Busy times. Concluded a year of operations which should translate to more free time and a less stressful life.
Week 1
Interesting turn of events like pieces of a puzzle falling together led to me taking over the duty on one of the days. The results was rather rewarding, allowing me to chance upon some rather talented musicians. Their ability to hear notes perfectly and harmonize is really inspiring. Changing the keys of songs and figuring out chords by ear is barely a challenge for them. Motivation +50.
Cleared the final exercise for the year! Perhaps its the thought of “do it right for the final time”, I felt like I could do much more than usual. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, my vision was blurred towards the end, so I was like seeing giant patches of color and so I had to make do and just aim at the blurry objects. Which worked though.
I always disliked needles. Whether it’s vaccinations or blood draws, the thought of a needle piercing the skin and into the flesh never fails to send a giant chill down my spine. Barely a month after my last blood test, I had another one lined up. Thinking about how horrible the previous experience was, there I thought nothing could be worse. How wrong I was. So I went to the doctor on time and spent the next twenty minutes waiting for the medic to get ready. There were two medics drawing blood, and as luck would have it, I was assigned to this guy whose name I forgot. His instructions to me was to place my arm across the treatment bed and pump the arm. Which I did. He went on to do his stuff, examining the vein, planning where to poke me best, etc etc etc. I looked away of course, so the whole thing will be over before I know it.
There I waited, partially in a daydreaming state, when I felt a light sting. The needle must be in, I thought to myself. Few seconds later, another similar sensation came. I breathe out in relief, assuming that was it for the blood draw. Then came the voice of the medic. “Sorry, the needle came out. I need your other arm.” Oh, the horror.
So I gave up my right arm with reluctance, while glancing with much sorrow the bruised and blood tainted left arm of mine. Fast forward three minutes, and came his voice again. “Your veins quite runny ahhh”. My face went blanked. What in the world does runny veins even mean. In simple terms, it means the second attempt to draw blood failed. In more difficult terms, the needle didn’t end up at the vein and so no blood could be drawn.
A while later, the doctor came in. After getting poked twice, I was mentally prepared for the third needle. The doctor was pretty experienced, which was probably why he used a fatter needle instead of the tiny ones from earlier. “Count to three”. Assuming the needle would strike at three, I counted and waited for it. Nothing happened at three. Then came a sharp pain on a different scale than the previous two attempts. Must be the fault of the fat needle. And that was how I ended up with two holes on my right arm and one on the left.
Sentosa Adventure Cove. Heard so much about it, saw many photos of friends who have been there. Finally, came the chance to visit and the best part is the ticket’s free! First attraction was the lazy river, where people sit on this float and the flow of the water takes them down the “river”. Well this was pretty fun, and guys being guys, we ended up splashing water at each other, flipping over people’s floats and dunking them into the water. The lifeguards along the “river” were all staring at us though. We got out halfway through the river and got to this tidal wave pool. It was surprising to see waves being created at a confined pool. Till now, I still can’t figure out how the huge waves are created.
Past the tidal pool and we arrive at these gigantic slides. Having a phobia of slides, I passed and waited outside the line with someone in the same predicament while the others queued. And that was when I noticed these group of girls staring at the both of us. Okay…..no model standard figure here. Seeing how long the queue for the slides were, the both of us went on for another round at the lazy river. Our timing was so perfect that when we exited the river, the slides people were done.
The most memorable attraction was splashworks, which we likened to the standard obstacle course of bmt, except with water. SOC’s low rope techniques work well here, saved for the unexpected rope burn from rapid ascension. Before leaving, I got convinced to try one of the slides, so up I went and pushed off into the tunnel. Everything went black. Literally. With the exception of certain parts of the tunnel with an open top, usually the sharp turns, everything was pitched black in tunnel. So all I felt was rushing through a torrent of water and crashing out into the pool in a matter of seconds. Definitely an enjoyable experience, for the cost of $30+ (free).
Week 2
Taking a break from work is always so refreshing. Waking up on my own timing, sleeping when I feel tired and no rigid schedules to follow. The whole of week 2 was supposed to be a holiday week, however due to some miscommunication and unexpected lecture that required my attendance, the holiday week was shortened to three days. And so I spent the three days catching up with the tech world. This month has quite a number of tech announcements, most important highlight being the surface pro 4 and book. Wow. The surface pro 4 is just stunning. The book….weird hinge there. One of the book models packs a dual core intel i7. For the relatively expensive price of the book, many might assume they are paying for excellent performance but in actual fact they are getting a dual core instead of a quad. For comparisons, looking at a similarly priced macbook pro 15″, you get a quad core instead of 4 logical cores.
Not trying to flame the book here, it is a interesting concept for laptop replacements, but value wise it loses out to the surface pro and perhaps even the macbook pro in my opinion. I used to find the macs crazily overpriced. Then the 2015 air lineup seems to cut down on the pricing a little so it might be worth a look there.
Drove around quite a bit too. Driving can be calming on the nerves yet ironically frustrating sometimes. On one hand smooth cruising on the expressway with the radio on takes the mind off of troubles but then on the other hand occasionally some guy just recklessly comes along and cut in front of me without any warning. Just because a newbie is driving 80kmph on a 90kmph road doesn’t give someone the right to speed ahead and cut in with such minuscule gap. Bullying newbies begets bad karma dear experienced drivers.
Friday was kind of a wasted leave day. The whole bunch of guys got a free movie screening of bridge of spies which I heard was excellent by the way. So I requested to cancel my leave and instead join the movie screening. One more day of leave and a free movie? Clear cut answer there. But the request got turned down. Twice. But on the bright side, I spent the time relearning my music theory and I kind of rediscovered some improv techniques. Subtle differences which can spice up a song. This cannot offset the value of a free ticket but at least it stands for something.
Week 3
Boring mundane week. Only thing worth mentioning is hitting the gym on Saturday. This is like the second time in my life going to a public gym. First time was two years ago, which is a really long time. This session I worked on the benchpress. An empty bar of 20kg was not much of challenge, so my buddy suggested upping to 30kg. The effect of the extra 10kg was felt immediately upon lifting the bar. At 30kg, I barely managed to complete the set of 8 reps. Then my spotter, someone we were sharing the equipment with, explained the need to add more weights in order to improve. Which sounded perfectly logical. Then he added another 10kg to the bar. My jaw dropped. But I tried anyway. The first rep burned the chest and triceps and after that I had barely any strength left. With the spotter’s help, I at least managed to scrape through 5 reps. The sense of satisfaction was immense. 30kg is more than half my body weight, so 40 sounds horrifying.
In that one hour in the gym I tried 60% of the equipment there, focusing mainly on the back, triceps and abs. The burn lasted for three days. I had planned to hit the gym again on Monday, but lifting the bar was a problem. So I had to settle for shoulder presses and squats. With ActiveSG, entry into the gym can be considered free, so I probably will be at the gym more often. I hope.
Week 4
Watched Our Times (我的少女時代) with the army friends. Audience was a mixture of teenagers and elderly. The entire movie was accompanied by commentary sound effects with the occasional sob during the more emotional scenes. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable movie.