Sunday, July 16, 2023

Food temptation

I was introduced to Chateraise ice cream last Sunday by my buddy for pilgrimage. Knowing the prices of their cakes, I find it mind-blowing that these Japanese ice cream prices are so cheap ($1.20-$2.70), even cheaper than those from mama shop downstairs. The range of available flavours and options are huge. Looks like I have found an alternative to spend my extra coins instead of getting bottled drinks. Hehe...

I also succumbed to Pizza Hut Pocket Pleasers. I was tempted to get the regular pan for $6 but thank goodness I managed to restrain myself from overeating and settle with personal pan for $3. I was already hungry before gym but that was more bearable than the feeling of overeating if I were to get the regular pan.

Going to supermarket is also like going to a battle zone. Kettles is still having buy 3 for $11+ sale. The saving grace is that I no longer see the BBQ and the Cheese flavours anymore, which means there is only Honey Dijon which I like. There is no point for me to buy 3 bags of the same flavour or even worse, to get the Sea Salt or the Salt and Vinegar which I do not really enjoy. Still, the temptation is there and when it gets unbearable, I usually end up with $1 Meadows. It is a perfect definition of addiction: getting an alternative with something even if it does not give the same 'high' as the original thing I want.

Sugary bottled drink temptation is also back with my favourite Pokka Mocha and Peppermint Mocha discounted at $1.40 until end of the month. Their prices have increased so much to $1.80 that they are no longer tempting if not on sale. For my sanity, I give myself some slack on the weekends. However, I ended up with the zero sugar houjicha daily, even twice daily on some days. That is actually breaking my goal to minimise all these bottled drinks altogether. And as expected, as I am drinking these more frequently compared to last month, they no longer induce wakefulness. I still can sleep soundly even when I drink at dinner time. Bad bad...

My mid-year appraisal went okay on Thursday. Well usually, mid-year is okay because people have not started bitching about me. This year has been good and better than last year with team goals are generally met and things are not breaking apart. It seems that my slacking time is over soon since there is a plan to move my team lead to another team. This means I have to be more involved with all the admin work for the year-end appraisals. That also means I have to be more involved with the work and training of everyone as well as to train new team lead. It simply means things are moving in circle: I did those a few years ago until I could relax a bit when team lead was ready. Honestly I do not mind since that will allow me to spend even less time with the bitches here. Hehe...

Unfortunately work also pissed me off this week when my boss asked about pay for the people we want to promote this mid-year. It makes me realised how fucked up the HR salary scale is. People who are promoted off-cycle during mid-year usually do not perform as well as those promoted at the start of the year. However, with how fucked up the salary scale is, these people would end up at pathetic increment in terms of monetary value (if we simply follow job grade) or at higher job grade (if we want them to have a reasonable increment in monetary value) than the better performers promoted earlier. It is rubbish that increment at the typical cycle is more stingy than off-cycle. Perhaps the more annoying part for me was how my boss initially did not scrutinise these details. Sheesh.. no wonder my pay changes have been pathetic.

It upset me enough that I contacted my friend, who asked me to apply for a position early this year, to let me know again of future openings if my desired salary is within possibility. By next year, I have no guilt to leave since I have spent more than 5 years in current company and it has been at least a year since my promotion.

I overate for lunch that I had difficulty deciding on dinner yesterday. I did not want to overeat again, yet I was lazy to eat banana and I wanted to avoid refined carbohydrates such as bread. When I made up my mind to get 3 mini buns, the queue was long. So I decided to try roast chicken polo bun from Joy Luck Teahouse which did not have queue. I ended up have to wait 5 minutes for them to heat up -_-" I went to Uniqlo to kill time and that tempted me to Conan UT T-shirts which are currently on sale for $14.90. The Kaito Kid design really catches my interest.

I kind of want to wait until they go down to $9.90 but I am also worried that only the XS and S would remain when that happened. I decided to go to Uniqlo at ION after gym today since I also wanted to check if Daiso sells clothes hanger. I went home empty handed. Haha.. Daiso sells clothes hanger but I told myself I do not need extra la. At Uniqlo, I ended up more distracted with the pants on sale haha.. Too bad the berms on sale are all with button or hook type. I prefer those berms just with string or rubber waistband for a more relaxed feel. So yeah, pass to that orange chino which was really tempting. Well I saw a corduroy long pants which met my requirement of no hook or button. In the end I did not buy them because I thought it would be too baggy and my butt would be too big. The desire for Conan T-shirts just evaporated when I saw the healthy stock hahaha... Seriously ah.. when it comes to clothes, only necessity can make me buy them without much thinking.

Food tempted me again with food fair at Takashimaya. I went for Korean pancakes ($5 for kimchi and $6 for scallop) which were over-priced. I just wanted some variety over Tori-Q or yakisoba which I normally have for my Sunday lunches if I happen to go to Orchard. I was woken up from my afternoon nap because of hunger. The two pancakes were too light but that was okay. Ironically now I prefer a bit of hunger to the feeling of overeating. But still no further weight lost so far :'(

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