Be salt, not salty

My aunt has returned from Australia and to make up for the loss of CNY steamboat, she held Cap Go Meh steamboat instead. Honestly I felt lazy to go because I preferred sleeping in on Sunday but she took care of me when I was covid-ed :( So I could not that be that ungrateful. I decided to come earlier rather than going home first after morning Mass and my gym. I tried to delay my arrival buy getting a cup of yuan yang at Hougang Mall which only gave me only half an hour. Not worth breaking my promise to start cutting down on such drinks. Oh well, the price ($2.30) was 'just nice' for me to spend my 30 cents coins. Anyway I felt like an idiot because the drink stall was very advance that the staff did not handle the money and I was supposed to put it into a cash deposit machine which I did not see. The staff was not clear with her instruction and the cash deposit machine position was very low that I did not see it until the customer behind me told me.

I planned to have lunch and then quickly go home. Unfortunately, one of my cousins only arrived past 2pm. After that, we 'played' Black Jack until 630pm. With a blink of an eye, I ended up with having steamboat for both lunch and dinner. I ran out of my luck because I spent $2.50 for the Black Jack. Haha.. It was gambling for fun and I was the worst loser. The funny thing was that every time I wanted to give up playing by betting all that I had remaining, I ended up winning again and the game continued on dragging. At one point I was down to 20 cents before reaching $1.40 somehow. So yeah, that's why I do not gamble, I do not buy 4D or toto etc because usually I don't have the luck for this kind of thing. Just gambling my luck with my gacha games is enough for me lol.

Now I do not regret buying my blue Bugs Bunny shirt from Cotton On which I thought was not CNY-enough. Blue represents water nicely and this year is the year of water rabbit. The shirt received good comments from some colleagues during the CNY lunch and some people during the steamboat just now.

Today's gospel provides me a lot of comfort and gives me a good perspective to the cliche 'Be salt of the earth... Be light of the world...'. One part of the homily which caught my interest is that the being salt and being light also mean not to draw the attention to ourselves. Salt is present to give flavour or to preserve the food. Light is present so that we can see things around us. I agree and expand it to the fact that if people can notice salt in the food, that means the food is too salty and the salt basically ruins the food, rather than enhancing it. Similarly if a light is too bright, it ends up blinding or even burning. That is exactly what I want to shove down to the people serving in church but forget if they are doing God's work or they are just doing things for the sake of themselves.

Time to wander again

I had another random dream which made me wonder if it was a continuation of  my prayer to ask for direction in life. Unlike the previous one, it was very short. I was in a fair of various religious congregations and that was it. I was not approaching any booth and no actual religious congregation names caught my attention. I suppose it was clear that I was not directed to any.

Ironically, this very week I decided to stop going to my Landings weekly sessions at least for the next 2-3 months. After my bitter experience with my friend in secondary school about the hostel chapel, I decided to avoid any church ministry. I gave it a second chance and this second time proves the same thing: working with (some) church people sucks.

Some may become over-zealous in pleasing God until they forget that they are putting their own ego first and think that their contribution is their achievement. That really turns me off. Basically one person replied to me sarcastically because I disagreed with her. It was just over one sheet of paper and I thought her response was simply over-the-top. I was not surprised since I knew from her reflection from the previous Run, serving is her joy and pride. I am just here to help out so it is better for me to get out. There is no point doing church stuff if it makes me even further from God.

If I were to follow my emotion, I would reply with sarcasm on the spot and left the group chat immediately. I decided to hold on and think of a more graceful way to exit because I do not want to create unnecessary drama and headache to the rest. I think God also agrees that I should leave since I encountered a random Youtube video which let me know that it is okay to retreat and hide first when facing troubles or difficulties in carrying out God's work: just like how David hid from Saul when the latter tried to kill him, instead of fighting him head's on. That gives me the assurance that yeah, I have to leave for now. Perhaps I am also burned out but have been forcing myself to come every Monday just to show face for the new people from my previous group. If I stray too far, I believe that just like Jonah, God will send me the whale to swallow and vomit me back to where I should be.

Initially my plan was to wait after 2 weeks as evident that I am not able to come for the past 2 weeks and I will be busy for the next few weeks with work and going home etc so I shall leave the group first. I get an idea from my office to advance my plan. At the end of February, my boss is inviting some people from other countries to come here for discussion. Since we are the HQ and the host, we will bring them out for dinner on a Monday. Hehe.. I use that as a reason that different teams from different countries will take turns every week that every Monday I will have office dinner to attend to.

I think the coordinator is not so gullible and will suspect something, especially since I refuse his offer to be added back to the group even if I am not expected to reply when I am not around. Hehe but I am not planning to ruin everything and will just leave that as my reason. I don't know if anyone else will sense something after I exited. I don't care but I hope so hahaha... If it causes some drama, then I have exacted my revenge. If it does not, I still meet my goal to excuse myself from the team.

I normally do not have the luck to win in lucky draws so I was surprised when I won again yesterday during my office's CNY lunch. This is the second streak after the Christmas party at where I am volunteering. I don't know if I am lucky or unlucky because I think I won the 13th prize today lol. It is $30 and adding the $10 door prize, I got $40 angpau in total. 4 is not a good number in Chinese culture. So yeah. Haha..

I wonder if my luck would continue for 12 million TOTO. I don't mind trying my luck but I am only willing to buy online. No way I will be queueing lol. It seems that my luck already runs out because to open a Singapore Pools online, it takes up to 2 working days for verification. I was so determined that I even did the video call verification when the automatic facial verification kept failing. It is very rare for me to turn on my laptop camera so I really went the distance to even do the video call to do the verification. The draw will be over in 1.5 hours time and my online account is still unverified now. Oh well.

Dropped the ball again

It is not surprising nor unexpected that I already broke the CNY resolutions right from the second day of CNY. I was contemplating if I should order delivery for lunch but I decided not to. Many eateries were still not open and the closest option that I almost ordered cost almost $30. I went to recce Thomson Plaza and ironically, my lunch at The Grumpy Bear ended up even more expensive than $30. Usually they have 40-50% off at Deliveroo so I really did not expect it would be that expensive. Haiz.. The chicken cutlet was unique but too little meat that made it rather expensive. The milkshake was horrible and still not worth it even after they gave me an extra glass. They said they made too much and there might not be crowd due to day 2 CNY so might as well give me the extra than throwing it away.

On the day after, I had Long John's Silver again. The same exact menu (3 pcs chicken set meal plus their cheesy chips) that I had on CNY eve. I also had my usual Popeyes lunch after my volunteering session yesterday which made me realise that Long John's Silver is more value for money. From next week onwards, I will check if there will be seats there and that will be my new Saturday lunch menu. Ooops.. I just remember that from February onwards, the shift timing is shortened to be until 12pm so maybe I would not be so hungry that I need a dine-in lunch which means I no longer need these fast food anymore.

Yesterday also marked my first time doing CNY visit to a non-relative in more than a decade. The last time I did that was when my rental place was at the landed house located only one street away from my friend's house. I was quite touched to be invited because I am quite antisocial in Landings and do not expect to be counted as someone to be in their circle. Haha.. Some more I am not musically inclined and sing karaoke. Anyway, the pizza, Arnold's fried chicken and durian for dinner also add to the plethora of junk food this week. My throat was dry this morning but the durian made it worth the suffering.

Yet I still had Ruffles for dinner. Yeah, I pledged not to buy potato chips that cost more than $4 and the promotion this week is for 3 packs of Ruffles for $12. I saw and managed to resist on Friday but I gave up yesterday. Previous attempt to resist was useless since it made me resort to alternatives: chewable candies like Yupi kind. I also ate instant noodle again today :( I did not have enough sleep last night although I am glad I still managed to wake up and stay awake for 7am mass today. My intention was a light lunch with the instant noodle and one bread so that I could go for gym after that. The gym also did not happen because I decided to pay back some sleep and then to play game in the evening. It has been indeed a double whammy with all the junk food intake and yet not gym-ing enough.

The best thing about this CNY long break was my catch up with Genshin Impact. Although I am playing it daily, I am really falling behind with the optional quests since Sumeru introduction. So there are like more than 6 months worth of content to catch up. I only managed to clear 2 hahaha.. Gosh.. Honestly I do not enjoy Sumeru quests as much as Inazuma quests. There is too much talking with Sumeru quests and they are not really related to the characters or the main story. The quests feel like for the sake of unlocking new areas and getting the pathetic primogems from the chests. I thank God for my luck with this recent patch since I managed to win 50/50 for Al-Haitham and his signature weapon too. Yes to the green man and his green sword. This is also my second 5-star sword and the first with attack stats since previously my only 5-star sword is Nilou's sword whose secondary HP stat is only useful for her.

Still related to Genshin, I did a random internet quiz about Which Genshin Impact Character are You? last year. Usually this kind of random quiz is kinda rubbish and just for fun. However, I keep a screenshot for this because I am surprised that the result is kinda accurate for me. Because of this quiz, I actually tried to play more with Sayu but too bad, I just cannot click with her character design and gameplay lol. Zhong Li + Wanderer + Alhaitham are my favourite characters for now. The fourth one should be Baizhu and unfortunately, the four of them has no synergy for the battle at all. Haha..

Hoppy New Year tu You

I know it is cringey but 'hoppy', 'tu' and 'tu'gether are some of the cringey rabbit-y puns that I have seen in some ads this year. As a Catholic, I should not believe in superstitions such as zodiac or horoscope readings. However, I grew up reading such things so it kinds of becoming a habit. Since I no longer need to buy the yearly book for my dad anymore, I don't really follow or actively search for such readings but I don't mind reading when I pass by those boards in shopping malls.

I am quite emo reading the one at Suntec which is the first one I read this year. I always thought that the zodiac of the year would have the best luck but this year is the complete opposite. Rabbit basically has the worst since it is 'fan Tai Sui' or directly clash with the Tai Sui. So yeah I am screwed. To make it worse, I am a pessimist who usually believes the bad things will happen but the good things will not. I spent this whole morning trying to find a friend who usually goes to temple to help me ward the bad luck. Hahaha.. I am sure if my dad is still around, he would settle this with usual person who helps him with the temple stuff at Pontianak. After all, my dad is also a rabbit.

I think the worst part is the recommendations. How can you ask people to donate blood just to get rid of bad luck or getting married and having children to have others sharing your back luck?

Believe it or not, the year indeed started on a bad note for me. I completely did not hear my morning alarm clock until the last snooze and I missed my 7am mass. Haiz.. I woke up because of the rain and it was already close to 7am. Ironic because initially I was jolted up to quickly close the windows near my laundry and I was still hoping that the rain would not prevent me from attending the 7am mass. I went for 930am mass and I could not focus with the noises from the latecomers as well as the meh choir.

After mass, I went to Suntec Donki for lunch. It has been a long time since I went out during CNY and I really missed the ancient times when CNY day 1 felt like a zombie city. While the traffic and the crowd are definitely lighter than usual, there are more open business and more people outside. Even the CNY fair at Junction 8 is still open wor.. Sigh.. I tempted myself again with the XM Studios' Mickey and friends CNY figurines but I managed to resist. I feel that resistance is getting futile. I even start to reason that $260 for the full set is reasonable. I just spent almost $100 for Bugs Bunny clothes last week and the most recent figurine on my pre-order (Xiao from Genshin Impact) is also more than $260. However, now that I am in my room and looking at my space, I don't have the place to display the figurines as well as to keep the boxes. So I know the wisest decision is not to buy and I should avoid going to that fair and tempting myself.

I suppose I can pat myself for successfully resisting to buy potato chips and bottled drinks at Donki just now, though I sort of cheated with a bottled drink to go with my lunch just now. It is time to start again with the new year resolutions. Even though I fail to keep them for the 2023 new year, now comes the second chance to have them as the resolutions for the Chinese new year.

Overwhelmed by negativities

I finally made peace with the fact that the prices of air tickets may not return to pre-COVID days anymore. I decided that I would use miles to redeem my flight back to Jakarta this March to spend almost 2 weeks of my expiring leave. It is painful to spend the miles I have been collecting for First Class just for Economy Class but I think it is worse to spend $500-$700 for Economy Class and it is worst to waste my expiring leave to do nothing here.

Sadly, I will not be going back for my birthday. From the day after my birthday, the ticket prices become more expensive. Apparently it is because the period is already close to Hari Raya which will be on 22 April this year. I am not going to use my miles for another Economy Class ticket.

Honestly, I was quite annoyed with my boss because initially I asked for permission to take my expiring leave for the last 2 weeks of March and continue with another 2 weeks for my birthday. At least it makes the cost of flight less painful. Well, my boss considered 1 month as too long. I really feel 'used' since if I am that important, I would not get the current treatment I have at work: the pathetic increment or the way she shared the annoying peer review feedback.

What irritated me more is knowing that she is planning to promote one of my team leads to become assistant manager. For the past 2 years, we have been wondering what that team lead is doing in terms of productivity. Even for the supposedly planning and organising stuff that he did not optimally do, I was the one tanking it. So what is the reason for his promotion then? I am not jealous that he is going to be promoted but I am unhappy with the message that she is sending. On my part, I feel the sense of injustice because I get nothing from tanking and covering his ass. Once he is promoted, his position will be the same as me so I will explicitly mention to my boss not to expect me to support the guy anymore, unless I am also promoted. It does not make sense for me to be supporting someone with the same position.

Few days after I redeemed my March ticket, I received an email that SQ will only be doing one final 6-month extension for miles expiring between Jan-Jun this year. That means I have over 100000 expiring miles. Sigh.. No choice but to plan to go to Japan to use the miles. Sadly, currently I can only find waitlists for First Class Saver. It is annoying that among so many daily flights, only a few are open for redemption. No wonder everything is also waitlist for First Class Saver or left with the Advantage. There are also no Suites for redemption to Japan. Sian.. Anyway my main aim is to experience The Private Room at Changi first so I am okay with First Class for now, provided if I can get. Haiz..

My new year resolution is completely trashed this week. Although I managed to resist bottled drinks, I had 2 cups of yuan yang this week sigh.. And I bought 5 packs of potato chips since I already finished the 2 cans of Donki potato chips which I bought with the intention for CNY stock. I actually finished one as dinner on Monday and I gave away the other can to my Landings friend. But on Tuesday after gym, I could not resist $3 for 4 packs of Meadows potato chips. Ironically, the discount was somehow not reflected at the cashier and I paid the full price ($1 each). I would not even buy if not because of the discount. I finished them in 2 days and that is why I bought another bag potato chips yesterday. This time it is for real for CNY lol. I also gave in to buy 2 bottles of drinks since I promised that I will start all over again tomorrow as CNY resolutions.

One good news from gym is that I just had my first back-to-back exercise days yesterday and today. Since the gym is closed for CNY, I decided to force myself to go again today. I was lucky because I could go due to system error: the slots which were supposed to be blocked off for the coaches' lunch time still appeared as available for booking. Haha.. No wonder somehow only these 2 slots were available until the very last minute. My strength for push up starts to recover and I tried the 7.5kg dumbbells again today. I have yet to regain the strength for pull up. Though I start to do jump pull again, I have not been able to do that for the full exercise and will request to regress to squat pull again halfway. Unfortunately none of these has any effect to my belly fats and weight :(

I delivered another presentation for an online seminar in Indonesia this morning. Yes not only it is a Saturday, it is also CNY eve. Well, they do not really celebrate CNY in Indonesia so that is why the seminar was this morning. Being my second time, I felt much more relax and confident with my delivery hehe.. Not to mention that the topic this time is very related to what I do for my daily work so I am more confident with the content too. I am very happy that the response was positive. One of the organisers even asked if we could keep in touch. Of course I don't mind to have future opportunity to give presentation. Even better if it is a sponsored one for me to fly home too.

Well the joy is short-lived because I know my boss is usually not keen on letting me do this kind of thing since it is more of helping other teams and not directly something that my boss' boss want to do. Anyway I have accepted that I would always get the short end of the stick since I am not the social butterfly kind at work. Just like how last year my colleague got to attend a conference in Bali and then came back with feedback that most people spoke Indonesian and it would have been better for someone like me to go next time. Pui... Should know from the start that even though it was an international conference, most attendees would still be from Indonesia ma. Some more it was still during initial period of COVID exit when international travel had not really returned to normal.

My aunt is not yet back from Australia so I have no visiting to do tonight. Sadly, my mood is completely ruined by my landlord who cooked this afternoon. Is it so difficult to fucking close the kitchen door fully??!! I even had to mop the oily kitchen floor since he would not and I am the one who will need to walk past the kitchen to go toilet. Sigh.. It is another reminder of fucked up my life of homelessness to bear this kind of thing since this is not my home after all.

Bugs Bunny shopping

Unlike my sisters, I cannot be bothered and do not have the habit of buying new clothes for Chinese New Year. In fact, the last time I bought a t-shirt for CNY was 4 years ago since Mickey would be relevant for the year of the rat. This coming CNY will be the year of the bunny and Warner Bros is also celebrating its 100 anniversary. Hence, there are a lot of Bugs Bunny clothes which I decided to buy since it is rare to have clothes featuring Bugs Bunny. Hehe.. I deliberately write year of the bunny, instead of rabbit, because of Bugs Bunny.

On Friday, I bought a shirt from Cotton On which unfortunately did not have a discount. At $49.90, it is the most expensive shirt I have ever bought. Oh well, an exception since it is Bugs Bunny and it has a bit of spring-y design. I have never bought from Cotton On previously so I thought their sizes were huge and I went to try XS. Clearly I over-estimated my fatness. Lol. In the end, it was either S or M for me. I went with S for the shirt. I hesitated with a t-shirt which I found the material to be very thin. I felt so conscious about visible nipple and I could even see skin colour when I turned my back since there is no print at the back.

I decided to buy the t-shirt today. Haha.. Yesterday I saw that Bugs Bunny t-shirts at Uniqlo is discounted to $14.90 (from the original price $19.90), perhaps only for this weekend. Thus I made up my mind to either buy from Uniqlo or Cotton On. In the end I bought 2 t-shirts from Cotton On because I saw a design that I did not see on the website or at the Vivo City branch on Friday. Initially I only planned to buy that new design but I received a $5 voucher after buying that and it will expire in March. Hence, I decided to just buy the white as well so that I won't think about it or the voucher anymore. If it is indeed too thin and I am not confident wearing it, I can just wear it to sleep. I saw so many people wearing white and their body was also meh so if they were confident about it, perhaps I was too self-conscious. Lol. Anyway the t-shirt from Cotton On was $24.79 each which was discounted from $39.90. If there is no discount, there is no way I will spend 40 bucks for a t-shirt.

Can open Bugs boutique

I also went to check the CNY fair at Junction 8 yesterday and my Mickey shirt is not outdated. Haha.. So funny. They make Mickey wear bunny ears and have him together with other Disney's bunny characters to celebrate the year of rabbit. In fact, I saw the t-shirt I bought 4 years ago but only for the children version. Lol.

I was tempted to buy CNY figurines from XM Studios which were also old stock from last year's CNY. (Un)fortunately, there was no stock for the figurine of Mickey and Minnie doing the dragon dance. Otherwise, I would definitely buy the whole set. Without the 'main' figurine, there is no point having any so it is all or none for me.

I finally tried Shake Shack since it has a branch now at Junction 8. It was my first and possibly the my last time. Nothing against the taste but it is way too pricey for me. It cost me almost $20 just for one burger and one bacon cheese fries. No drinks and that was only a single patty burger. Thankfully free drinking water was available from the dispenser and it was my first time seeing handwashing machine. The machine automatically dispenses water, soap, water again to rinse and then finally the tissue paper.

The last interesting thing this week is my first encounter with a case of self harm in my volunteer work. I am a problem solver and my focus was on things that stressed the person that she had to resort to the self harm. I learnt that it is not the correct approach. I should address the self harm behaviour first to see if it can be discouraged before proceeding to discuss about the stress. I felt very annoyed with one of the team leads who tried to break the ice by talking about random things. He went on that route for a good half an hour. I thought it was a waste of time because it neither addressed the self harm nor the stress and eventually we still had to go there. 

This encounter was a reminder for me to learn humility again. This area of social work is entirely new to me and it seems that I cannot apply the same approaches that I use in my pharmacy work. There will circumstances where I would not know what to do or how to proceed and I have to be humble to ask. I am glad that I did that precisely and I literally asked for input at every reply I received. I hope I will know how to do better if I encounter something similar again.

It makes me wonder how youngsters nowadays are exposed to the idea of self harm. I was never taught about it at school and I only learnt about self harm when studying the drugs which may cause suicidal or homicidal side effects. Thus I cannot put myself in their frame of minds or shoes and I find it difficult to empathise and to try to help. I also cannot visualise how self harm provides stress relief. I also face a lot of stress with studies, CCAs, loneliness and homelessness but self harm never crosses my mind. The worst is only the thought of how nice it would be for me to be dead instead. Is passive suicidal tendency better or worse than self harm? I don't know haha...

Reminder from patron saint

Just a few weeks ago, I questioned myself why I chose St Jerome as my patron saint since now I no longer experience the favour of females which makes others hate me. In fact since starting working, females are the ones giving me pain with their natural bitchiness.

Today I no longer have the question because I read a story about St Jerome's encounter with Jesus. After finishing his Bible translation just before Christmas, he spent Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. Sometime around midnight, Jesus appeared to him asking what St Jerome would give Jesus as birthday present. St Jerome presented his translation work but Jesus said that was not what He wanted. St Jerome began to complain to Jesus, asking why the work which took him decades to complete and far from home was not what Jesus wanted. The offers of fasting, becoming a hermit and giving to the poor were also not what Jesus wanted. In the end, St Jerome asked what Jesus wanted and the answer was his sins.

The story hit me like a truck since this is exactly what I have in mind. Since it is said that wherever I am now and whatever I am doing now is all part of God's plan, I have been telling God I have given up everything since I came to Singapore two decades ago so what else does He want from me that I cannot be happy? I have left behind: the comfort of home to become homeless, car and opportunity to learn driving to take public transports, the time with parents and family and friends to be all by myself. All in exchange of my baptism which I think as the only positive thing I gain by coming here and I may not gain if I were to stay back home.

Another part of the reflection article says that everything we have comes from God so technically to offer our life, time, talent, wealth, etc is simply to give back the gifts to the Giver. While sins are definitely not from God and indeed, sins are something that we can give to Him which do not belong to Him in the first place.

It sounds so nice and dandy but truthfully, giving up sins is the hardest thing to do. It means self-denial and suffering. Here are some examples.

• When people hurt me, it is painful enough for me just to hide things inside and not to retaliate. Now to be forgiving to those people is another ball game.
• Anger and impatience
• I know that my obsession with bottled drinks and potato chips are borderline gluttony and yet it is so difficult for me to even cut down! Don't even talk about stopping.
• I spend a lot of time gaming and to ask me not to get 'addicted' to them by spending less time or deleting them is definitely something I am not going to do.
• My sleep, me-time, my laziness, my self-centeredness
• Perhaps the biggest one: the ungratefulness of this gift of life to the point that I pray for death so that I do not need to live this life anymore.

Currently my thinking is that these sins are the only small enjoyment I can have in the midst of this life I hate. If I also let them go, what else do I have as enjoyable? The model answer certainly is happiness will come when I let go these sins. Anyway if letting go sins is that easy, we are all already in heaven. I have to start somewhere and the lowest hanging fruit is definitely the drinks and potato chips.

Thank God the message because if the story is not about my patron saint, perhaps I would not feel that much resonance. It is also a reminder that it is not a mistake for me to choose St Jerome as patron saint since there are still similarities and struggles and I need to learn from him to overcome. St Jerome, thank you and please pray/intercede for me.

Back to complaining mode

I have kept a clean sheet to abstain from bubble tea since I returned here last June but somehow I cannot replicate it to potato chips and bottled drinks :( After finishing peanuts, I saw the buy 2 get 1 free Kettle potato chips was still ongoing at Junction 8. My initial reaction was anger because I bought that offer at the end of last year thinking that it would be over by new year. Since I was carrying laptop after work and I had to buy more urgent needs (bananas, Yakult) which were heavier, I decided that I would buy that on Saturday. The promo was no longer there yesterday -_- Well, perhaps it was God's helping hand to shield me from temptation.

Nope... Today I bought 2 bags of Lays for $8.40 from Cold Storage. I am 100% sure it was out of disappointment from failing to get Kettle yesterday because normally Lays is an easy skip for me. Kettle and Ruffles are still my top 2. As a consolation, I was able to resist the bottled drinks since Cold Storage is still having the 2 for $2.80 for Nescafe Chococino and even 2 for $2.70 for Pokka Peppermint Mocha. Honestly, it was more like I could only choose one out of the two poisons since I already had too many things in my hand.

I do not normally go shopping unless for a necessity and this weekend, it was to find gifts to return the Christmas gifts from colleagues. I plan to 'return' with CNY gifts and finding cheap CNY gifts is impossible. There are not really CNY-themed useful accessories and the food-stuff are mainly those people exchange during visitations. Hence, I decided with some tidbits. I checked out Donki yesterday and today my plan was to check Daiso if I could find any accessories. Otherwise, I would just get from Donki. Luckily Daiso has some tidbits so I ended up buying from there rather than going to Donki again.

Even checking out Donki yesterday was a by the way thing since my main purpose was to collect this year Singapore Mint Rabbit coins at Suntec City. So I just realised that there is Donki at Suntec too! Anyway, the collection was awful. I waited almost 40 minutes because there was only one counter serving the collection. It was manned by two persons and they were so slow. Gosh.. next time I would not bother to pre-order if the collection is at the store and not at roadshows. I never had such a terrible experience at the roadshows, perhaps because there were more staff.

I suppose life is slowly returning to normal that I can start posting more frequently and just to complain. That was what I mainly did before COVID. Haha... Okay if there is one thing that I should be grateful of is that I realise some improvement with my body recovery period for gym. This week I managed to go for the next sessions after 1 or 2 days of rest. It does not feel as demoralising as 3 or 4 days of rest when I just restarted. I also felt less terrible for push ups and I tried jump pulls today. Hopefully after CNY, my body can fully return to alternate days.

Dream message?

As expected, my diet-related new year resolutions failed just after one day. I went to Cold Storage after gym yesterday to get bananas for dinner and I ended up with bottled drinks again. The Nescafe Chococino was on $2.85 for 2 offer (with normal price $1.75). I could not resist since I was sleepy for the whole day yesterday. Initially I bought 2 but decided to just get the last 2 to clear the shelf.

I also ended up with peanuts in exchange of potato chips. Sigh.. The Tong Garden peanuts were also on sale for $3.40 for a big bag of 350g. That is almost half the price of the usual potato chips ($4-ish for 140g-ish). I was so excited for the party mix which turns out to be a disappointment since it is rather spicy. The sweet peanut which I initially caught my interest to this whole peanut affair but then I hesitated to buy turned out to be the better one. Since today is the last day for both offers, I hope nothing else will tempt me in the coming days.

Few weeks ago when the Gospel reading was about the angel visiting St Joseph in a dream, I said that how nice it would be if something similar happened to me so that I know what God wants me to do in my life. Yesterday I had a dream which left me wondering if it was a divine message. The dream came out of nowhere since currently I have nothing bugging my mind related to the dream. Perhaps 'a dream' is not that correct since I actually had three dreams which were all related to one another. Or were they 3 fragments of the same dream?

Currently I am volunteering for a helpline call center so my dream began from me picking up a call and I freaked out when I was connected to 90 over young people online. I asked the team lead and she told me that it was my promise to attend to and help out with that youth group.

The second part was me checking out the room where the youth group met. I am not sure but I believe it was in a church ground which I was not familiar with. By the way, it was not any church that I knew of. I remembered checking out the room itself, some Christmas decoration and the plants just next to the door to enter the room.

The third and last part was the weirdest and the most random. There were people rushing me around to meet the new priest who would be the new in-charge of that youth group.

Are these signs that I am supposed to join a new church ministry that involves youth? Currently there is nothing in mind and I have no such plan too. Hmm... I wonder if these are signs or they are just figment of my own mind. Gosh.. I wish God will make it as clear as what St Joseph experienced.

Disastrous 2022

It feels that I only had half a year in 2022 since I was enjoying myself at home in the first half of the year. Sadly, that does not translate to good time. I thought I could help to put things back after my dad's passing but not only I failed with my intention, I also fall into the same cycle of ignorance like the rest of my family. Seeing how my mom and sisters are not even interested in keeping things together at home, why should I bother? The worst part is knowing how much money my dad left behind. It makes me realise how my parents have basically fucked up my life to the point of no return. They have enough to afford a house here but they choose not to. It is too late now because the same amount cannot get one now. Not to mention the interest rate and my youthful age is over. I am just a bitter person waiting for my death to come soon.

It is also ironic that the closer I feel to God, the more I hate my life and the more I pray that I can be with Him soon. Not gonna lie that my prayer for 2023 resolution is for this year to be my final year on Earth. This is a 180 degree opposite of what I felt at the end of 2021 when I felt less passively suicidal because I was spiritually less detached from God. In fact, I do more this year. I am still keeping my commitment with daily rosary, I start volunteering on Saturdays again and I even participated in two Landings Run this year (once as Zoom host and once as facilitator). I suppose being COVIDed at the end of the retreat dampened my spiritual life with that as my reward after doing God's work.

Perhaps God knows how emo I am currently and somehow Youtube recommended me this song yesterday. It is not the first time I am listening to some praise and worship songs. In fact, I have watched some songs from the same singer as well as others related to Gaither. 

So let's count my blessings for this year. The six months stay at home was certainly a blessing since it was definitely better than being homeless in my rental room here. Able to travel during COVID to Bali without other tourists was also definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The biggest blessing was journeying with my Landings group. It is rare to journey with people around my age who are also searching for a faith community. Although I don't think I can consider them as friends, I am glad to at least still keep in touch after the Run ended. Anyway, there is nothing against them but it is just me already sealing my heart from any sort of warmth to friendship, love, or whatever human relationship. I am also unsure if I want to have friends because attending various social gatherings make me tired and unable to sleep. Yet if there were not such gathering, perhaps I would be envious of those who have. Oh well, the grass is always greener at the other side.

In the end, my 2023 resolution is still the same: I hope that I can die sometime this year. But suppose that it does not happen, my wish is to stop the bottled drinks for lunch. I successfully had zero bubble tea for the second half of this year and restrained myself not to buy potato chips unless they were on sale for $4 per bag (sometimes my tolerance was until $4.30 but definitely never more than $4.50). However, those bottled drinks become the new temptation in 2022. With me starting to go gym again, it has to be coupled with stricter diet. Sigh.. It is so demoralising to see my tummy and my neck folds which prove that my fat is really fat. I hope I can stop the bottled drinks to the point of minimum (like the potato chips) or even zero (like the bubble tea).

I also hope to re-focus my faith and spiritual life. I think I need to balance my commitments so that I do not burn out. I am still waiting for God's sign on what exactly He needs me to do with my life because I believe that will be the one to make happy and have purpose in this life. Otherwise for now, the line I am quoting from the song above is: Angels will attend, help and comfort give you to your journey's end. And I pray that my journey will finally end in 2023. Hurray!