22nd Mar 2021
So, meeting two different matches this weekend. One, interesting, mysterious because I know practically nothing about her, not even her appearance beyond her face. Totally expecting her to be morbidly obese and maybe depressed. Just a coffee, so whatever. The other is not interesting, but it's going to be a mahjong session, so there's that.
I consider a match still valid when her last text was within the 48 hours, so the current count is 2 on CMB, 5 on OKC and 1 on Lovenn. It's not confusing because I no longer care that much beyond the first match I mentioned. Take it easy.
Concerned about tomorrow's Plyo session. Just restarted, taking form very seriously. Chest and Back today had a few exercises using weights, and I had to constantly think about keeping my lower back braced or whatever it's called. Did a lot fewer reps too, compared to my last session in January, in order to save energy to be able to keep my posture correct. Safety first.
Plyo though, that's going to be interesting. The plan is to do squats or knee-to elbow, or a mix, instead of any of the jump moves. On top of that, again I will take it easy, push only to 70%, to conserve energy to keep my posture perfect.
Let's see how that goes.
26th Mar 2021
This is fucked up. Just hurt my back leaning forward while getting out of my chair. Yesterday's Yoga had left my lower back a little sore, but I'd been careful all the time, and it felt ok again when I woke up this morning.
Just by getting out of the chair! What the heck? At least it doesn't seem too bad, I think I can walk normally still, but again I'm not exercising for a week at least.
I hate to admit this but this may be it, this is my last straw, I think I will quit P90X. My lower back is too fragile for it now.
Fuck.
Change is another factor in a relationship. Wonder if that's one of the reasons why fewer couples stay together over the long term compared to the past.
Changes were initiated. I am slow, as usual. Again, don't know why but when it comes to my work, I can have dozens of ideas but something in my head that I just can't put a finger on keeps blocking any motivation to actually act on them.
27th Mar 2021
Requested a capsule opener from Dolce Gusto which they give for free if you ask for it.
Curiosity, of course. What real use is there for an empty capsule? For gardening? Really?
Anyway, opened two espresso capsules and one cafe au lait, and it was surprising on two notes:
1) There is surprisingly little ground coffee in the capsules, it only fills the bottom half cm of the capsule, the rest seems to be empty (after use).
2) Cafe au lait doesn't even contain ground coffee; it's pure instant.
A coffee date today. With my hurt back, wonder how it will go. Heck, this girl is so reserved, even if everything was normal I'd still be wondering how this will turn out.
Wanted to do a walk instead but she wanted to sleep in. Mild back pain, mostly to do with sitting for a long time, then standing up and straightening my back, so it's no big deal.
What does she even look like? This is my first time going out with a girl knowing only how her face looks from a certain side angle, so basically I won't recognize her.
Ok, so I also don't expect much to result in this but... we have to trudge on, and I am genuinely curious what she's really like. Yes I said it, I don't know anything about her at all. She's so intelligently reserved, after a week of conversation she's revealed so little I am unable to form a proper picture of what she's like.
As you can also tell, I am excited despite my fatigue. It's always like that for every date despite the poor outlook. There has been that voice at the back of my head that this is because I didn't treasure what was in front of me earlier, the one who lasted 3 months, but... it really was getting boring and going nowhere with her reservations about everything and mine. We simply didn't fit, and I have to keep reminding myself that just because a girl was willing to go out with me for months doesn't automatically make her the right one.
Tomorrow is open, date cancelled due to miscommunication. Also, not interested enough in the girl to try to salvage this first meet up.
28th Mar 2021
That girl was really extremely reserved, it's pretty hard to communicate with her. Maybe I'll still keep seeing her, maybe I won't. Probably won't. Communication is important.
So I've lost the inhibition about saying hi to any girl on dating apps. Wow. Took me a while.
30th Mar 2021
Yes! Asked a girl out earlier for this weekend and she said yes last night! The excitement is because although she's covered her lips in all her photos, she showed enough for anyone to tell she's hot, likely a 9/10. The hottest I would have gone out with if we really do meet up this weekend. On top of that, she's like one of my closest friends - very very friendly and forgiving. At one point I might have made a faux pas, but she said she was more concerned by whether it was something she did.
Of course, this is always followed by the mental reminder that these dates never amount to anything, and this time it is truly depressing.
Then again, it could be that expecting it to become something is hurting my chances. I really don't know.
Looked more carefully at her photos just now and realized she's probably overweight. Some things are a good hint of being that, and although she's covered what I usually look for, the upper arms, she showed the back of her hand in a relaxed position.
She's still at least an 8/10 so far though. With a personality like that, she's bordering on unicorn.
Someone reminded me of something I knew but had forgotten - love isn't that easy to find, just because you're interested in a girl after a date doesn't make that love. I'd been so focused on scoring dates that I'd neglected to remind myself a few things I'd already figured out in the past.
04th Apr 2021
Doing 100 pushups a day isn't difficult anymore, if I can split them into sets of 10, and can change the type of pushup. Doing 100 of a single type of pushup makes little sense.
05th Apr 2021
Saturday's date was a new lesson. Sunday's didn't happen.
She had most of the qualities I appreciate, except she was very dishonest with her photos (for good reasons, as it turns out when she took off her mask) and there was still no chemistry. We did chat for hours but we were tired soon and the second half of the date was pretty much forced - we remained tired, the conversation kept going but neither of us enjoyed it.
Lesson here is that just because someone has all the qualities you like does not mean you have found the right one. Also didn't help that her looks were 3-4 out of 10.
Let's see what this weekend brings.
06th Apr 2021
Forgot to lock my living room windows before going to work. and the wind in the afternoon storm was so strong it pulled those windows open and got the balcony drenched. Good thing the rain didn't reach the wooden laminate flooring, only soaked the tiles.
Also didn't completely shut the windows at the aircon condenser units because it's got a huge ledge and rain almost never gets in, but somehow the wind direction was unusually westerly and strong during the storm so that area got soaked too. Unfortunately that's all wooden flooring. For the first time ever, I had to mop up rainwater on the wooden floor. It's bad.
I'd love to keep my windows open last night, but the weather forecast said it was going to rain through the evening, so my home was given the full-aircon-drying treatment again. All windows shut, only the master bedroom was shut from the rest of the home since it didn't need drying, and the living room aircon was on Dry mode for the night. My room was on cold mode but it was dry too, just that it was more comfortable to sleep in.
This morning when I got up, it was so quiet - much less traffic noise, no food smell from the market. I got reminded again why some families do this all the time. So bad for the environment, but the mornings become so pleasant.
10th Apr 2021
A few days ago I had signed up for a 1-to-1 matchmaking meal date matched by age and religion preference set up by a SDN-approved agency. Yes, I am getting really tired of the results from the apps and am trying new things.
Ok that aside, I had already signed up for a bargain version of that meal date that's matched only by age preference by the same agency, and I frankly have no confidence in the resulting date. In any case, I am busy tomorrow, so I told the agency it's going to be on Sunday for either lunch or dinner, and thus lunch was set.
Then a few days ago, I read an announcement I had been seeing a few times before but didn't want to sign up more than one date at a time, that said that the agency was really short on guys, particularly Christians and guys from 1987 and older, so since I fit the second condition, I signed up just to help them and because this lunch on Sunday wasn't going to be a guaranteed success.
That was read before and at the beginning of my morning coffee. What I read was
"The date is confirmed on 11 Apr, 6pm."
and I took that to mean that the match would be confirmed on the 11th of April, which was fine, I could look at the match confirmation after the lunch date.
Turns out it really meant that the date itself is confirmed to be on the 11th of April, 6pm. So now Sunday's going to have a lunch date and a dinner date with two different ladies at the same restaurant. This is... well... out of my comfort zone. It can be tiring, but it's easier than asking for a refund when it already said no refund.
The dinner date will be tough, but hopefully they're interesting. People who sign up for these are usually a slightly different breed compared to those who are very active on the apps. Lots of people are active on both, but the fact that they signed up for these 1-to-1 dates say something about them.
16th Apr 2021
So got some capsules from this brand Carraro via Qoo10 since they were on offer and were on par with the current lowest prices I could find for original Dolce Gusto ones, about S$0.50 each. Since the reviews didn't mention hardware problems like stuck capsules, they seemed good for testing especially when I'm down to about 6 boxes, 3 of which have only half left.
At the moment I've tried 4 of them.
Guatemala - mildest espresso I've ever had. If acidity is such a big deal to you that you'd sacrifice everything else to keep it down, this is your cup of... coffee. Frankly though, might as well drink tea.
Kenyan - floral, as expected of Kenyan beans, but slightly unexpected because it's an espresso and I thought the beans would have been roasted to the point where the heat would destroy most of unique characteristics, yet this is the most floral and sweetest espresso I've had from a capsule machine. Memorable.
Brazilian - nutty, acidic, this is just big on everything and overwhelms your palate. Might do well with some milk, maybe. Needs to be tried again, with and without milk.
Crema Espresso - this is just Dolce Gusto's Espresso Intenso with minute differences.
So as for the two consecutive dates that day, not much to talk about. The first was easier to communicate with during the meal, but she's physically not exactly my type - short and overweight. The other was harder to talk to because she doesn't know half the things I mentioned, even the moka pot. She was much taller, probably around 165cm, and slimmer, but decided since I'm not here to fuck around, there's no point keeping in contact with a girl who has trouble understanding the things I say.
After about a week of texting with the first girl so far, I noticed she's finding it tough to keep up with me too, but she's trying to keep the conversation going. Definitely appreciate the effort, but not sure where this would go. Will meet her again this weekend, so we shall see.
Frankly though, this is demoralizing. Maybe I am expecting too much.
Almost done with rearranging the living room, the corridor and half the kitchen. Don't think I will do much with my current room, and lots of stuff need to be rearranged in my previous room. Got to wait for the living room to be cleaned on Sunday so that I can move what used to be a bookshelf in the store room to the right position in the living room, then bring all the decorative stuff and souvenirs to it.
Oh man, so much stuff.
Also, to get rid of all 21 photo albums (they occupy quite a bit of space unnecessarily since nobody has opened them for at least 15 years except to get a photo out for my brother's wedding), the photos need to be digitized, and according to two studios, this will cost over 1.6k SGD (900 more if I want the photos returned into the albums). Another pain.
17th Apr 2021
Retried Brazil. The espresso is just... bold. That's probably the best word for it. It's accurate to say it tries to overwhelm your palate. Might not be great with milk but haven't tried it yet. For an espresso that gets your attention from the first sip, this is it.
As for Puro Arabica, it's probably one of the best espressos from capsules I've tasted. It definitely is sweet, yet... bold but not as much as Brazil. I'm guessing it's a blend of Kenya and Brazil with some Guatemala to round the edges.
18th Apr 2021
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/jBXm8fCWdo8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
https://youtu.be/jBXm8fCWdo8
Fantastic video on the Aeropress.
19th Apr 2021
Nice warm Monday.
22nd Apr 2021
https://youtu.be/4aN5TbGW5JA
The Pygmalion Effect is a circle.
Anyway it is the phenomenon in which your expectations in others become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Initially, you have certain beliefs about someone you don't really know that you're meeting for the first time. Your beliefs affect the way you act towards this person. This affects the self-beliefs of this person, which changes the way this person acts towards you, and this further reinforces your initial beliefs towards this person, and so on and so forth.
Is this why schools shouldn't stream their students according to their grades? Because the education thinks you're smart, you feel more confident and more motivated to keep pushing yourself academically, so you get even better grades, and etc. Or the reverse happens to the students with poorer grades.
Could you encourage the better students while NOT discourage the worse students?
24th Apr 2021
Decided to clear the living room a bit to make space for a potential dining table. A friend told me my current round dining table is not big enough for 8, the current limit for home gatherings, so I decided to get an extendable dining table.
To be honest, I'd always been toying with the idea of having a coffee table, or just some way to chill at the balcony. In fact, several weeks were spent looking into tall tables and bar stools for that area, but eventually decided it was not worth it because if I get just 2-3 chairs, as the gatherings grow, people can't just pull up a chair from elsewhere to join us (since we're on bar stools). But if we use a shorter table, it's a little low, my window grills obstruct the view, and the view alone does not justify having a table there.
Now, however, there's a new reason - a longer table is needed while the smaller table is too good to be thrown. So, the plan is to keep both in different parts of my home - the extendable one at my living room/balcony, the smaller round one between the two bedroom doors. This is for testing out the new table, and if it works out, I will put my round table up for sale, or keep both so that in the future, my tenant can have a gathering at the same time as I do. Lets see how it feels to have that table in the balcony first. If it's not comfortable, I will need to keep it at the space where the round table is, then move it to the balcony before each gathering.
Meanwhile my storeroom is a mess. Realized I have too many shelves and racks now, I won't have to set up the new smaller metal rack, and this thing is occupying space. Might sell too, though unlikely to have demand.
01st May 2021
Body Beast, despite being less... vigorous... than P90X, it is just as effective at what it does.
I have not been weighing myself since I started it over a week ago, but the aches from the Build: Legs sessions come only slightly less intensely than those from Plyometrics. Also, I can move myself more now from straight arms upwards when doing chinups. About 30 degrees, estimate. That's far more than about 10 degrees, barely any movement, before I started this.
Impressive.
03rd May 2021
Sometimes just because a thought comes that might seem useful doesn't necessarily mean I know how to make use of it.
For example, just now I figured that elderly care might not be in high demand in the next several decades in some countries due to the pandemic. In fact, if the trend holds and China continues to keep its incidence rates low, the people there might really grow old and require geriatric care, while many others won't see an increase.
I think, there will be a significant inflow of people in that field to China in the next 50 years.
21st May 2021
Huh, ok. It's been a while. The latest wave is worrying, especially with the new pseudo-CB and its limit of 2 guests, and the entire block being tested, while the government is silent on further aids for businesses beyond the F&B sector.
Meanwhile one of my staff has not been vaccinated because she's already on many medications for her ongoing conditions, so I've sent them all home.
Tried some new stuff, not sure if it will work.
Hosted a larger dinner, can't multitask. Need more jugs to avoid refills, a bit of decaf, a bit of tea, go through my box of ceramic plates for good ones for communal dishes.
23rd May 2021
A listing I had been keeping an eye on at Shopee just changed to this Irish oysters that are going for $30 for 24 pieces, ie $1.25 per oyster. Fresh, unshucked, frozen.
Oysters are really no longer a luxury food.
And on that topic, I have so many different food items in my carts in various online shopping platforms that I've had to ignore and whose sales I've had to forgo because there simple isn't enough room to freeze that much stuff.
The latest that had to be skipped is this promotion by a meat wholesaler from whom I was able to get, for S$50, a whole roasted duck (with dang gui, and weighing at least 2.3kg before roasting), a 1kg slab of roasted pork, and two 1kg-slabs of raw frozen pork spare ribs. This is ridiculous!
With only one real meal per day, my food consumption rate has slowed down dramatically, so this is now part of life. However, it also gives me the impression that food prices are falling significantly. Probably true, due to the pandemic.
25th May 2021
My plants got hit by a spider mite infestation, discovered yesterday. They were surprisingly easy to identify, seems to be the only bugs that appear as dark spots, builds webs and leads to mottled leaves. The change came seemingly overnight, at least for my overcrowded brinjals. They were also on my other better brinjals, my gingers, red bean and possibly my either apple or butterfly pea sprout. The last, I'm not sure if it's caused by spider mites because there were no black spots or webs but parts of the tiny leaves near the stem were either eaten or decayed.
Anyway spider mites are really spiders that suck plant juices. Harmless to us but annoying and quick-acting on weaker plants, eg my overcrowded brinjals.
Sprayed some pure neem oil on the overcrowded brinjals and the soil under all the plants, but that was too slow, some of them might die the next day, so I tried a very mild detergent spray, and it seems to have worked by today. Going to have to monitor the leaves closely.
27th May 2021
So this sourdough bread that I see everywhere these days is just an overhyped thing.
First and foremost, we must understand bread. Normally, bread is made with yeast produced commercially. Yeast is everywhere in the air, but somehow some people managed to find a specific breed (or whatever it's called) that is seriously efficient at doing its job, so even now, your instant yeast you bought from the supermarket works ridiculously fast compared to sourdough yeast.
Now, as I've mentioned, yeast is everywhere, literally, that's how anyone can make sourdough out of nothing but flour and water in their homes. However, as you can imagine, if you leave a mix of water and flour in room temperature exposed to the ambient air, it's going to attract all the random bacteria too. Bacteria that feed on the mix tend to produce lactic acid, and that's where the "sour" in "sourdough" comes in. As the bacteria and yeast grow, they eventually begin fighting like some kind of fight between good and evil, where the good gives you bubbles in your dough, and the evil gives you diarrhoea.
Through repeated feeding of more water and flour, you let them fight till the yeast has mostly won, leaving just that little bit of bacteria that will never die off, especially when reinforcement is always airdropping from the air. The result is the stuff you replace yeast with in all your bread recipes, and that's why it's sour. Also, baking will kill off all of them so there's little worry about illness.
But the thing is, it's just yeast with extra steps and icky by-products from bad bacteria. It's not like commercial yeast is expensive in the first place, and you could always grow store-bought yeast the way you grow sourdough. The other difference is flavour produced by the bacteria and yeast just because they happen to be in your home when you left that mixture out in the open. I guess it's completely accurate to say it's going to taste of home, literally.
I'm just going to buy some yeast instead.
03rd June 2021
Replaced the tap at the basin outside the kitchen toilet door. Used to be our morning washup basin a long time ago but isn't really necessary these days, it's only good for when there are more people in the home, so that there is still a basin to be used when the toilet is occupied.
Anyway it's worth mentioning not only because it's the first tap I've replaced, but also because it was a huge pain to deal with, mainly because it's a combination of very narrow space and corroded nut. I couldn't even measure the nut to find out its dimension and had to buy so many tube spanners to trial and error till I finally found that the 24mm one fits, albeit with a bit of shrinking with a pair of pliers.
So it began with me finding out that the regular adjustable spanner can't do the job because it kept slipping off the very flat nut holding the tap tight under the sink in the very narrow space. Also there was barely any room to turn it anyway, maybe enough to rotate 10 degrees.
That was extremely frustrating.
So I googled and found out about the existence of the tube spanner, but as mentioned earlier, there was no room to measure it, so I estimated it to be about 20mm, and bought two sets of them from China. Turns out the biggest one, the 22mm almost but couldn't fit, so since there isn't a 23mm one, I went for the 24mm.
These things took weeks to arrive, so all in all these whole process of getting a 24mm here took months.
Then when the 24mm arrived, it fit but it couldn't turn because the nut was a little corroded, so eventually I found an anti-rust lube spray, but by then I was too frustrated to deal with it, not to mention it wasn't urgently needed, so I merely gave it a generous spray, and left it at that, thinking this would give it time to penetrate.
After a few months, finally remembered about it and had the motivation to do it. Still didn't turn, and it took a lot more trials and error to realize I wasn't holding the tube to fit it completely, but even if I did, it still wouldn't turn. Last resort, another generous spray of the lube and gave it a minute. This time, it turned a tiny bit, and this was a huge progress under the circumstances.
More struggling, blah blah blah, and it finally came loose, allowing me to replace the tap.
Tbh while waiting for the lube for that minute, I was already looking into replacing the entire basin just so that in the future, it would be easier to replace the tap, but standing basins easily cost S$400 each, so... never mind.
13th June 2021
So took my first dose of Moderna today. They announced that from Friday everyone between 12-39 could apply, so I did and immediately got a slot at for Sunday, today. Next jab will be in July.
Wasn't too bad, very well-staffed so there were plenty of people directing us towards where we should go and every step.
One and a half hours after the jab, the weakness set into my left arm. Two hours in, I couldn't lift it above my head without feeling an ache. Tonight, sleep might be an issue, but we shall see.
This reminds me of the time I had the ligament replacement surgery and the same shoulder ached for days, while lifting it up was impossible for months. In fact, I couldn't lift it above my head even by the third month.
Anyway, good thing tomorrow is a rest day, so I'll probably take two rest days for this cycle, no big deal.
Might have met someone, but we shall see. Looks promising, but then again so did several of my past matches.
Got an electrician to take a look at my flat, and discovered on top of rewiring the entire flat and changing all power points and fusebox costing 4k SGD, all power points can be moved during the process. I mean, since he's pulling everything out already, repositioning them doesn't cost any additional effort.
That changed the entire game.
Now I have a friend to come over to help me shift the furniture around for a second time, but this time with a more elaborate plan, much much less make-do and much much more redo. Might as well, why simply adapt to things when they can be changed at no cost? What a revolutionary concept.
I can do a single pullup now. For real, no hop necessary. Since last week. Up to the mouth level though, so to get the chin above the bar, I still have to tilt my face upward. And only with the back grip, as in palms facing myself.
