Incomplete Perfexion

New Blog

2020-02-19T22:50:00.000+08:00

Hi guys. I have started a new blog and will discontinue using this one.
Please follow me on my journey at my new blog! Thank you.

https://journeyofjubilation.blogspot.com/

The End?

2019-12-31T23:00:00.000+08:00

Wow, it's been quite awhile right? Haven't been blogging at all.

The reason why I wanted to start writing again is because I just have a lot of things floating around in my mind. The best way for me to get them all organized is to put them down in text. Also, it's almost 2020 right? The end of a decade, and the start of a new one. Surely, there's no better time to write out a reflective blog post of this sort. So here we go.

I think first of all, I want to address the most recent happenings about me. There is that controversial situation that happened a couple of months back that you probably know about already. If you know about it, then you know. If you don't know, then I'd rather not dig out the past. But to be honest, I had been hinting about it on this blog for some time already. It's not like I was trying to deliberately hide it. You'll find it sooner or later, if you want to. Not that it's necessary.

So, what's there to say about it? Not much to be honest. Aside from the fact that most of the finer more important details that were left out, you probably know roughly what happened. If it hasn't been apparent, I have been suffering from major depressive disorders for some time now. That, plus a few other aggravating factors played a part. However, I make no excuses and totally own up for what happened. It was entirely my fault and no one else's. I would just like to focus my efforts on moving forward now, and hopefully you can afford me that same respect.

That's about the most I can divulge without talking to you in person.

Finally with that major baggage out of the way, let's talk about some reflections on the past decade. That's what this post is about right? Not specifically focusing on one incident. But boy is there a lot of stuff to talk about. I could go on rambling for days. But the point of this post and the blog in general is to organize my thoughts in a log so that I can possibly come back and reread all of this stuff should I ever need to. IN FACT! Looking back, I realized that I started this blog in 2011, and thus it has been almost 10 years that I have been blogging here on and off. What a coincidence, and what a way to end this blog!

I think I want to organize the remainder part of this post based on chronological order and split them up based on the phase of life I was in, for better clarity. Unlike a lot of my past ranting posts that just stated facts mixed with my own negative interpretative opinions and complaints, I aim to do a more balanced, objective, and in-depth reflection. I will reflect on what happened during that period, the takeaways, both the good and the bad, and possibly what I will do in the future. Let's start.

Phase One: 2010 - 2014
Oh man, the university days. It was a mixed bag. I think it's helpful to understand my background coming into this. Perviously, I came from an all-boys secondary school, and then proceeded through JC in a H2 Computing class that had only 2 girls in total. Therefore, my experience with girls is limited to almost zero. At the same time, I was the top scorer for H2 Computing in my JC, winning awards and all, which gave me a slightly haughty opinion of my personal capabilities. Yet, the fact remains that I was thrown into a completely new environment after being 2 yrs out of touch because of NS and the lack of friends or connections. Goals to accomplish? Study hard, do well in university, get girlfriend, get job. All this while being my solo player self. I even ended up missing the summer orientation camp as I was working part-time, and somehow missed out on applying for hall and CCA. I really don't think I could be more introverted or anti-social during this period.

What happened during this period? Well, academics ate up a huge part, and somehow I chose to focus only on it. During year 1, I honestly tried very hard to try to get a girlfriend. But my shy inexperienced introverted self was unable to make first moves at all. Signals were sent, but that's about it. Then I got rekt by another dude coming into the picture. Thus, I think I became even more reclusive and decided to focus solely on academics. And I did do well, to be fair. Achieved the much coveted Dean's List award and scored a bunch of As along the way. Did a couple of internships here and there. Tried applying to banks, but they wouldn't take me. Eventually landed jobs with the government sector. Funny story is that the interview was such a joke. After the interview, they called me immediately while I was on the train home to offer me the job. I also learned a lot during this period, especially with the heavy weight 8 MC project and my FYP paper. I think I had a grand total of less than 5 friends during the 4 years. Most were just project group mates.

So what's my reflection? Well, honestly this is the most reflected on period of my life. I have always looked back on it with regrets and how I could have done things better. But today, I shall try to also see the positives. The negatives are obvious. I got rekt in relationships, I missed my second upper by a few points, flunked a couple of modules, didn't managed to secure my minor, didn't get into any high paying bank jobs, didn't really experience uni life, didn't make many friends, etc. I think I can go on and on because I have thought about the negatives too much. But on the bright side, I picked up key programming skills in Java, I was given the opportunity to explore web development during internship, I improved my vocabulary a ton by writing essays, I beat so many others to get the Dean's List, I read up on and picked up a knack for appreciating good design, I landed a solid paying iron rice bowl government job. And hey, I graduated from university! I was going places! Could I have done things better? Yeah. But do I regret it? No, not anymore. I am no god (despite the fact that it was my nickname), I can't have known and done everything. I already accomplished so much. It's no use regretting what happened. I can only move forward now.

Phase Two: 2014 - 2016
The working years. It was short, but also rather eventful. In the first place, I was put into a weird spot. I was originally supposed to work for that department. But because I delayed my starting day, funny enough my classmate applied and got into the job ahead of me. So, they wanted to reassign me somewhere else but I negotiated with them and got into the same department as my classmate. This situation is strange because they didn't really have a clear role for me to fill and so I was doing odd jobs, random admins and "research" work. The two main issues I ran into during this time, was people issues, and my existential crisis. Not having a clear role aside, at this time I was still fresh out of university and trying to discover what I want in life. I still didn't have a girlfriend and didn't know how, especially not in my department of uncles/aunties. This meant that I was young and free enough to literally do anything. The endless possibilities clearly overwhelmed me. An 'incident' also occured due to my lack of EQ. Somehow there was a strange dynamic in my team where everybody hated our boss as they claim that he was 'parachuted' in and didn't understand any of their problems. One day I accidentally exposed one guy in an implied message in the group chat, and boy did he take it badly.

What happened next was an almost team-wide boycott towards me. I was still too emotionally immature and didn't know how to handle all these human interactions. I was trying my best to ignore it, but it clearly affected me. So again, I withdrew into my reclusive self and went back to solo life. Just to add fuel to the fire, the parties working on the project were constantly not working together or straight out disagreeing entirely. The challenge was how to make all parties satisfied AND deliver on the project. Meanwhile, our people started leaving the team 1-by-1 in some kind of slow exodus. Some transferred to other departments, others left the company entirely. This just meant more work to spread out among lesser people. And all this while, I was still having my existential crisis. Questioning myself constantly, is this really what you want to be doing for the rest of your life? Is this how to live life? Do you really enjoy or find purpose in doing your work? Are you ever going to end up anywhere with this? Will you ever meet that special someone while holed up in this place? There were plenty of questions and endless self-doubt, it was miserable. Eventually, I didn't know how to handle it anymore. My mental health was deteriorating and I was on the verge of going crazy. So I left.

Now that I think about it, I have seldom reflected on this critical period of my life. Perhaps it was too painful, perhaps I didn't know how to face it. I really wanted to ignore it and move on. But I now know that the more you run away from a problem, the more it will come to haunt you. And the thing is, no matter how badly I have painted it, there were positives during this period as well! During this period, I started to reconnect with my best friend from primary school and started attending all those cosplay events and started getting into photography. I needed an outlet for all the pent up stress that was building up. Not to mention that I was somehow secretly hoping to get into a relationship with the cosplayers. Not with my introverted self, that didn't happen. On the bright side, what did happen, was that my solid paying job provided me with the finances to do what I want OUTSIDE of work. Being so engrossed with academics at school, I also assumed that work would be my everything. I overlooked that work/life separation that was also viable. Having a stable income allowed me to attend events freely on weekends, allowed me to eat at all the expensive restaurants without budget, allowed me to gym and study Japanese, allowed me to buy camera gear and pursue photography as a hobby, and most of all allowed me to travel. And we all know how eyeopening my visit to Japan was.

Phase Three: 2017 - 2019
Possibly the most 'eventful' but yet also the most turbulent period of my life. 2016 ended on a rather sour note for me. Not only did I quit my job with no plan in sight, but also my mother was suddenly afflicted with a stroke. For several months, she was almost immobile on the entire right side of her body. What a way to start the year. For a short period, I was toying with the idea of starting a business or using my savings to open up a subway franchise. The naive idea was to have freedom to do what I want and not have to answer to any boss. But I slowly learned that freedom and responsibility come hand in hand. Sure you have no boss, but how are you going to motivate and push yourself for your own sake? Turned out the plans didn't go anywhere. I wasn't fired up enough to pull through anything. So I turned to an old secondary school friend that I hadn't contacted in over a decade. He was currently starting his Masters program at NTU, and urged me to do the same. Having no concrete plans at the moment, it made the most sense and was the path of least resistance. After all, as much as I complained, I realized that I really loved academics and the student life. It was really the only thing I was ever remotely good at doing. So I signed up!

And I really had the best time of my life doing my Masters! Second only to maybe my primary school days? I felt alive again. I felt like I could really do something. Heck I even had a crush on the cute girl in my class who shared the lift with me on the very first day! Somehow we became friends and did almost every project together. But she kept a lot of her private life secret, and it took a long time for me to figure out that she was already attached. Oh well, I still enjoyed out time together. As for the actual academic content, it was more or less easily manageable as I had studied similar stuff before during undergraduate days. Nonetheless, it was a good revision, and I got to meet many cool people as I formed close bonds with a small group of our Singaporean minority. We constantly supported and looked out for each other. We even had project meetings and outings to many places. It was really fun times. Behind all this though, I was hiding the dark clouds that overshadowed my life and was eating into the back of my mind. You see, the 'incident' had already happened between me registering and starting my Masters program. I was basically just waiting out the procedures to happen and bring it to a close. I had no choice in the matter, but I will say that the Masters program helped me very much deal with some otherwise very tough times.

Graduation happened in 2018, and it seems that we all went our separate ways. A sad departure from one of the best group of friends I've had in awhile. I couldn't even seriously look for a job given my situation. Meanwhile, I can only observe my ex-crush doing stuff and going places. Must be nice. It also seems that at this period, most of my peers from my cohort in NUS are getting married and settling down. All while I was drifting and held in limbo. If there was a tougher time and more mentally draining time than when I was at work, it would be this. You don't know what you got until it's lost. And then 2019 rolled around, and I knew I had to face the inevitable, so I made the mental determination to own up and just go through with it. At this point, I had already been on medication and psychotherapy for close to about 2 years. I was feeling better mentally. But as ready as I was, it was difficult for the people around me. I basically spammed the drugs to keep myself together over that difficult period, and only came off towards the end. I honestly lost everything and had nothing left to look forward to in life. Thankfully I still had 1 Japan trip left with my friend. It was great, and made me want to go back for more.

These days, I have been 'drifting' more than anything. I feel like I am doing nothing. I mean, I have been applying for jobs every now and then, but not getting any good responses. And me being adamant about working in Japan doesn't really help either. I still go to gym, and I still do photography at events. But I had stopped my Japanese lessons for so long already. Also what am I doing that is productive use of my 30 year old life? I don't know, and I still didn't have a plan. Wow, this period is disorganized. It's my first time seriously reflecting on this period of my life actually. I guess that will be the first step for me in 2020. So let's close this by trying to come up with some reflections on this period. Negatives almost don't need to be stated, it's blasting right in my face, basically wasted away a large portion of time, setting myself back from my cohort. Positives are a bit more nuanced. Firstly, I'd say that the academic part was really good. I had the opportunity to work with an excellent prof who had some serious OCD for essay writing, and really took my writing skills to a whole new level. It's amazing the kind of work I was able to produce under his influence. In terms of student life and friendship, I will say that I had an awesome time. Although, I'll probably never contact them ever again as I am too afraid of them judging me. Lastly, I want to say that in terms of mental health, I have made some serious progress. Things that were unbearable to me before, I can now handle in my stride pretty easily. I am generally more positive and less depressed.

Happy 2020!

So when I say Happy New Year, I really mean it. I want to be Happy from now on onwards. And it took me awhile to get it, but happiness comes from within. You cannot look to someone or something to make you happy. It's about expectations, and it's about your reactions to situations that determines your happiness. The first phase of the past decade was really the foundational years that helped me build a base of knowledge and intellectual background. It was where I really honed the technical and design skills I have today. The second phase was confusing, but a very good teacher in hindsight. It taught me to be thankful for the luxuries and resources I had. It showed me that a better understanding of your self vs your work and how you can segregate, balance or integrate it to your discretion. I will definitely look to working on that when I get my next job. The third phase was arguably the toughest. It gave me hope, but then took away everything I had built up. I really really enjoyed my time in NTU, and the friendships I built along the way. Above all else, it really trained and helped me to improve on my 'human interactions' skills that I so lacked. Towards the end of the year was painful no doubt, but also helped build up my psychological resilience and maturity. For that at least, I'm thankful.

And I think that will be the theme for the coming year at least. Learning to be thankful for what I have, what I encounter, what I receive, and what I will achieve. Life is too short now to be an emo pessimistic cynical bitch. I mean, I need to get stuff done dammit. In the past, it was definitely the case that I had focused too much on studies and work that I had totally neglected mental health. I was always in the camp of: "aiya somehow I will get over it", and treated it as a trivial matter. But in reality we often overlook how important it is to manage our mood and overall wellbeing. While I was away, I've had the time to read plenty of self-help books on the matter. Most agree that it is important to regularly take stock of your blessings and what makes you happy, so as to maximize your happiness. To that end, I will be starting a new blog to replace this one. I haven't thought about the name of it yet, but it will definitely be more positive that this one. I mean, "Incomplete Perfexion" how did I even come up with that. The follies of youth. Hahaha. But yeah, the new blog will be mainly focusing on 2 aspects that I want to work on. One is the happiness log, to teach me to be more thankful for what I have, to notice the good stuff, and to stop being a sourpuss. Two is for regular action plans, so that I commit and be accountable to execute what I say I want to do. I've had moderate success in the past with these "Action Plans" on this blog before, but it got kind of lost in the other messy emo stuff I was going through. So, I want to give it another shot.

I will post the link to my new blog here once it's up. Do follow me there!
[EDIT] Here it is! https://journeyofjubilation.blogspot.com/

THAT'S ABOUT IT! This blog post is way longer that I wanted, and that Phase 3 had more rants and mess than I would have liked, but the gist is there. If you know me in person, then you can clearly tell the difference in my articulation between when I try to talk and when I am writing. It's a world of difference. I am constantly working on being more expressive in person. ANYWAY, I would also like to take this opportunity to wish anyone reading this a very happy new year and successful decade ahead. I want to say that we are all in this journey called life together, and there should be no reason why we cannot make the most out of it. Let's do our best from here on out. Happy 2020!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019

2019-01-01T16:49:00.000+08:00

This is the obligatory new year post that I do every year. Not that I think of it as just a chore. In fact, I do think that it is a good time to look back and review how much I've progressed, and to plan ahead to what I look to achieve in the coming 364 days. As cliche as it sounds, "new year, new me" allows for constant change and something to look forward to. I think it is rather important. After all, so much has happened in the past year that brought me to where I am today. So, let's learn from the past and progress into the future! In order to write this post, I actually had to look back at last year's post to see what I wrote back then. It was so long ago... Looking back at it, somehow reading it makes me feel like I was so childish back then. Was I really like that? I guess that has some bearing on how much I've changed and developed in just 1 year alone. Everything seemed so disorganized back then. And they still are today, but I have a general sense of where I am heading. So without further ado, let's do a quick review of 2018 first.

I can see that I broke up my 2018 goals into 3 main categories, which makes it easier to review. In fact, I still think it is a good idea and I will probably come up with another 3 goals for this year. Okay, so first category from 2018 was Career. Well, in short all I can say that it was a complete flop. 3 out of 10, failure. Let's elaborate. On the job hunting side, I was eventually rejected by Rakuten Japan after the interview. But to be honest, they were looking for your standard slave worker programmer, of which I am not. I made it clear to them that I am more of a front-end developer, designer, and project manager. Just wasn't the right fit. I did apply again this year just for kicks, but not planning to take it too seriously. I updated my CV to clearly state my inclinations. I also started experimenting here and there with trading cryptocurrencies as a side profit making strategy. Things didn't do too well as the whole market basically tanked. Margin day-trading was also a disaster, as I went from breakeven to making big losses. I did learn a lot in the process, and I currently have 6 bots that are trading and maintaining my funds 24/7 so I guess that's kind of cool?

As for the ongoing trials and tribulations that I am facing... Honestly, it is STILL NOT OVER! I am slightly pissed at this point. To the extent that I don't care what the outcome is, I just want it to finish. It's been dragging on me since mid 2017, not allowing me to progress in my career and basically being stuck in limbo. But it's close, an I do expect to be done by Q2 of 2019. Fingers crossed for a good outcome. A major milestone for me, was when I graduated from my Master's course with a 4.6/5 GPA. Also managed to get a decent testimonial from prof and a certificate of excellence which I think was pretty awesome. But yeah, other than that, I am somehow progressing with my Japanese language. I cleared N3 in 2018 and I am now working towards my N2 if I get the chance. Because the mid year JLPT test might clash with my Q2 date of that other thing. I might have to push it to the Dec test. We'll see. At first I wanted to give myself a 3 out of 10, but reading all of that again, I think I do deserve a 4 out of 10. I did what I could given the circumstances.

In terms of the second goal of Fitness, I will say that it is a mixed bag. Probably a 5 out of 10 at best. Not completely fail, but did not hit target as intended. Looking back, the goal was to slim down and cut down to 80kgs. I'll just honestly say that I did not hit that goal lah. In fact, I actually put on some weight and went from 88kgs to 90kgs. But let me elaborate. The thing is, I never actually ended up focusing on cutting, and ended up bulking instead. I have gained considerable strength and muscle mass in 2018, and I can now bench 200lbs which is officially heavier than myself. Being able to push more than your own body weight feels amazing man. But yeah, aside from the daily 16/8 intermittent fasting, which seems to have no more further fat burning effects at this point, I am a lot less active now that I have no school. Also stopped drinking the blended juice regularly, but in exchange I switched my daily lunch to a healthy ham and lettuce sandwich instead. All in all, let's just say that fitness had not been the forefront of my attention in the past year. And as a result, I wasn't able to seriously hit my targets, but managed to maintain more or less.

The third goal I had for 2018 was Maturity. In this aspect, I can strongly say that I have made much strides in this regard. Who knew the last one of my goals turned out to be the most impactful after all? Let me explain. As I spoke briefly about in my post on "Depression", I have been seeing a psychiatrist for treatment. But other than that, it's also about talking with close friends, and really just trying to understand myself and the people around me that I care about. It's hard to quantify or put into words, but I do feel like I am more aware now. I know myself a lot better, I know my strengths and weaknesses, I know what I need to work on, and I know where I am headed. That's more than enough for a good start. Probably an 8 out of 10 if I were to score it. But certainly, the journey is not over. There is plenty more ways in terms of maturity of thought that I can improve on. I capped off the year nicely by finally taking that Myers Briggs test, and truly learnt a lot about myself being an INTJ. Honestly, being currently held in this limbo and staying at home all the time is not helping. But as I said, this whole ordeal will likely be over by Q2 of this year. Once that is over, I can work towards my next stage, which as you guessed it, is Japan!

So that's my 2018 in a short review! Here's the summary. Basically, career wise there has not been too much progress due to the ongoing issues that I'm facing, but I did my best filling out the time with whatever learning and development I could. Fitness wise, I was expecting to kickstart the weight loss at the end of that long drawn ordeal, but it ain't over yet. So, I continue to put on strength to see how much muscle I can build and maintain. In terms of maturity, I made great strides by coming forward and facing my weaknesses. By doing things I normally would never had done in the past. And I continued to improve and learn more about myself and the people around me. So that's 2018 in review! I tried to keep this post shorter and save my so called new year resolutions for the new post, so stay tuned!

2018 had been a long rough year. let's progress further in 2019!

Depression

2018-10-01T18:26:00.001+08:00

So what have I been up to lately?
I was asked that quite a number of times when I went to meet up with my NTU gang. Honestly, the reason I didn't answer was because I didn't know how to answer. So this is my long and roundabout way of trying to come up with an answer. The short TLDR answer is basically "nothing much". But of course, as with anything, there is a lot more to it than what it seems like on the surface.

Haven't blogged in many months, so I went to reread my previous post before posting this. I know it would seem that things were looking bright in my previous post. It seemed like I had really found the answer. That things had really started to click for me. And in some ways it did! I felt a lot stronger, and was able to power through that last semester of school. Hey, I even finished strong in the top 10% of the cohort. I think I did well, my situation and all things considered.

So then why the sudden return of depression and negativity? Somehow I feel like I was born to suffer in constant misery and pain. Things have not been going smoothly for me in a very very long time. I had an awesome childhood, I think. But nothing has even gone right from teenage years onwards. I guess it's the problem of being both a big dreamer AND a perfectionist at the same time. It's a bad combo. I will often dream up these lavish and extravagant futures and feel like I am incomplete and unable to reach such goals. People who have worked with me in recent projects will have experienced this firsthand. Yes I can be very demanding in terms of quality standards, but know that I am even more demanding and harsh towards myself.

And that's perhaps the source of my eternal depression and negativity. I always strive for perfection, and I constantly beat myself up over not being able to achieve it, rinse and repeat. Things are looking even more dire lately as I struggle towards the end of my long running "situation" that I got involved in. Not much I can share about the "situation" except that it's bad. Very bad. Something that for most people could potentially be career ending or life ending. For me though, it is uncertain. I mean, it's still gonna scar me fucking deep mentally and emotionally for life. But because I plan to leave the country anyway, it's not THAT bad even if I fuck up every possible opportunity and prospect that I will ever have in Singapore. I fucking hate this place already.

But it doesn't change the "situation". And the fact right now is that, I AM STUCK. I cannot do anything until this resolves completely, I can't get a permanent job, I can't make plans, I can't even see what my future will be like 3 to 6 months from now, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! And that's why my answer to you all is that I am doing nothing much lately. Because I can do nothing much. The wiser of you that are able to read between the lines of my recent blog posts will already know what I've been involved in. So far I've only told 1 friend about it. But the fact of the matter is that it sucks man. Not being able to have the control and freedom to plan and work towards my goals sucks for someone like me. And that only serves to further aggravate my depression.

I have been seeking help lately. In the past couple of months, I have been seeing a psychiatrist for treatment regarding my issues. But honestly he can only do so much. There are multiple different sides within me that it is like some warring states going on in there. When I do talk to my psychiatrist, the logical and calm side can come out and portray some level of confidence. My I myself know that I am still in a mess. And the longer this "situation" drags on, the worse it is going to get. To the point that I just want to get it over and done with. Win or lose, good or bad outcome I almost don't care anymore. I JUST WANT IT TO END GODDAMMIT! Let me free already. Stop eating away at my life. I'm not growing any younger, and I have yet to achieve anything substantial. I am just a ball of nothing right now. Caught in limbo, floating in space. Lost.

Which is why I have returned to binge gaming. To escape from it all. To have a distraction. To not think so much about other things. To have something to kill my time. Recently, I have been playing a lot of Maplestory M. I'm on the Asia2 - Zenith server. Add me, lol. So yeah, that's my current status. Not doing much, can't do much. The only so called "work" I am doing is basically just tune my crypto trading bots from time to time. And perhaps also contemplating creating my own website. I've been dwelling on the idea for awhile now, but have been procrastinating and gaming too much to actually act on it. Sigh.

Anyway, I didn't mean to come here and complain about how pathetic my life is right now. But honestly speaking, depression is no joke man. And I encourage anyone who is facing it find someone to talk to. As someone who experiences it firsthand, I know that I definitely want people to talk to. It may not solve all the problems, but it certainly makes things a bit less painful. Sometimes, we just need someone to share the heavy burden that we carry, and it's nice to know that someone would care. Right now what I need more than anything, is someone who understands me.

oh yeah, and I've been watching loads of anime to kill time too...

Mindset Change

2018-03-16T00:13:00.002+08:00

Hey guys! I'm back again!

I haven't been blogging for quite awhile now, and that can only be a good sign! When I turn to this blog too excessively, it's always a sign of my negative emotions and mental breakdown. So, the less I blog here the better! But today I just want to share what's been going on with me lately, seeing as my previous post was so dark and gloomy. So here's a positive one for a change!

Yes, you heard it right! I'm adopting a positive mental attitude for this one, what a shock.

Anyway, the main things that had happened to me since CNY was basically meeting up with my old secondary school friend, and then being forced to go back for ICT reservist training right in the middle of school term. Turns out, both of these events were super helpful in helping me turn my life around, and viewing everything in a different light. Let me explain how.

Firstly, I think I ought to explain briefly the problem or situation I was in. Basically, I was stuck in an emotional rut, where I no longer even believed in myself. I lost the will to live, to fight, and to continue chasing any life goals. It was like close to end of the road for me. When even you yourself give up on yourself, you are fucking screwed you know. But then, I met up with my old time friend, who doubles as my unofficial therapist in these sort of situations. He's doing great, and strongly and passionately believes in what he is doing. The direct opposite of how I felt back then. Well, the only similarity is that we are both single. Haha, that's besides the point.

So after having a long whole day chat with my old friend, spanning from lunch to dinner, Long story short is that I started feeling better. Not only does he inspire me with what he is doing and believes in doing, but he sort of opened my eyes to my own capabilities. Basically, I am really not doing so bad, in some sense, you could say I'm fucking awesome. How many people can do the things I can do? How many people can think and analyze on the level that I do? We are like minded in the sense that we overthink things, which also means that we have the capability for such deep thoughts. And it takes one to know one. I truly needed his help to stop me from thinking so much negative thoughts and spiralling into despair. Luckily he did manage to do it.

So that's one part of the problem solved: stop killing yourself. The next part was slightly more complicated. I needed to go from not killing myself, to actually believing I had what it took to fight again, to go and achieve what I want to do, to chase for my happiness again. Simple as it sounds, it was a monumental dilemma for me. I was really missing this part of the puzzle for the longest period of time, hence the name of this blog which came from Incomplete Perfection. Always that 1 ingredient short. In my mind, there was really only 2 possible solutions to this. First, is for me to become a super independent and confident alpha male and just fight regardless of everything. Second, is for someone important to come into my life to help fill the gaping hole. Someone who could believe in me and support me even when nobody did, even when I wanted to give up.

Something like what Rem does in episode 18 of Re:Zero that I watched recently.

this remixed music video just makes the scene even better.

And honestly, for the longest time I was so fixated on the second option that I didn't believe I had the ability to do the first option anymore. I gave up on myself, did nothing, and hoped and prayed for someone to come into my life, someone to be my moral support and put me back on track. But I now know that such an option is just wishful thinking. In fact, a lot of times, you kind of need to have shown or demonstrated your ability to do option one, before option two even becomes available. I suppose in a comical way, you can think of it like some unlockable game content. You cannot unlock stage 2 without first doing stage 1. Makes sense right?

About the reservist training, it's a pretty long story. Basically, it came to me when I was in a pretty negative state of mind, and I was super adamant on NOT going for it no matter what. I mean, I was just super pissed that it had to happen in the middle of my school term, even if the 2nd week was a recess week. So, I was prepared to try all means possible to get deferred. I went so far as to appeal to the MP of my GRC, and I was prepared to take MC multiple times or AWOL. But alas, they let me book in 1 day late, and gave me off for Wed lesson, so I really missed none of my lessons. To be honest, I was still slightly sour, so I decided to exercise my rights to endorse my medical condition. This is where things get slightly more complicated.

Day 1, I went to the medical officer and he gave me some minor statuses, which excused me from carrying heavy loads and stuff. Not enough to excuse me from the outfield training the next week. Day 2, after a night of thinking about it, I went on my own to "clarify" on my statuses, and came back with the "Excused Outfield" status. The MO even asked me to sign a form to get down PES. lol. But I REALLY want to clear the air here. As much as this situation seems like a "kheng" to escape training, I REALLY do have a medical condition. I mean, there is no bluffing, I went through all the respective MRI + XRAY + Blood tests already. And it is a FACT, that I experience back pains every morning. Could I still force it and go through the outfield training? Sure. But should I risk it? Probably not. I do believe that the pains happened after sleeping on the cold concrete floor during last year's training. Basically, I am growing old and probably have rheumatism is the short story. Still waiting for the follow up appointment on that.

But what's the big deal right? Just excuse training only mah. That's what I thought, but apparently other people think differently. I can't tell for sure, but if my ever so sensitive perception of people is right, I think everyone in the platoon hates me for it. From the commanders down to all the combat fit men. The resentment shown is apparent. Again, I let this get to me. For a couple of days, I was stressing out about this. Those who were once close friends and buddies, started growing more distant, colder. Even people who I have clearly helped in the past were not cutting me any slack. I guess, I missed the camaraderie and friendship that we shared. I just didn't expect them to cut me off so abruptly just because I skipped 1 outfield training, even thought it was the last outfield we will ever get. Eh come on lah, I really do have a medical condition what...

That situation sort of put me at a crossroad. Do I retreat? And retract back into the depths of despair, to doubt myself again and ask why I am such a horrible person? Or do I press forwards, fuck care all of them, and strike it out on my own? If you haven't been able to tell by this post thus far, I chose the latter option, which kind of coincides with option one that I listed above. Convenient right? But more importantly, I had an epiphany. I realized the missing piece to solve the dilemma I had been facing. It really wasn't just option 1 or option 2. It required a holistic approach to enable option 1 so that I can achieve option 2! Crazy mind-fuck right? Sorry to get all meta psychology on you. But it is true!

So the secret is this one word: image.

I want to further develop the idea, and elaborate on what I mean, but it is getting kind of late, and this blog post has gone waaaay out of proportion. Too long liao, I shall elaborate on this point in a separate post. The gist of it though, is that I need to build and maintain a solid image. One that inspires confidence, capability, and success. Only then can I have that reflect and have the self-confidence to go out and achieve everything that I want. It's way more nuanced than that, but really I cannot fit anymore into this post, I'm tired. So stay tuned! Look out for my next blog post, detailing the secrets I have discovered during this short period that turned my whole mindset around.

Until then, stay positive and live strong! :)

Happy CNY?

2018-02-17T00:11:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone. Happy Chinese New Year. Hope you ar having a good one.

Personally, I don't know how to feel about my day today. Everything went by just so quickly. Wake up in the morning, then head down to my uncle's house. Do some quick Yu Sheng thingy, exchange a few words here and there, and by 5pm we left. Things are just getting so quiet lately. Not even the full extended family showed up. Such a stark contrast to about 10 years ago, when things were still very lively and happening.

I don't know why, perhaps it is a factor of age, and we are all just victims of time. Gradually the older generations fade away, and the young ones are not there to replace them. For my family at least. For a long time, I had 3 grandparents. Then paternal grandma passed away. Next was maternal grandma, after which we no longer visited my mother's side. Then my paternal grandpa, leaving behind just a bachelor uncles. Only my dad and his sisters are married. Then finally this year, one of my uncles passed. The family tree is literally fading before my eyes.

Perhaps I feel extra pressure being the only grandson carrying the family name? But I am kind of numb by now. It's a burden I have lived with for years now. And the way things look, it is likely that I would follow my uncles' fates rather than my father's. Unfortunately. But that's not even the thing. I am just rather upset that some of our family don't even bother to show up anymore. Call me old fashion, but I really miss the old days, when we had big gatherings, and stayed till really late at night. I used to think those were a waste of time, but oh how I miss them so now. It's like the life has been sucked out of the family.

You know, I hesitated about making this post. After all, it's supposed to be a HAPPY new year right? But for me it isn't. It really isn't! I'm near to tears on the inside. I know I have been posting more and more emo posts in the recent weeks, I just can't help it. I'm beginning to be convinced that I really have a mental illness. I am seriously starting to consider looking for a psychiatrist for help. I think a part of me is broken, and it needs some deeper level of fixing that I am not capable of finding on my own. I just don't have the time right now. So maybe after graduation or something.

Yeah, that's all for today. Happy CNY!

All About Aesthetics

2018-02-13T17:02:00.000+08:00

So I guess tomorrow is the day huh? Most depressing day in February. But I should be used to it by now. Anyway, I really wanted to talk about another topic that's been on my mind lately. That is the fact of how much I am of a bimbo on the inside! Haha! To me it's all about the aesthetics. Everything must look nice and pleasing on the eye. Doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't even need to function well, as long as it looks good and fits in well with everything. I'm not just talking about products, but also people, fashion, websites, apps, furniture, stationary, and really anything under the sun. If it looks good to me, I like it. Sounds shallow, I know, but let me justify.

Hmm... How do I describe it? I've been saying it for a super long time now. Good design aesthetics IS a feature. It's not so much form over function, but form IS a type of function. You see, good design aesthetics inspires confidence. It grants one a sense of comfort, satisfaction, and pleasure of using or interacting with something. The better something looks, the more intrinsically attractive it becomes. Nevermind if it doesn't function perfectly, as long as it does the basics, I will choose it over the uglier looking alternative any day. Perfect example are the high end stuff, like sports cars and branded luxury bags right? If asked to choose between a good practical SUV and a Lambo, with unlimited money I would pick the Aventador every time.

The reason why I want touch on the aspect of aesthetics, is that I kind of want to share my gym workout strategy here. What do you think the most aesthetic body parts are? For men, I would have to say it is Chest, Deltoids, Arms, and Lats. Many so-called surveys have been done, and the so-called V-taper body shape seems to come out top all the time. As such, this is always the focus of my workouts, to maximize ROI of my time spent. But so far, I think I have been over training my chest and not as much effort into the other 3. It's hard to squeeze everything into 1 workout like I do. But I really do not have time to train 1 body part per day. I only have the time to go gym 1 or 2 times a week max. No time for even my interval training. I want to caution here also, that you NEVER want to do any form of cardio before weights, as it hinders your gains. Research backed, trust me.

So what about women? Well, here is where it gets slightly controversial. I do not self-proclaim to be a connoisseur, but I do have strong opinions and tastes in the aesthetics of the female body. Hopefully that doesn't sound too creepy, haha. Anyway, I think most gym enthusiasts would focus on the lower body of ladies, and put Gluts right up there as the number 1 focus. While I don't completely disagree, I think it is more nuanced than that. There are a lot of other body parts we can focus on. For starters, I actually think it is quite similar to males. If I were to recommend, I will say focus on Deltoids, Lats, Chest, and do Gluts as an accessory workout. Here's why. Many would agree, that the so-called hourglass figure is the holy grail of the female body. And if you really take notice, a lot of women have the problem of the pear-shaped body. So how do we fix this? It's obvious right? We work on the upper body! Why has nobody thought of that?

The reason why I thought about this, was that surprisingly my sister joined me for 2 or 3 gym sessions during the december holidays. Very rare of her. But naturally, she gave up again after that. And she is still really obese. Well, I tried to help. So back to the topic, I think women really want to focus on their lateral Deltoids, to make the illusion of slightly wider shoulders to balance out with their hips. But I'd say avoid training other parts of your arms too much, coz guys don't find that too attractive. Then to add on to that, you want to train your Lats (back) as well, to add more meat to the upper part of your frame and get some width. again this will balance your lower body, hence creating the hourglass. And of course, Chest and Gluts for obvious reasons. What I will say though, is that in my opinion, ladies should try best to stay away from training legs. While you THINK that it so-called tones your legs, I think that it just makes your thighs look thicker. Which is not aesthetic in my opinion. Oh yeah, and fuck cardio. That shit is no good for you and burns fats in all the wrong places. Do some HIIT interval training if you must, but the weights training should be more than intensive enough.

What you want it some unnatural looking or drastic looking proportions, to set you out from the other regular people. That's kind of the reason why some people use steroids, but that's another matter. If possible, you want slim looking legs but well formed Gluts. Sounds contradictory, but I honestly think it's possible with some of the more advanced gym machines today. Find those exercises that only focus on isolation of a particular muscle group, and just keep on using that. I'd recommend to refrain from doing too many squats or other leg related exercises if you want to avoid the pear syndrome. Additionally, you can throw in a little bit of corset training, but don't go overboard with it. I won't talk too much about that here, coz it falls closely into the realm of crazy territory, which will likely be covered in my other blog someday. But honestly, it's not a bad option. I have been seriously considering getting a waist trainer as well. Because I somehow just can't seem to slim down my waist area. It's tough.

Oh yes, I almost forgot 1 more thing related to aesthetics. For women it is slightly more troublesome because they have 1 more aspect to worry about, that is makeup. While it IS possible to go without makeup, I think that you wouldn't go very far in terms of aesthetics. However, I have really very little knowledge in this area, so I can't give much advice other than try to follow some China, Japan or Korea tutorials. They are seriously damn good at the craft. One thing I will say though, is that if you want to ignore it all and just focus on ONE thing, then focus on lashes. It is THE most important aspect I feel. Be it your mascara or false lashes or what not, it seems simple enough to apply and gives the maximum ROI. That and lipstick or lip gloss seems the easiest and least time consuming to do. The rest is really just simple grooming like haircut and brow trimming. But honestly, I think hairstyle for ladies is a whole lot easier to maintain than men. You won't believe how much effort it takes to style my fucking stubborn hair.

But yeah, so that's all I wanted to write about. The surprising thing, is that I THINK I might have inspired some of my classmates to go to the gym more often. Perhaps it was just my fanatic discipline that inspired them, or maybe not. But we all go to different gyms. I just wish that one day we could all get 1 workout done together, same gym at the same time. It should be fun. Just wishful thinking though. Anyway, I wish them all the best in their fitness efforts.

Been turning to Honoka for my daily dose of kawaii motivation. :P

I am Lost

2018-02-03T20:48:00.002+08:00

Oh no, I am blogging more frequently. That cannot be a good sign for my mental health. Usually when I blog a lot means there are loads of crappy thoughts stuck up in my head. Stuff that I need somewhere to unload. After all, it's been quite some time since I've actually blogged regularly. The last time, I was also go through some state of depression and denial.

But yeah, past day or 2 I've been feeling really lost. Firstly, I was rejected by the company that I was aiming so hard for. Then, yesterday's fiasco with the assignment submission. Things are not going well. Yesterday was the first time that I submitted a school assignment late, ever. Tried to upload at 2359, but turns out you need to upload BEFORE 2359, i.e. 2358. Who knew. But that's not the main reason why we were late.

Sure, it would be easy to blame the teammate who keeps on travelling on holidays. But there's no way I can bring myself to blame her right? Truth be told, I gotta take some of the blame as well, as the so-called unofficial leader. I've never been super good at taking the leader role, and I think it clearly shows. Truth be told, it's got more to do with my more unstable mental state lately. Rejection is never something easy to deal with, be it job interview or relationships. If you scroll to some of my super old posts, you will see. I've struggled. A lot.

It's a super huge blow on many levels. Particularly, it's a straight blow to the ego. You suddenly start to keep questioning and doubting yourself. Was I not good enough? Did I not do the right things? What the hell is wrong with me? And then when even you no longer believe in yourself, you no longer have the confidence to do things well. Dammit, and I thought I had things super crystal clear after last year. Feels like everything is back to the drawing board for me.

Perhaps it's just a February thing. Despite it being my birthday month, and chinese new year month together, it's never been a super happy month for me. Perhaps it's because my birthday is so close to the 14th. But yeah, I usually then to shut myself off for most of Feb, better to numb yourself and feel no pain. Computer games are a very good outlet for that. A lot of CNY events going on for each game. Can just burn time away...

It's not that I don't enjoy the company of others, to be clear. Quite the opposite in fact. I yearn so much for the company of others. Not quite the massive group party kind, since I'm not social enough for such capabilities. But rather, I like to sit down with a small group of 1-3 people to have long and deep conversations together. The only problem is that I have very few close friends, and I'm not great at initiating meet ups and stuff. And.... I think I should stop myself here. Best not to go down too deep into the rabbit hole. I only meant to vent off some emotions.

In other more interesting news, the crypto markets are back on the up trend today. It's super unfortunate that I wasn't able to capitalize on yesterday's crash more. I was monitoring only from time-to-time because my head was literally stuck in report writing. I mean, I'm glad that I managed to pick up some Ethereum at super good prices, but I didn't pick up any more Bitcoin. Then again, I entered at the 10k and 9k ranges, so I think I'm fine in that regard. Just waiting for fucking Coinbase to approve my account, so that I can shift most of my portfolio into ETH. Because Ethereum is where it's at. You heard it here first, trust me. ETH is gonna explode this year, the moment they shift to proof-of-stake. I forecast ETH overtaking BTC in 2018. I'm calling it here.

Other than that, nothing much today lor. Just back to playing my MapleStory. If anyone is keen, can hit me up, we play together. If not, then I'll play it solo either way. Well okay, have a happy February everyone. Hopefully it's not as depressing for you as it is for me.

Plans Dashed?

2018-02-01T23:17:00.001+08:00

Well, today I am faced with a perplexing situation... My dreams were sort of crushed.

Here's the story. I finally went down for the face-to-face Rakuten interview today. I was so confident and all with my abilities, but turns out there was a mismatch of requirements. With me more on the innovative and front-end UX development side, not matching what they want. Turns out, they want your typical Indian sweatshop technical programmer. The super ultra technical type. My friend also went for the interview in the morning, same thing. But at least she managed to get to the 2nd round. For me, I was shown out the door shortly after the first round...

So..... I guess that puts me in a spot. Everything I was working for was supposed to lead up to this point. It was supposed to be a perfect fairy tale ending, with me happily travelling to Japan to work. But... as you can tell by now, that dream seems to have been dashed. What to do now ah? I honestly didn't have a Plan B for myself. So I really don't know what to do, I am stuck. So stuck and lost that I don't even feel like working on my research proposal now. Sian.

Not to say that there aren't other opportunities lah. But I really didn't expect things to turn out this way. It means that I have to plan everything again from ground zero? That's like kicking me back all the way back to the beginning of 2017 leh! All the progress has been lost. How ah? What other career options should I consider? Should I stay put in SG? Or continue to search for other Japanese company openings? Hmm...

Another consideration is to enter into the education sector. I have always been on the cusp and sitting at the edge of it. I mean, my undergrad FYP was on educational technologies, my work was on military training and education, and here I am back again working on a e-learning Masters research. Perhaps it had been inevitable for me to follow in my father's footsteps and become a lecturer. But do I really want to do that? I cannot come up with a definite answer yet.

THAT'S WHY I AM CURRENTLY PUT IN A SPOT!

OMFG what should I do man... Sometimes I wished I had someone to talk to, but most of my best friends are hard to reach and meet up with. I guess I'm left to ponder and mull over this by myself for the coming weeks. I mean, I WILL still attend the school career fair on Tue. But it is almost guaranteed that nothing will appeal to me. I believe that none of the companies there are hiring for Japan positions. Heck, they may all be super technical or engineering positions.

SAD! AIYA! I DUNNO LAH! TIME TO GO SLEEP!

Social Media Mapping

2018-01-22T23:23:00.000+08:00

Just a quick post because I had an idea to do this. My Prof mentioned in class today how easy it is for companies to buy user data, track and profile you from Facebook data, etc. The thing is, I am really just a nobody. I'm not rich, I'm not famous, I got nothing to lose. I have lost everything before already. So, there really is no much point tracking me, I am an exception rather than a norm. A strange anomaly.

With that being said, I shall hereby make it even easier for you to track me. Here is a list of the different purposes that I use different social networks for. Facebook is really the attention seeking place, where I post about any daily thoughts or occurrences of significance. Most of the time though, I like to be pretty cryptic on there, such that the person(s) I have intended the post for would probably get it? But most other people would unlikely know wtf is it about exactly. Twitter is my secret haven. I have few enough followers on my private account, that I really don't censor what I post there. My most controversial and intimate thoughts occasionally get put on there. It's some crazy shit sometimes, so follow me if you dare. YouTube, is my entertainment and interests place. If you want to know what I'm really into or interested about at the moment, that's where you can catch me. I even have some playlists there to aggregate content that I feel is useful or interesting to particular topics, bands, or whatever really.

And lastly, here on Blogger is where I delve deep into a particular concept, event, plan, or strategy. I tend to be a bit more on the emo side here it seems, but I'm really just talking from the heart here because I am not as expressive in person. But just because I lack expression, doesn't mean I have no emotions. I didn't want to reveal this, but I have another secret anonymous blog page, where I go balls to the wall crazy and talk about the most controversial topics. Stuff that people will judge and hate me for if they ever saw it. But you won't find it, and it hasn't been updated in eons. I really started random blog posting as a medium of expression to a faceless and nonexistent audience. Something that I somehow couldn't do in person. But over the years, especially this past year, I have grown so much, experienced so much, and developed my interaction skills relatively greatly. So much so that I turn to blogging less and less. Perhaps one day I shall not need it anymore?

Another topic I didn't want to talk about, but shall anyway. Was that today, I heard the most dramatic, colorful, and interesting life story that I didn't even imagine was possible. I guess having grown up in our grey, monotonous, and sterile environment, where everybody goes through the same thing, it is almost a shocker to hear. I mean damn you could really write a book on that. I would buy it! Just when I thought my life was hard and complicated, this one is fraught with even more twists and turns than a giant serpent. I have no idea how we got about talking so much in depth to that level, or why so much information was revealed to me. Perhaps we were all super tired. But I am thankful and appreciative nonetheless. We established a greater bond and rapport right there. I am just really sad that there is no way to take things further. Oh well, I will still always be there when someone needs a listening ear.

So yeah. I do think my EQ is starting to level up a bit. Nowhere near my IQ level yet, but starting to even out the skill tree a bit I hope. So maybe someday soon, I can just quit blogging like this altogether. We'll see. But for now, I will still be using my social media platforms as usual for the purposes stated above. See you around online!

The Transition: 2017 - 2018

2018-01-01T23:08:00.001+08:00

Happy New Year!

Hi everyone. Before beginning the post, just want to take the chance to wish you a happy new year, and welcome to 2018. Now, I did say that I was gonna put up a 2017 summary and review post, but didn't quite get around to doing it. Partly due to the fact that I was busy gaming, oops. Since it's New Year's day, I thought why not take the chance to combine both into a mega long post. My usual way to do it right? So I shall! Here is my review of 2017, and also some resolutions and outlook on the future horizon that is year 2018.

Let's start with the easy stuff. 2017 in review. You know, I actually had so few posts last year, that my 2017 resolution post was still on the first page of this blog as of writing. May have slipped into the second page after this, but wow have I been inactive. Actually quite the contrary. The times when I was super active on this blog, was when I was super inactive and everyday camping at home in my man-cave. Ah yes, those were the days of super-introvert mode. Not to say that I am super extroverted now, but I have taken active steps to try and improve my interaction skills, and I think it shows. I've made quite a number of friends in 2017, and learned to open up a bit and start talking to people. If you knew me at all before, you will know how hard it is for me to do that. Good change.

So looking back at the 2017 resolution post, I segregated it into 3 distinct categories: Skills, Health, and Education. Let's just review them one by one to see how I've done shall we? In terms of Skills, I feel like I have somewhat achieved what I wanted, partially. I had successfully thought myself how to develop apps using the latest version of the Ionic Framework, and through my school project published my first ever app onto Google Play. Sad to say, the freelance projects all did not pan out as planned, and I wasn't able to turn a profit from my skills yet. So I'd rate Skills as probably a solid B+ to A-. In terms of Health, I would say this area didn't do to well. As with everybody's new year resolution of "get in shape", this category usually fails the hardest. At the start of 2017, I mentioned that I was 10kgs away from my ideal weight? Well, throughout the year I actually lost 5 out of 10 of that. But you know what? After all the projects + exams + holiday binge eating, I have put back on another 2-3 kgs of that. FML. This calls for some drastic measures, more on that below. Health for me gets a fairly weak B-.

Last category, Education! You know, it's funny to write about this like 12 hours before the release of my exam results. I mean who knows how badly I did right? But I'll try not to look at it from that perspective. After all, results aren't everything. The initial point of this resolution, was to once again sharpen my intellect and thinking skills, by putting myself through the Masters programme. To that end, I'd say I did superbly well, grades notwithstanding. I mean, I successfully tanked majority portions of essay writing projects, did a fair bit of research, studied like crazy for exams, and most of all design, developed and publish my own mobile app. That coupled with all the interactions and connections I built with my fellow classmates throughout the semester, makes me feel like I have accomplished almost everything I set out to achieve in this category. I am no longer the sluggish blur government service employee that once was. I am now almost as sharp as in the past, and well ready to take on complex tasks and projects. A boon for my goal of working in Japan. Overall, I must give myself a solid A for this. Would have been an A+, but I think I screwed up 1 of my exams as the only blemish to this otherwise awesome semester. We shall see in the results tomorrow. Haha.

But goals aside, I also want to talk about the softer stuff. The more personal stuff, and what had been going on in my life in 2017. I am after all, not just a goal oriented machine. To which, I will sum up the year with one word: tragedy. But not irrecoverable tragedy, just a series of really really sad misfortunes. As mentioned in a post some time back, my mom was recovering from a stroke for the most part of 2017, which is painful not just for her but for the family as well. Her mental state is not the best, and she gets frustrated and has a short fuse. It could have been such stresses that caused her stroke in the first place, but it certainly isn't getting any better. For the most part, I've chosen to ignore most of it so that I can focus on my studies, but my sister bears the full brunt of it, so much so that she's never at home anymore. Tragic. Then there is that situation where I did something super ultra stupid and basically fucked myself over. I won't say what, but suffice to say I screwed myself bad. The effects of which I am still trying to deal with and resolve to this day. I sincerely hope and pray to god I can resolve it by the half or 3/4 of 2018, so that I can start work by end 2018 or early 2019. Please lah, torlong ah. Worse tragedy ever.

Where does that leave me now? Well, I stand at the doorstep of 2018 with 2 big bags, one in each hand. On one hand, I carry with me a baggage all the pain, suffering and tragedy from 2017 that am not able to simply discard. But on the other hand, I hold with me all the promises, opportunities, excitement, and happiness that the future promises. How do I balance the 2 and maximise my situation? That's the thing. Balance is the key. With the 2 sides of me, I always try to strive for balance. Unlike some people who only sulk, or others who are always rainbows and sunshines and butterflies, I don't believe you can be just one or the other. In fact, I think it is foolish to do so. Sure, I may seem ultra pessimistic at times, which I usually post here. But there are other times, where I am fairly bullish and just jump on something new. I just don't post so much about those, because the results are usually uncertain. But I digress. The point I want to put across is balance. Don't be so egoistical and self-righteous and think that you can always discard the bad and only see the good. But also, nothing is only all bad without a hint of opportunity in it. Yin and Yang. Holy shit, am I turning into some zen master? Anyways, let's move on.

Therefore, with the experience of 2017 and now being 1 year wiser, I would like to take a look at 2018 with a fresh, but informed perspective. What works? Clearly for me, the 3 categories provided a very viable approach to deciding on new year's resolution and the direction for the entire year. Perhaps it's just me, but I am obsessed with the numbers 3 and 5 for all things information. I think they are just magic numbers that tend to stick with people. Anything else looks odd, or becomes too much to handle. Just my nonscientific no backing logic. But evidently, it seems to work with me, so let's stick with that!

Career
Okay this is an obvious one. I can't remain jobless forever right? I mean I do still have a fair chunk of savings left, but staying at home and living with parents forever was never part of the plan. Even if I do remain single, unfortunately. On the bright side, I have applied to Rakuten Japan, and successfully cleared their programming test. So, if all goes well I should be expecting to attend their interview soon. It almost feels strange, but I'll once again be fighting in the job market like I did all those years ago. Except now, I am wizened by the weathering of all these years of experience. I expect that it should go well.

As for what the actual resolution is, basically just to clear all the interviews and tests to get myself the job of my dreams. Oh and hope to settle that 1 big tye chee that could break the dream and prevent me from going. But totally out of my hands, fingers crossed for now. Aside from that, I will continue to brush up on my Japanese language skills by actually doing revisions before going for class, so that I don't look like an idiot. Already attending N2 level class, yet I still can't speak or understand shit. Gotta buck up and improve my nihongo!

Fitness
The same goal stands as per last year. Try to hit my goal weight of 80kgs. Yes, I know I am revealing my weight. But just shows how dedicated I am to achieving it! I was halfway there in 2017. Which means that I can definitely go all the way there in 2018! Must keep the motivation strong and stick to my guns. I know it can be done, as long as I am willing to put in the work, put up with the sacrifices, and stick with the programme.

I kept mentioning that I want to go for interval runs, but have not done so. At this point, I feel like that's the last ace up the sleeve. If I actually do it, I WILL definitely see results. That plus my healthy blended juice that I've been doing lately, and my recent attempt at a 24h fasting window. If I persist with my efforts, I just know I will see the results. So, here's to a slimmer fitter me in 2018!

Maturity
The first 2 categories above come out as super obvious things. So I had to think a little harder and longer, to put together this category. It's not immediately obvious or concrete what I need to do, but it is certainly clear that I must work on this aspect. In the past, I actually prided myself as being slightly more on the childish side, and loathed people who tried to act all mature grown up. In my mind, these people are just kidding themselves, with the facade of ego, confidence and self-righteousness. Is it really necessary to act all so mature? I felt that you end up having less fun, fool yourself, and ultimately have less creative ideas and imagination than someone who is a bit more childish, like myself.

But looking at this concept again now brings new found wisdom. It is again about balance. I don't always have to play as a mature stoic adult. Nor should I always behave like a kid. I can partition and balance the responsibilities of an adult, with the creativity and imagination of a child. Which I have been unknowingly doing for some time now over the past year. This brings me to the resolution of wanting to focus on this aspect in 2018. To be mature and independent, and take care of things in a more responsible way. To be able to be more decisive, active, and aware. To take care of not just myself, but others as well. To get problems settled.

Whether it is the major problem that I keep bringing up. Or if situation permits, whether it is looking after myself and embarking on a new journey to live and work in Japan. Or simply just to develop a frame of mind that allows me to get things done. I have seen a glimpse of it in the latter half of 2017. And I must say that my classmates and friends were key drivers that helped me realize and work on it. While I do not have concrete targets to hit on this, I certainly do want to actively focus upon it in 2018! This will be the year we finally see a truly mature me. Not someone pretending to be mature, but someone who knows truly how to balance all aspects of life.

Well that's it I guess. My short and simple impetuses for 2018. I've tried to keep it as focused as I can, while also covering as much of the areas I want to work on as possible. The last one may seem like something of a cop-out category, but honestly I think it is not so simple. It is something that needs to be worked on with intention. The ultimate goal remains the same as last year though. To work my way towards a life of working and living in Japan.

So there you have it! My 2018 resolutions clearly spelt out. We can check back again in a year to see how I faired. In the meantime, what are your resolutions? Let me know! I'd be keen on hearing them!

Till next time, happy 2018!

December Break

2017-12-15T23:07:00.001+08:00

The previous blog post was like 2 months ago? Well, here I am again. Not too bad considering my track record over the past year or 2. Just only managed to slow down a bit to catch my breadth and do some mini reflections and planning. The past 1 month had been pretty hectic for me, with mountains of school assignments piling up, then straight into the exam season. Haven't taken a real exam in like about 4 years. JLPT doesn't really count.

Perhaps I could have taken things a lot more chill, and cruise through all of them with a passing grade. But it all boils down to expectations and mindset. I originally had sort of a mini-goal to try to aim for valedictorian of my course, seeing as I had sort of a competitive advantage given my background. But a couple of assignments and exams later, I feel like it is simply not worth it. It doesn't really add any value or progress to any of my life goals. It just came about from my 'Kiasu' never wanna lose to anyone mentality. Not worth it, just let it go.

School stuff aside, I have also been actively attending the regular anime and cosplay events that pop up from time to time. Just me doing my usual casual photography thing. 3 years in, and I'm still pretty much unknown and under the radar. But a good recent development is me befriending this eccentric photog that has decent connections with some of the people in the scene. Leaching and channeling on his enthusiasm, I have so far managed to do 2 casual model shoots thus far. Good chance for me to brush up my photography skills and also perhaps slowly break out of my shy boy shell. Also really makes my want to upgrade to a real full-frame camera, but I'm tight on cash at the moment. :(

Speaking of cash, I have also been spending many hours a day over the past week delving and researching deeply into cryptocurrencies. Initially, I was a total skeptic and was 100% sure that it is just paper money that will eventually burst and kill off everyone. But digging deeper, and understanding the concepts, and nuances between the different cryptos, I can see potential in SOME of them, but I'd remain cautious of buying any random one without first understanding it. I have not put any money in yet, but I'm almost totally convinced by the concept behind Ethereum as a platform. More so that Bitcoin even.

That brings me to the main point of this post (4 intro paras deep as usual), that is to do some planning for my December holidays. Excluding this week, which I have wasted, I have about 4 weeks in total to make use of (I just now counted only). Given that I am not able to travel anywhere, I have quite a bit of time on my hands at the moment. Initially, I was thinking of just doing intensive exercise, diet, and maybe reinstalling the games which I had quit, but now that I am free from games I don't really have the urge to rejoin again. Also, there are no more events for the year. I'm heading to the HJFW tomorrow, but after that one, there really is nothing much left in SG.

So, that makes me want to look deeper into investing into the whole cryptocurrency thing. I could treat this like my grown up version of gaming, and pump in a little money to play around with. Just a little to have some fun, but not enough to get hurt if all is lost. After all, it seems like the most volatile and therefore best place to make big margins. Perhaps, I can even use this to fund my camera upgrade plan, who knows. Only problem is, it is very hard to enter right now. I mean that literally. Not only are the prices quite high, but also most of the exchanges are literally overloaded with users so much so that registering is so damn hard right now. Trust me, I tried. If anything, I'd suggest you register for an account now, whether or not you decide to go in now. Because if the time is ripe, you want to be able to trade right away, and not wait 3-4 working days for the bloody verifications.

Aside from that, I WAS supposed to have a freelance mobile app project to work on, but it seems like that plan got canned. Was in talks with the people to develop some mobile commerce app for their company, but the CTO suddenly send 1 message to say that there was a "direction change". Like sure bruh, don't want just say don't want. Don't put me on hold here. Either way, I am ok with that. For me it falls into the category of "have or don't have also ok", as with most things I'm quite chill one. Nowadays at least. But I won't lie, it would have been nice to do it and fund my new camera straight from there. Too bad though. The cosplayer profile app that I was working on also client MIA. Sigh... All like that one.

Japanese revisions are another area that I want to focus on. I mean holy shit I have become so bad. With the rush of assignments in the past month or 2, I had neglected my Japanese entirely, even skipping 2 weeks worth of lessons in a row. So much sacrifice. I went back to class a complete noob who can't even read properly anymore. I think it's safe to say that I have slowly slid into the "worst student in class" ranking. Damn, I used to be the best during the Elementary and Intermediate days. Sigh. Well, at least now I got some time to brush up and revise on it in the next 4 weeks. I have signed up for a new term of 18 weeks, and am fully committed to this as a life goal. As a result I shall even keep my school schedule free on Thursday nights. Time to go full tryhard mode.

The fitness side of things are a little weird. I went from 100% commitment, to compromising every other day because of my project and exam schedules. Need food for morale to do really hard work I guess. So, it feels a bit hard to get back on the bandwagon again. I am back on my fasting plan everyday, and have since restarted my gym on Monday, after 2 weeks of inactivity lol. Initially, intended to go gym again today, but I really needed the time to slow down and recollect my thoughts for this, as well as to finish processing some of the AFA photos. My chest muscles are actually still aching from Monday's hardcore session, so I thought I'd take a break. Hehe. But back to a serious note, the plan now is: Mon gym, Wed interval runs around my neighbourhood, Fri gym again. That plus some supplements and fasting should be enough to kick off my cutting season.

Oh yes, I should probably also update on my health condition. It hasn't even been on my mind lately, but the MRI and blood test reports are back. The young chap doctor at TTSH is practically useless and asked me to Google the condition for myself. But basically what he told me is that it is some Rheumatoid problem, that is also a autoimmune disease? Basically my body is creating some inflammation at the base of my spine/pelvis area, which is what caused my back pains. Sounds severe, but recently I don't feel the pain so much anymore leh. Is it really that bad? I just hope that there isn't any long term implications on my health. Either way, he did refer me to a different specialist for further study. More blood tests incoming. Urgh.

In the meantime, I still have a bunch of photographs to work on from EOY that happened the past weekend. And I will only have more backlog after the HJFW tomorrow. But I don't want this holiday to be all work and no fun too. If possible I will be arranging for meetups and gatherings with old friends to catchup and just talk. So do feel free to jio me out anytime. Additionally, if I get the chance again, I would like to do more photo shoots because I find them fun. So yeah, that's my quick reflection for now. Just some random things happening to me recently that I wanted to talk about and plan out. I SHOULD be doing another blog post before the new year to summarize my 2017 year as a whole. Keyword being should, but most likely I will have the time lah. So until new post, happy holidays, and see you around!

Reflections

2017-10-19T00:39:00.000+08:00

Hello again. I honestly don't know what to blog about today. It's just been so long that I'm totally out of the habit already. Having been at the computer for the past 12hrs doesn't really help either. I am super tired after days of photo processing. But! Having recently discovered that a fellow classmate of mine also blogs, has inspired me to write something again.

Why blog? Many people have different reasons. The most consistent bloggers probably have financial motives. Myself? I mostly blog as a form of reflection. As a place for me to think, ponder, and consolidate my thoughts. It would be a lot easier if I had someone I could talk to for all these, but I don't. And honestly, I don't feel like seeing a counsellor. So this place used to be what kept me sane.

Doesn't work though. I haven't been blogging enough in the past year, and look what happened. My life went down the drain, I continue to do stupid things, and no matter how hard I try to pull shit together, I'm still as depressed as always. There just isn't any motivation anymore for me to use this platform. Previously, I would know that I had at least a handful of readers. When I was writing, I always had them in mind as an imaginary audience. But the harsh reality is, nobody gives a shit.

Nevertheless, let's give this another shot shall we? See if I can keep something going. At least before my impending doom comes and life gets really bad. (I'm serious you have no idea) I think I should give myself a fair fighting chance. Set some goals, take some action and see how it goes.

A bunch of useless intro paragraphs later, here's what I shall reflect about today. Basically as some might have heard, I have recently started studying for my masters degree full-time. So yeah, technically I am a student again, and it gives me excuse to temporarily not be in the sickening working world. I have the same freedoms, the same assignment deadlines, and lessons to attend. Albeit with a slightly different demographic as my classmates.

So how has it been? Well it started out quite refreshing really. The intellectual challenges, the social interaction challenges, the time management challenges. I loved all of it. But then as I understand people more, learn of their true motives and agendas, their methods of going about things, the rosy perfect complexion on things changed too. Are there such things as true friends? Or is it just an arrangement of convenience? I don't want to judge, but I no longer want to put any faith into it either. End of the day the same remains, you gotta look out for yourself.

I don't know who you are reading this blog. But if you're new reading this, then I'm pretty sure you've realized by now. I'm a really emo kid that's fighting a severe case of depression on the inside. On the outside though, I'm still the usual friendly easy going guy. I'm just really good at hiding my true emotions. You could say I've been doing it for so many years that it's just second nature already.

On the bright side, if there is any, Rakuten is hiring again! I applied to their career fair on Friday. Hopefully it ends in time for me to attend class. My group is presenting. Either way, I will prioritize this as it falls in the realm of life goals. Just to recap the New Year Resolutions I posted in the early 2017 post, my ultimate goal is to live and work in Japan! Other side goals for the year includes fitness, education, and brushing up on my relevant skills.

If I look at my mid year (slightly overdue) report card, fitness wise I have lost 5 out of the 10kgs set out to lose. The remaining 5kgs is proving very tough though! I might have to go on a juice diet and 24h fasting in the year end holidays. Sad. Regarding education and skills, I am rather disappointed that despite taking the more technical modules, I STILL do not get to revise my programming much. The mobile apps lecturer is literally useless, we gotta learn everything ourselves. I do however, get to brush up a lot on my research and essay writing skills having tanked practically the whole HCI paper by myself. Presentations wise, I still suck but mostly due to no rehearsals. My side development business wise is a complete stalled show. My only fucking client is so slow at responding and full of delays! I mean, I agreed to do first client free, but show some respect lah! To make matters worse, my sales partner doesn't have the connections or ability to take initiative and go engage more clients. Sigh.

All in all, I would say that my year is going FINE, for now. It just appears to me like progress is stalling, and the stress from all these assignments might have warped my thinking a bit. Also there is that Impending Doom I keep talking about that is at the back of my mind. I won't reveal what it is here, but suffice to say it's something super BAD that had happened to me in my sheer stupidity. Perhaps you can guess it, perhaps you can't, but either way that will be another major depression bomb to hit when it arrives. In the meantime, I'm mostly coasting for now. Albeit drowning in assignments. Haha.

So... Things are going OK? I guess?

I'm Back

2017-06-18T21:55:00.002+08:00

Almost anyway. These recent few days, I have felt more positive and cheerful than ever. At first, I thought that it was because of the diarrhoea meds I was taking. But even after discontinuing it, I remain mostly positive. I think it is just a maturing of thought that had occurred, and I finally learnt to let go. I've made it a new priority to be kind a courteous, and to trust people again. I want to be nice again.

And I am ready to start again. I'm getting new found motivation, much like the sort I had when I was still schooling. The drive and desire to do well, to put in my best effort and deliver shining works of perfection. But alas, due to my folly and past wrongdoings, all that will have to wait for the outcome that I will receive tomorrow.

Truth is, I haven't been completely transparent and had not confronted my darker side. With my new found positive energy, it is all but gone. However what is done, is done. I had done some terribly wrong things, and I am now paying the price for it in full. I have nowhere else to vent these confused feelings, so here will have to do.

I really wish to have a fresh start, and I have understood my mistakes, and really want to move on from it. I really do not want to affect what now seems to be a bright future ahead for me. Now more than ever, I am feeling confident again, and I know exactly what I want to do in life. If only I could just go ahead and forge my dream. We will have to see the judgement that will be passed, but the pessimists will say that I am a goner.

Maybe I do deserve it. All of it. Maybe I must atone for all of my sins. But deep down inside, I am just praying and begging for a glimmer of hope. To be given a second chance. But then again, I really don't expect anyone to know how I feel, the pain I suffered and the ordeals I went through. Maybe you reading this can, but I wouldn't expect it...

I have so many things planned and coming up you know?! It's like my life is at a very positive turning spot right now. After months of wallowing in depression having left my unfulfilling job and wandering aimlessly looking for a purpose, you can safely say I found it! I recently started the makings of a small IT company with a childhood friend of mine. I intend to use this as not only an opportunity to gain experience in this space, but to also contribute back to the creative community, as well as to give my good friend a job and purpose in life as well.

You see, I had the idea of creating small compact apps for the cosplayer community to help them increase their exposure and go professional. The idea is pretty well baked and developed already. In fact I've had a working prototype for months now, and recently just finished doing the sales slides. It's all good to go, and we will be tapping on my friend's network to solicit our initial few customers. I really hope to get this company off the ground, and turn it into a success.

But then again, it all comes down to what will happen to me in the coming months ahead. It's like this unknown impending doom that threatens to put everything to a halt and send all I have built crumbling to ashes. What should I do?! God why me why now? I am feeling really powerless and scared. I am not a religious man, but honestly the only thing I can do now is to pray.

I will update here again if I ever get the chance. But if you don't see me anymore, all I can say is thank you for reading my blog, I wish you all the best, and goodbye.

~Signing off.

Sayuri

2017-05-29T14:57:00.005+08:00

Recently discovered this awesome artiste. She is so young, yet so super talented. I foresee that she will become very successful and popular in future. I really enjoyed her acoustic performances. Always a fan of the more human side of music as opposed to the electronic side of things that is become so mainstream nowadays.

Action Plan: 31-Jan-2017

2017-01-31T22:27:00.004+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year guys!

I am once again resurrecting something from the dead. I look back at my archives, and realized that the last Action Plan I did was exactly 1 full year ago! After that and all the busy work commitments, it gradually died out. Now that I'm out of work, there is simply no excuse right? I also happen to think of it as an effective tool to organize my life and get my shit together. Achieving 1 thing a day is simply better than doing nothing everyday, like I am doing now....

Monday: CNY Holidays

Tuesday: Planning

Wednesday: Mobile App Development

Well, I have to start somewhere right? I really want to get the base template out, then I can work on the programming bits and come out with a prototype to show prospective clients. To kick things off tomorrow, I will find a suitable template and start customizing from there. Don't feel like doing one from scratch, so I'll purchase a base theme. Hopefully can settle the theme and some of the planning by tomorrow.

Thursday: Japanese Revision

My Intermediate1 test is exactly 1 week away, on my birthday of all days. Need to do some serious revision by then. Step 1, figure out what I should know, Step 2 figure out what I don't know, Step 3 memorize and understand all the missing gaps. That's my plan of attack.

Friday: Gym

Missed 1 week of lifting due to the CNY holidays. Gonna resume the hard work in 2017! Also gonna check out some of them supplements. ;)

Saturday: Japan Photos

Need to process and upload Day 3 of my Japan trip photos. Super late I know, but I had no mood to do it. Especially after my friend pulled out our franchise partnership, but I digress. I will do it whenever I am free, and willing to do it.

Sunday: Education Planning

Go through my options, and decide what Masters I want to sign up for, the steps involved to apply, etc.

Really looking forward to the Anisong concert coming up! Anyone else also going?

2017: New Year, New Me

2017-01-25T20:51:00.001+08:00

I meant to do this post sometime back, but got distracted by some stuff. Also, there was that 2 week high key ICT that just ended recently. 4 day outfield exercise is no joke man. Especially when one is starting to age. So yes, about the plan I have for 2017. It's about time I get into it early into the year, ASAP. Better not drag because I know my procrastination tendencies all too well.

As I had laid out in the past, life planning for a single solo man with no family (but hopeful), only revolves around a few areas of concern. My previous attempts at this (Project: Young, Rich, Active) didn't yield too much results. Perhaps, I was just trying to do too many things at the same time. Circa early 2017, progress report: my finances are in a mess and I have no income, I am somewhat active in the community but nobody knows me, I still try to go to the gym but have no membership because California shut down.

Now that we have some understanding of my present position, ground zero, or maybe negative one, I can better plan out what I want to do for the rest of the year. What I can say about the theme for this year, is that it will involve more urgency and less experimentation. Fact of the matter is I am quickly approaching a soft deadline in terms of age, and just don't have as much room to fool around anymore. Things need to be done dammit!

That being said, I am not one who chases after milestones for the sake of getting them. Not anymore at least. What are the standard milestones in Singapore? Graduate from local university, get an office job, get married, lease (not buy!) a HDB, have kids, retire, grow old and die. I don't know about you, but that's the most boring story I've ever heard. Pretty sure it wouldn't get published. Agreed, there aren't many radically different paths you could take. But I would like my path to at least align with my interests. And that's what I've been doing lately, spending long hard time thinking about what truly interests me. At the end of it all, I always come back to the same result. I love Japan! Singapore is just too small and monotonous to even pique my interest. It's stifling. I want to work, live and grow in Japan. And here is my plan on how I intend to work to that.

Skills
First and foremost, I will be going through skills upgrading and retraining. I know that sounds like something an old guy would do in his mid-career switch. But it's similar. 3 years without touching any programming at all has left me rusty and complacent. I mean, I still understand basic HTML/JS, but sometimes I don't even know where to get started to publish my apps. Currently, I have purchased resources online to jumpstart my learning in Ionic 2 and Angular 2 so that I can eventually be a pretty competent app developer and designer.

Once that competency is built up, I will of course turn to monetizing that skill set. I probably have some contacts in the cosplay realm that I can tap on to market my product. For now, I have nothing more to say except that it will be something like a résumé and portfolio app. This is the first milestone I will be working towards early this year, and hope to market and propagate it throughout the year. It's not going to be a lot of money lah (I charge cheap), but is good exposure and experience I can add to MY portfolio. Win-win.

I have other additional ideas in my head that I can flesh out too as the year progresses.

Health
I guess health and fitness is not quite the main goal here. I've always consistently worked out purely for the sake of aesthetics. The health and fitness benefits are secondary. Speaking of which, progress thus far has been pretty good already. I have dropped 10 kgs in about slightly under a year? Decent but not drastic progress? Sustainable at least. Good enough that my NS mates noticed and complimented me on it though. #recognition

But I'm not done yet. I'm still another 10 kgs out from what I consider as my ideal weight. And despite my efforts of late, the weight just wouldn't budge. So much so that I think I've failed my IPT targets and need to do RT for the first time this year. FML. As mentioned, this year I do have a slight bit more sense of urgency in me. And I am hence willing to take slightly more drastic measures.

So far, I haven't been doing many supplements besides the protein shakes and occasional omega 3 pills. This year after my birthday, I intend to start on trying some bodybuilding level supplements. Yes, I have done ample research over the past year, and some of these may err on the slightly shady side. But rest assured I wouldn't take anything harmful unless I knew what I was doing. Nothing replaces the hard work though, so more cardio sessions will have to come in too. I expect to shed the remaining 10 kgs and lean up by the end of this year.

Education
Learning and growing has always been the name of the game. It's what I believe is the number 1 most important thing in life. The only time we should stop adapting and changing is when we die. Being so out of touch of everything, I know I have to put myself through studying again. That's why I started learning Ionic and get my hands wet with coding again. I want to rekindle my love for programming and developing!

But I know that that's not enough. There's only so much I can do by my lonesome. Knowledge is really cultivated through the interactions and conversations with intelligent people. And if I want to springboard myself back into the game, I will need to surround myself in such an environment. Which is why, this year I have decided to apply to study my Masters degree. To so called restart my intelligence again, and to sharpen my thinking skills.

Working for a bit may have blunted my once super sharp intellect, but it has gained me quite some experience in the human interactions and social department. I just feel more seasoned now, no longer afraid and hesitant to do anything. Now I want to hone my intellect back to the same old levels to get the best of both worlds!

Another side benefit, is that employers generally pay a bit higher for Masters graduates. That could prove to be a boon for my finances down the road. The Japanese firms that I was looking at in the past, and hope to join soon, do pay quite a bit more for Masters, so there's that. If my eventual goal is to work for these firms in Japan, then I had better position myself correctly for those roles. And having the correct experience and education goes to serve just that.

So that's my plan for 2017. Not too much to ask for right? I tried to keep things simple with just 3 clear areas that I need to work on. No doubt, my finances will continue to take a hit with all my school fees and such. But I consider that a pretty good investment into my future and my continuing search for happiness. Honestly, Singapore may not have what I want. Then it'd be wise to leave early to start my journey overseas before I grow too old to do so.

What are your new years resolutions? How do you intend to improve your life this year? Let me know in the comments below, or do hit me up in person. I'd love to have these sorts of conversations.

Peace out!

The Reset Button

2016-12-26T19:34:00.003+08:00

Yes folks, I am once again back to this almost dead blog. I really have nobody and no place to turn to anyway. This is the only place I have to organize my thoughts and reflect.

Right off the bat, I have to say that it's been a rough couple of months for me. My life went from being on track, perfect even (see 3 blog posts ago), to spiralling into nothingness (now). It's as if I am back to square one again. Some things I need to unlearn, some things I need to relearn. Start afresh.

I know it's quite abstract for me to put it like that, so allow me to elaborate what happened in the past 3 to 4 months of my life.

Well firstly it all started when I quit my job. Yeah that's right, I left I didn't get fired. I left a decent paying job in a somewhat prestigious government agency without concrete plans and any other job offers. Now that I think of it, it may seem like a rather rash move, but I regret nothing. The fact of the matter is, that I could no longer bring myself to continue what I was doing. To drone on day after day doing clearly meaningless work in a 9 to 5 cycle. And the people I had to work with/work for. I had enough.

Now that would be all fine and good, I think. Because I had plans to take 1 solid month break to clear my mind, and then embark on braver things. To do side projects, to launch restaurant franchise, to do things different than the standard mold you know?

But than shit happened. As if fate would have it, less than a month after I left my job, my mom fell ill. And I'm not just talking about your standard flu or fever type of ill. And it's not like she just fell down or stuff. All of a sudden, she got hit with a stroke. I mean, by the time we saw her at the hospital, her whole fucking right side of her body could not move! It's that serious! What followed was a painful few months. She was warded at TTSH for a couple of weeks before moving to AMK Community Hospital for the first phase of rehab. They did discharge her after 2 months, but she's still nowhere close to standing and walking by herself. We still have to bring her for various therapy sessions. She still sits in a wheelchair most of the time.

In between all of this, I did manage to sneak in a 1 week holiday to Japan though I couldn't say I enjoyed that to the fullest. Tickets and stuff were bought, so I had to go. Went with my old bunch of NS buddies that, honestly haven't met in awhile but suddenly came in contact with again. At first, I had some preliminary talks with one of them to start a joint venture on the restaurant franchise. He seemed quite keen, and I didn't have enough funds on my own. But perhaps due to several disagreements along the trip, we left with mixed opinions about one another. We spoke very briefly about it again when we returned to SG, but when I tried to arrange for further meet ups, it was met with radio silence. So.... I guess that side of things fell through as well eh? I mean, I probed you several times already, at least give me a solid answer yes or no lah. WTF.

Regarding the side projects, I also did some proactive work and arranged with a university friend of mine for a meet up. It's a rather interesting idea of mine, to develop apps and IT enable small shops and businesses that know nothing of IT. We had a long a fruitful discussion about the approach, but his stand was that he didn't want to commit to anything unless we had solid understanding of their needs. Stuff that you know, takes a long time to study and survey. But that was all before my mom fell ill. It has been in limbo ever since, and I haven't followed up with him on this.

So where does all this put me? I have no idea really. It's as if a hard reset button has been hit. I left my job hoping to embark on a new adventure, to try to break the mold. But as soon a I left the door, an atomic bomb was dropped on me, rendering the wheels that I had set in motion halted. It's almost discouraging, disappointing even. My mind has been in a mess lately. Between therapy sessions for my mom, I also help her out on a daily basis, and do training with her at home. Hoping that she can one day walk again. Between that and a couple of games here and there, it doesn't leave me with much willpower to do anything productive anymore. :(

So that's been a short summary of what has been going on with me lately. Nothing has been working out and it seemed hopeless for pretty long. But I know, I know. It's no excuse right? If I'm not going to get myself together, who will? If you know anything about the real me, I'm a pretty tenacious fella. I just can't slump into despair forever. There must be a turning point somewhere. A comeback. And yes, I do intend to do just that. A recent chat with an old secondary school friend that I haven't met in quite literally a decade, got me inspired and fired up again. But this post is getting too long, and I'm not sure if anyone is even interested in reading. So I save that for a part 2 blog post for tomorrow.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays ~

DOLL$BOXX

2016-07-25T00:38:00.000+08:00

Discovered an awesome band lately. And it's not just some girly pop band. Her voice is EPIC. Too bad they're not active anymore. Only have 1 album. Shall have to follow Fuki's solo work.

Basically been addicted to DOLL$BOXX and Band-Maid recently. More heavy metal rock than I'm used to, but hey I'm liking it man.

J-Obsession 2016

2016-05-04T20:15:00.002+08:00

Hey guys!

Just attended my first event again in awhile. Happened over the past weekend. Took literally a shit ton of pictures, so it's gonna take quite some time to process all of them. And there would have been even more actually, if not for the fact that my camera batteries died on Saturday. Went back on Sunday and snapped up a ton in return. I think my skills have gradually improved. Let me know what you think!

Full set of pictures will be up on my Facebook soon. In the meantime, I made a quick video montage comprising of some of the pictures I took. Enjoy~

Return of a King

2016-04-16T20:58:00.001+08:00

Hello guys.

I know it's been a really long while. Last blog post was at like what? Early Feb? That's a pretty long hiatus. But it's not as if I haven't been doing anything. I've just been too busy with many aspects of life. Work too has stepped up to be super busy, and full of shit. The reason why I haven't been writing, is because I've been writing too many shit papers at work already. Like implementing layers and layers of red-tape processes. Where do I even begin man. Let's just recap what I've been up to lately then.

One big thing, is that I have quit playing Dota. So, that frees up a lot of my time to do more productive stuff. At least, that's what I thought, but I do end up watching a lot more YouTube as a result. Still, not as bad as when I was gaming. I have incorporated I.F. into my diet, as mentioned in previous post, though not quite 7 days a week. I lay off the fasting on days after gym, as I eat late anyway. Speaking of which, I do still go regularly twice a week, Tue and Fri. Tue is fat burn cycling, and Fri is muscle building day.

Recently, I've also been trying to immerse myself in Japanese culture a lot more, all part of my plan to move there. I had been watching quite a bit of drama shows back to back. Though I stopped recently because I couldn't find one to watch. Will start searching again today, promise. I haven't been to any events of late, as there just hasn't been any! The only small one was Harajuku Fashion Walk which happened in Feb, and IT Show in Mar. I missed the recent HJFW because I was on stupid high key ICT. Should be heading to the end of the month J-Obsession event at Cathay. In other news, I have cleared my Elementary 2 Japanese class, now moving on to Intermediate 1.

That's about it for my updates. Now I just wanna share a random thought I had recently. You know, I haven't always been so passive and quiet as I am now. In fact, I'm still not. I'm just like a fire in an ice cage. What I'm trying to say is, before that traumatic bullying incident in secondary school, I was always that overconfident mischievous little rascal in primary school. Haha. In fact, for the longest period of time, I had always seen myself as the King who could conquer and do anything. I was never afraid, not one bit. I just did whatever shit I wanted to do. That was the true me. Before my life went south at least, I had always been the King, the alpha male.

Sound like I'm just blabbering some random nonsense, but it's all true I assure you. Anyway that's just my past, if you want to appreciate my situation better. The reason I brought it up though, is that as of late I am slowly beginning to feel it returning. My confidence, my attitude, slowly but surely. Not entirely though, I am still rather cautious most of the time, and lack confidence around girls. I guess that's why I've been working rather hard to improve my outlook, get fitter and feel stronger.

It's all about the overall package and impression. That's why I have been working on the 3 key thrusts that I talked about in my Philson 2020 plan. I must admit though, I have not been working so hard in the financial aspect, Project: Rich. The fact is, with fulltime work I just don't have as much time to focus on other financial matters. The only thing I have that I should be doing now, is sell off these cameras that I bought, it's collecting dust. Mostly though, I have been focusing on Project: Young, and just try to remain young and not grow old so quickly. That's why I have been gyming actively to work on my body, but I also feel like I need to take care of my ageing skin better. That's why, tomorrow I will be engaging my NS buddy to find out more on facial treatment packages. Will report back here if there are any significant developments.

Till then, let's work towards the return of the King!

Intermittent Fasting

2016-02-03T13:37:00.001+08:00

Hey guys. I'm up to the brim right now on work, so there really is very little time to blog. Coupled with the fact that I am pretty tired in the night, there really is very little motivation left for me to blog. At least, until I revamp my blog again. I'm thinking of revamping the whole style them and all. It's something I feel I should do. But I'll probably keep the blog address the same, the meaning of the title still applies. No change.

Anyway today's quick update, is about the Intermittent Fasting that I've been trying out. I've figured that it seems to combine quite a number to different approaches that overlap, so there's a high chance it might actually work. Similar approaches include: dieting, caloric restriction, water therapy, etc. The one I have adopted is basically the easiest one, which is the 16/8 rule. I just skip breakfast everyday and stop eating after 8pm, resulting in a 16h fasting window between 8pm to 12noon. The exception is days which I go to gym though, as I will usually have dinner quite late, but still skip breakfast the next day.

So far, have only managed to do this for 5 days currently. Will like to see how far I can go with this, and try to turn it into a daily affair. It seems easy enough, with only a slight impact to morale in the morning. But what I really want to see, is the results going forward. I hope that it delivers what it promises. Shall continue to stick through with it and let you know how it goes.

Quick Update: Gym

2016-01-26T13:37:00.000+08:00

Just decided to provide a quick update over lunch since I kind of missed it out. My current initiative for "Project: Young" is to up my gym count. I have been religiously going for gym twice a week for 3 weeks in a row now. Here's what I have been doing.

I have split my 2 days to do 2 different types of training, since I can't possibly whack the same training twice in a week. My recovery is just not that fast. One session will be Strength Training, where I will do relatively heavy weights to train specific areas. And feel pain and sore for the rest of the week. The other is cardio workout, which at this point is Cycling Classes. Apparently, this is touted as one of the best ways to lose weight. Let's hope it works.

The motivation for all this is, looking back at my orientation photos from before I started university. Damn I wasn't as fat as I am now. The double-chin just kept growing and growing! WTF! It is horrible! I can barely find good angles to pose for photographs now. What I minimally want to achieve, is to go back to my previous before-university state. I think I looked relatively good then. Let's make that the first target. Turn back the clock 5 years.

Of course, I know probably even the twice a week gym is not gonna be enough. I have a long long way to go. That's why next up, I feel like trying out Intermittent Fasting. I have heard previously of its miraculous results. But I want to do a bit more planning and research before I give it a shot. Do drop me any advice in the comments if you have experience in this area. Thanks.

Action Plan: 18-Jan-2016

2016-01-18T23:26:00.003+08:00

Haha. So I did end up going for that Eir Aoi concert, woots! Had a friend to go with. It was kind of fun lah, but more small scale sort. I know I missed last week's action plan, I really was chionging a lot of stuff, and was on course for the most part. But hey I will say this, I managed to keep up the twice a week gym sessions for 2 weeks in a row already. Looking to continue and make it a thing!

Monday: Planning

Tuesday: Gym

Simple cardio on the bike. Muscles still sore from Friday.

Wednesday: Japanese Revision

Eh seriously, my jap damn chui already. I forgot so many old things, and I can't grasp the new ones. I just need to compile and stocktake all the shit. Hopefully I can knock off work a lil early to do this. Which I should be able to after the vendor visit. Fingers crossed.

Thursday: Japanese Lessons

Friday: Gym (2)

Strength training. Gonna lift them weights!

Saturday: NO PLANS!

Eh, this time really no plans leh. Don't even have a random concert to attend. Feel free to jio for anything. :)

Sunday: Family Day

If nothing to do, I'll probably go through all my photos for Day 4. Still got tons of photos to process.

Action Plan: 4-Jan-2016

2016-01-04T22:42:00.003+08:00

Yes guys! After a long 1 full month hiatus, the action plans are back! I realised that is was an effective way to keep my week in check, the only problem lies with myself not always being able to execute it successfully. But then I realised that nothing is 100% perfect, failure doesn't mean it was inherently wrong, I just need to continually work at it is all. I shall continue the action plans to see how it goes.

Monday: Planning

Tuesday: Gym

Chest and shoulder exercises. Shall try to move to free weights for biceps. The machines don't seem to be too effective anymore.

Wednesday: Events Planning 2016

Need to once again plan out my weekend events for 2016. Shall try to attend as many anime & jap related events as I can. I shall scour the internets to see if I can find a compiled list already. If not, I shall take reference from last year's one. I only started going for events late in the year after all.

Thursday: Japanese Lessons

Friday: Gym (2)

I have made up my mind. New year must get fit. Shall increase gym sessions to twice a week for a start. Obviously, I can't possibly whack the same parts with so short breaks. I shall sign up for the cycling class at the Novena gym. Fat burner 9000. Chiong ah!

Saturday: NO PLANS!

OMG I got no plans this weekend. I mean, there is an Eir Aoi concert I could possibly go to... She basically does every single anime OST ever. But it's freaking $88 for the normal range tickets, not even VIP ones. And it's lame to go like that alone leh. No one to go concert with. Haiz.

Sunday: Family Day

Again, pretty much nothing to do. I shall spend the weekend at home with my family. Maybe go out to eat and buy groceries lor. That's about it.