bonkers and only said the objective things and avoid the subjective stuff. I know I always do the right things so by staying with the objective stuff, people will not be able to tear me down.

Another complaint that I received was that I seemed to avoid enquiries. I have been tasked to get statistics for enquiries so this will be a good time to update this statistics and see if objectively I really did few enquiries. I will do that tomorrow and I hope the data will show otherwise. That would be a perfect weapon for me retaliate at the bitch so that she learns to think before spewing rubbish and stop making a fool out of herself as usual.

My diet plan for this Advent already failed from yesterday. I did not manage to secure a gym slot yesterday. With no banana at home, I had to order delivery for dinner. Another reason was that I got $8 voucher from Deliveroo so I wanted to use it ASAP. Today I wanted to be good but all the bananas were green so they were inedible tonight if I bought them. I ended up having snack as my dinner. Huhuhu T_T Why are temptations keep coming when I try to be good boy for this Advent?