Miser

I am getting lazy to blog anything recently as I realise my life is getting monotonous and I will just end up rambling about the same things all over again. My mind is all about money, food, and not losing weight. All are inter-related and each takes turn to drive me crazy in varying degrees.

It looks very possible to keep my total spending for meals to below $200 this month. I do not have specific purpose for achieving this goal but this drives me to be a miserable miser this week. After every meals, I would calculate whether I would exceed and how much I could save for the weekends when usually I spend a bit more because the hawker center is not open. I was even upset with Grab hiding their 25% off for self pick-up promo today. There are ongoing 15% and 25% but somehow the 25% is not appearing unless I manually key in. The code is supposed to be active since last Saturday. The ridiculous thing is that the 10% difference is only equal to less than $1.50 of what I could have saved. Why am I so upset just over $1.50.

I failed to abstain from potato chips for the rest of this month with 2 packs of Doritos over the weekend. As usual, I regretted buying although that means I would not be tempted for Doritos anymore. At this point, I know only Kettles and Ruffles are worth buying for me but I will only buy when they are below $4 per bag. Even with this realisation, I am always tempted to get miscellaneous brands even though I know I would regret later on. Really addiction problem.

I do not know when I have the willpower to start my home exercises again. Haiz.. Despite the relatively strict diet control, I cannot lose further weight. I cannot cut my food even further as now I am only eating 1 meal for lunch and 2 bananas for dinner. I need to supplement it with physical activity already.

Haiz... see... I am just repeating all these things all over again. Perhaps to encourage myself, I should be proud that I was able to avoid 1-for-1 offer for Popeye's and Xing Fu Tang last week. Honestly in the past week, almost everyday I already put something in the Grab or Deliveroo cart but in the end I managed to restrain myself and just closed the app.

Wiped out

I am tired of trying to find a clinic where I still can register and get Sinovac. Out of the few I contacted last week, only one replied with no stock and currently not opening any more registration. I registered with another two clinic this week and both said officially no more Sinovac registration is accepted for first dose people due to stock. I am being redirected to Sinopharm registration which may be available in September. My stress evaporated since due to stock issues, it is no longer my fault for not getting vaccinated. Furthermore, I already told my boss about this so anytime my office allows people to return, I will just have to excuse myself. Thank goodness my gym allows me to wait until I settle my vaccination and give me the remaining 1.5 months membership that I still have.

One thing went down but another surfaced. I rarely removed my phone from the protective holder but somehow I did that on Wednesday to clean the dust. The back cover was coming off which was due to the battery being bloated. Thank goodness I was able to secure a slot at Huawei repair centre for the following day and I was able to settle my photos. Here comes the ridiculous part. Just because nowadays we cannot remove phone back cover to change battery ourselves, this has to be done at  the service centre. Changing battery should be something simple but I was told that it would take around two hours. The worst part was that the whole phone had to be wiped out. Seriously what the fuck. I just need the battery to be replaced and I do not need the operating system to be touched but they said it is the law bla bla bla.

I had to waste time walking around for those two hours. I could not even eat dinner thanks to the vaccination discrimination. The best place to spend time was at Kinokuniya but my attention span is greatly shortened now that I could not stay still just to read a book. I tried to browse some Japanese learning text book and I got dizzy after reading the introduction in a Kanji learning book. about onyomi (Chinese pronounciation) and kunyomi (Japanese pronounciation). I realised that I have forgotten much of what I learnt from my Nihongo classes few years back. Bleah... At least my friend recommended me Duolingo app so that I still can brush up.

The blessing in disguise from the two hours of standing around and walking aimlessly while waiting for my phone is that when COVID is over, I better practice shopping around before I travel overseas again. My legs are so painful and I cannot imagine how I can survive a day at Disneyland from opening to closing time. And I know just doing that for a day is not enough as usually I spend a minimum of two days. Haha.. In short, after 1.5 years of just rotting at home, my body will not be ready for overseas trip anymore. That also reminds me that I already stopped even exercising at home since the last round of gym closure. Haiz.. that means all my physical fitness is also gone.

I felt like an idiot after I realised that there is a back up option in the phone. I should have done that instead of just transferring the photos. So all the newly saved numbers since I changed to this new phone are all gone now. Haha... I am getting lazy to save numbers since it is easy to see who the numbers belong to in Whatsapp. I guess I can enjoy my peaceful and antisocial life even more now. Hehe... If someone needs me for something then I will eventually get the number again.

Sayonara Olympics 2020

2021 is like a year that does not exist. It was Euro 2020 earlier this year followed with the Olympics 2020. Despite being held this year, both events retain the 2020 as they were slated for last year and were delayed because of the pandemic. With the Olympics coming to a close tonight, the news will all be about COVID and vaccination again. And yep, the COVID is still 2019. Poor 2021.

In my previous post last week, I doubted if Indonesia could win any badminton gold so I was very happy to hear that the Women's Doubles won gold on the following day. Unfortunately I did not get to watch and join in the excitement as the match was in the afternoon and I was still working. Other than the badminton matches I caught two weeks ago, I only watched the final for Men 10m diving yesterday. Only after that I realised that I can actually stream meWATCH via laptop. That is goodbye to the app in the iPad. Haha...

As I am watching the closing ceremony right now, I cannot feeling sad about how cruel this pandemic has been. It reminds me of attending the closing ceremony of SEA Games 2015 and I imagined how more amazing this Olympics could have been if not because of COVID. To see the empty stadium and the quiet around the stadium is really heart-breaking. It must be quite sad for the athletes too as not everyone can attend the closing ceremony due to COVID precautions and they have to fly back few days after their last participating event. I also feel nostalgic when I see their landyards. I saw the landyards in Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta and it seems that despite they are all different Games, the design of the landyards is similar. Aaah.. I wonder if I am ever be able to experience this kind of involvement again. Nevertheless, I can only treasure the memories of SEA Games and Paragames 2015.

I am feeling miserable this weekend because of all the upcoming vaccination discrimination measures. Thank goodness at least Sinovac would be recognised now so I have pre-registered with a few clinics and now it is just waiting on when I can get a slot. I am not an anti-vaxxer but I am really skeptical about COVID vaccines which I think is just as useless as the annual flu vaccines. To me, what is the point of vaccination which cannot prevent disease. All the compulsory childhood vaccinations are effective to prevent those infections (e.g. TB, polio, DPT, hepatitis) and they are not just to reduce the risks bla bla bla. I know it is not compulsory for COVID but all the measures are as good as forcing everyone. Anyway since I have to do it to get the vaccinated status and all are quite shitty in terms of the efficacy, I choose the more traditional vaccine to minimise unknown risk with the newer mRNA technology and so far only Sinovac is available here.

On the bright side, it makes me hopeful of the possibility of travelling again. It is quite pathetic but I felt somewhat happy just simply of checking on how to renew my passport and about application for multiple entry to Japan. Haiz.. I wonder when life will be back to normal.

Too much screen

Olympics have begun but there seems to be no free screening that I can find in Youtube. I read that the opening ceremony included theme songs from games during the athletes' parade. I was curious but only managed to find snippets of certain countries from some random channels.

While waiting at my aunt's house on Monday, I was watching a badminton match of Loh Kean Yew. I learnt from my cousin that I could download meWATCH to catch Mediacorp screening since I do not have TV. Of course this means watching only whatever Mediacorp is showing instead of able to choose what sports I am interested in. Oh well, I managed to catch Jonatan Christie vs Loh Kean Yew match on Wednesday. It was a thrilling match but unfortunately it was because a close match, rather than an exciting match. There was too much of net play instead of cool rallies and smashes. It has been a very long time since I watched a live badminton match and in which I am rooting for someone to win. While Jonatan won this match, sadly he lost the next match in the round of 16. Looks like Indonesia is not able to win any badminton gold medals in this Olympics. Anyway I think this Olympics is quite a sad affair with empty audience stands. Without the shouts and screams from the supporters, it does not feel like a grand sporting events.

Earlier this week, the Thai TV channel where I usually follow the dramas was hacked. Because of that, all their recommended videos were changed to an anime channel Ani-One Asia. They recommend me Backflip!! and RE-MAIN which are animes about rhythmic gymnastics and water polo, respectively. I am sure Youtube algorithm is able to detect my interest in anime (for the Prince of Tennis songs I listen) and my recent searches for Olympics stuff to come up with that recommendations. I finished watching Backflip!! (yes there are 2 !!) which already completed airing but I am yet to start RE-MAIN (yes it is stylised with all capital letters) which is still airing and only at episode 4.

Genshin Impact just released the latest update with new region (Inazuma). I am not speed running but I have been spending more time playing this week as it is exciting again to explore new places and new story. At the same time, Mihoyo also released a new game called Tears of Themis this week. It is an otome card game so I am sure I will run out of interest soon. However for now, I still find it fresh and somehow the gacha seems much more generous than Genshin. It says a guaranteed SSR card every 100 pulls but I have been getting one for every 10-20 pulls. Usually a new game tends to be more generous. Anyway the main pull factor for me to try this game is the settings about law and crime investigations. The otome and the card game part are just like any other such games.

Haiz... this is why I am still feeling very tired despite having enough sleep this week. Too much screen time and not enough rest for the eyes. One huge thing that I am thankful of today is that I was able to attend mass. The rain was super heavy and windy this morning. Even if I took a bus, I would still be drenched under the umbrella while walking from the bus stop. Since I was already outside the house before it started raining, I decided to take 410W and if the rain did not stop, I would just go to Junction 8 to do my grocery shopping. God heard my prayer and the rain became light for a while when the bus was near the church. Thus I was able to walk from the bus stop to the church without getting drenched. Yay!