Tag: daily
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Culture Change
The hardest mental hurdle that I have to take every single day is the cultural change of Singapore. It’s one thing to say that we’ve Westernized our Asian culture, but the truth of it is still a huge apprehension of what that really looks like. More than that, I think most people actually don’t want…
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Misinformed Opinions and Choices.
Today I went to a mall in an attempt to get some new art materials. I actually looked up the store online, and I checked Google Maps to make sure I got all the timings right. But lo and behold, the entire mall was under construction. Worst part is that I was just at this…
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Planning the day away
Sometimes I forget what I need to do, and I end up spending a lot of time thinking and working around things instead of doing the actual things that I need to do. Sometimes, I don’t even make the lists of what I need to do, and instead, I end up sitting down with no…
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Talking about the thing that I am struggling to talk about
It’s day three of trying to draw or create, or be creative in some aspect or another. Honestly, did not do anything creative today, other than just think a whole lot, and I wrote a whole lot too. I guess I will end today with a lot of writing just to get myself going. and…
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I tried to draw today
I sketched a bit in church today, and there’s just something else about sketching in real life. I don’t know if its the same as when I’m just doodling about and just trying to think, but I do feel like it might not be the same as a daily drawing discipline. Or maybe it is.…
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The Reason for Discipline
I have been thinking about this for the past few days, especially in the past week. Leading up to my birthday, I was keeping up with my writing pretty okay, maybe I missed a day or two, but in the few days of gap in writing, I am understanding that why I write is key.…
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Talking Talking
I’ve been having many conversations in the past few weeks. A lot are about art, and about how we think through the creative work that we do. I say we, because my companions talking with me are mostly creatives. These conversations range from how we were supported, or how we felt about the different things…
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Wiser choices to make
Singapore can get really hot, and during those hot days, all I can think about is how I wish I wore shorts instead. It’s not like my bosses need me to wear pants, but I just wear pants because I feel like it makes me look a bit more kept. I think my long hair…
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Long Day of Climbing
I spent the whole day climbing today, literally from 1030ish until 6pm. We had a lunch break. Haven’t climbed this hard and this long for a long time, but at least I was getting better at some of the routes before our fingers just got too sore from all the climbing. It’s actually kinda hard…
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Writing in the City
I’m writing this post in a Starbucks in the middle of Singapore’s CBD area. It’s been some time since I sat down in town and just wrote stuff. I used to sit around this same area during the COVID time, and maybe the years before. There was a certain allure, and a thrill, excitement perhaps,…
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Understanding myself: Moving past anger
A range of things I have been wanting to figure out is who I am as a whole, and what makes me “me”. There’s a lot of ways of figuring this out, but most of the time, I just enjoy writing a journal, or keeping track of myself somewhere, somehow. A few years ago, I…
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Creative Directions
I’ve been trying to sort out how I want to approach and sell my art, and one of the key things that I’ve arrived at is the format of who I am. One part of who I am is an Instigator. I want to make people do something, and it might be in a good…
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A Bit of Gaming History : Humble Bundle
Since I’ve been gaming a bit more these days, I’ll share a little about how gaming used to be years ago. I’ve been quite inspired by a gaming podcast, and I think it’ll be fun to share what I used to do. I was a broke kid, like every other broke kid out there. We’ve…
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another cold rainy day
Actually the last few cold rainy days were quite some time away. But there’s always a certain dread in the cold rainy days. It’s hard to get out of the house cause you’ll most definitely get wet along the way. It’s hard to will yourself to get out of bed because it’s just so nice…
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An Old Routine: A Keyboard A Day
Today I woke up and remembered something that I had forgotten quite some time back. There was a time where I would put a new keyboard together before I started work. At that time, I think I was going through many things mentally, and this past week, I felt some of that old anxiety creeping…
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Learning from Sadness and Pain
Today I spent some time with my friend, and just listening to him and how he is working through a really rough patch in life. I won’t share about his problems for sure, but I will share about what I learnt when I went through my own times of grieving and sadness. There is always…
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10 minute post
Started to write this at 1141PM on 2 Sep: Today was a super long day. We spent the day at a wedding, and then Clarice and I both went to Artcade and Open Fields markets. These were pretty different markets, and I enjoyed myself there in a big way! By big, I mean that I…
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A return to Jalan Minyak for a minute
Today we ran around a bit; I had forgotten to update my residential address, and ended up having to go to Jalan Minyak once again to do my voting. I saw my ex-neighbour’s son, the neighbours were in the hospital, because Uncle had some medical issues. Going back to Jalan Minyak, it really hit me…
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Teamwork makes the dream work
I’ve got quite a few teams that I work with, and a lot of the time I can’t decide if the team is working together with me or not. Sometimes, I feel very conflicted, that by being myself, I end up messing with how things work. Other times, I feel like I’m the main one…
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The Woes of Writing Daily
Every time I write daily, I realise a few things. One: I struggle to put work up everyday. Two: I struggle with what kind of work I put up everyday. When I’m writing daily like this current time again, I find myself pausing through the day to think what is worth writing about. I know…
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Dealing with my collecting self
I collect a lot of things, I’m careful not to say hoard, cause I do throw things away. I have collections of books, shoes, pens, games, inks, all sorts of things. Collecting too many of the same thing has become something I watch out for, so currently, I’ve stopped collecting black t-shirts. I had written…
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Leading by example
I don’t think it’s super easy to describe what happens when you step into a role of leadership. Or how it is when you have to gather a group of people and convince them that you’re doing it right, and they should be listening to you. Let me attempt to describe it: It is impossible.…
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the hobbies and the people
Sometimes when I look through the hobbies I follow, I chance upon the people who also like the same hobby. It sounds obvious enough, but sometimes when I see the other people who like raw denim for example, it gives me a bit of a shock. It’s not that they’re not nice people, or that…
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some changes
So I started do some adjusting around the site as a whole, kinda to get myself a bit more visibility in the right areas, or so I hope. The blog will still be a blog, and I’ve got a clear link for it now. But instead, all other areas are a bit more defined. Basically…
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Keeping it up
There’s always so much work that could be done, and sometimes getting started is difficult, but I always think that maintaining is the hardest. Here are some thoughts I am having, as I try to motivate myself through my own afternoon humps. Motivations Digging deep to find why I’m doing something is always helpful. It…
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The Turn of a Day
Some days start off real bad. Like today, I had left my earphones at home. I took a really crowded bus to the train station, and then a really close encounter with a couple who had no sense of personal space. It got me kinda flustered, but it just piled on that the day felt…
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Vietnam in Gist
I thought to put this down somewhere before I forget, and also because it seems that I’m taking too long to do a video/long post about the whole trip. On the first day, we arrived at the airport, and found that Grab was the main form of transport now. It was a busy scene at…
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on contentedness
I have this there where I like getting new things. I mean that in every way, just brand new items, fresh out of the box. Going for new experiences not so much, but items and objects that are new are definitely up my alley. At the same time, I really like things that are ages…
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productivity on F1 days
Today’s a specific topic, just to give myself a bit more time to think about what I want to say about my Vietnam holiday. It’s actually F1 race season, and last weekend at this time, I was watching some of the craziest practice races on the Baku circuit. On Sunday, after arriving in Vietnam, I…
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Decision Fatigue
When I woke up today, I was really spoiled for choice on which of my many hobbies I wanted to work on! There was a part of me that wanted to work on my keyboard, because I had just gotten the Cherry Nixie Switches. I thought to put them in a board and do a…
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The end of a week
It’s been some time since I’ve felt the end of a week properly. When I was in the army, the weekend mattered a lot. It was the breath of freedom, a moment to just take a break from the monotony of work. In the past few weeks of work, I’ve not been aware of the…
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The Death of Book Depository
I still remember the season of Borders at Wheelock. Borders was a physical bookstore at the corner of Orchard Road, part of an American franchise of bookstores. It was a place where you could get music, books, movies. I had spent years there, browsing through design books, and fiction, and listening to so much music.…
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Skate Morning
I woke up later than usual today, and went over to the skate park nearby to skate a bit. It’s really been ages since I’ve gone skateboarding so consistently, but I really felt the need to, especially when the new skate park is so much nearer. The skate bowls are also easier to skate in,…
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Tick Tock TikTok?
I just watched the TED Talk with the TikTok CEO, and it’s quite an interesting set of things he brings up. He talked about how the app actually scans your face as you use it. I mean I should have guessed it before, considering the filters that have been on for ages. But I guess…
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The Right Wrong Steps
As much as I think that I’ve planned things the right way all the time, I know I’ve taken so many detours, bringing me around the mountain of life in the strangest ways. My mechanical keyboard hobby for one, completely on a whim. I started running because I was just so bored one night that…
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Post Pizza Days
There are also days like this. The party’s mostly over type of day, and there’s just too many things going on. Maybe too much to clear. On days like these, the barrier to getting started gets raised by a lot. I’ll need to clear the table, wash up after that, make sure that everything’s in…
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A Good Climb Day
I think there are many days to have but some days are really just good climbing days. Today is one of those days, and I really had a lot of fun climbing around. I made climbing moves that I haven’t done in so long, because of my wrist that was giving me issues. But today…
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An Early Morning Post
Today my brain decided to wake me up a lot earlier. It also helped that I made a keyboard that I was really happy with, and now I am happy typing away at it. One of the things I struggle with in my creative process is the lack of an Approver. At work, if I…
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In the name of creativity
The daily discipline is getting to me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing, or creating, or thinking. It’s just this thing sitting behind the back of my head, asking if I’ve done the work yet, if I’ve produced something that I am happy with. It’s just there and it’s giving me this added stress…
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Work and Play
Today was an interesting day of experimenting some new things: Skate I went to a new skate park that opened near my place today, and it’s really good and beginner friendly. It’s a short bus ride down, and man its pretty big. I went in the morning with some friends, and I found out how…
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Doing things I like productively
Today felt like less of a productive day than yesterday for sure. I didn’t churn out as many drawings, and the day is slowly coming to an end. Clarice is away at a staff retreat, so my mental clock timing of what to do when is kinda all over the place. I’m not really that…
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creativity overload
Today was an extremely creative day. I drew so much, produced so much, in ways that I haven’t for years. The craziest thing is that I was also exceedingly good at my chess game as well. So it felt like something went off in my head. A part of me is thinking: How can I…
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People really do matter
There’s a part of me that had questioned a lot of social norms back in the day. I blame it on teenage angst, among other things. I also think that being a teenager is incredibly difficult, and in this current day and age, it’s even harder. But I think one of the key things I…
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Creative Intentions
Reviewing some of the artwork that I had gotten yesterday, I think there’s a lot I could make on the simple basis of wanting to create stories. There are moments that I wish I could retell again, or keep for the sake of memories. One of the key things that I wanted to recall last…
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Singapore Art Book Fair 2023
It’s been some time since going to a creative thing of sorts, and today was a great day going back to it! I really saw an array of stores all over the place, and it was good fun getting to see the different people, and the different types of graphic design going on. There are…
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Revisiting Purpose
It’s been some time since I’ve written here, and today I was reminded why. I’ve lost the purpose of why I started writing here, and I am quite sure now why I would like to start writing again. I want to write here to explain why and what I think about when I do the…
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Setting Boundaries
Clarice mentioned the word Boundaries to me today, and I’m reminded of the space of boundaries, and margins. I learnt during a seminar of sorts a few years back, that I need to set margins in my life. The margins keep space for you to handle urgent last minute things in life. I’ve not really…
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Uncertain Fears: YouTube
I’ve posted a new video on YouTube today, and it really took some part of me to make that happen. I actually showed my face, gasp, and unlike other times, like on stream, I actually had to edit myself. It was honestly an uncomfortable experience, and I spent the last few days questioning myself about…
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Starting Points
In many ways, a lot of why I started writing a lot more here is because of Seth Godin and his blog. I love this guy, and I love the way he thinks about so many things, because it feels like what I would have done if given the courage to just do it. Maybe…
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Smart Work Pays OFF
My long posts about how IPPT scoring works, and how I geared myself to make sure I got a GOLD for today. Highlights: I got into each of that last point in that last second. I was really scraping it through and I really just hammered that last point in, for both the sit ups…
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Second Last Day of March
Did you know that it’s already the end of March? The year has really moved so quickly and now we’re crossing over into the second quarter of the year. It’s really rushing and coming fast. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do at the start of the year. But at the…
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Cool Days for Cool People
I keep thinking if I should have a better scheme, or a better content plan for my blog. My own answers to myself are: No, it is a blog, and the spontaneity is part of who I am. Secondly, I do have some specific content that I want people to read, and that’s on my…
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Finally some rain
The rain appeared as a cloud, coming over the horizon from the view of my office windows. It looked majestic, as the grey washed over the windows, and poured on and on for a good hour or so. The night is finally cool, and I showered with cool water, not the warm tepid water that…
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Just when you thought yesterday was hot…
I literally felt the sweat bead up on my chest, underneath my T-Shirt as I put it on after showering. Literally. I questioned all sense of what hygiene was about during my entire journey to meet my wife for lunch. The sun bore down directly on me, all the day long. The worst part was…
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Keyboard Days Like These
I think I haven’t changed my keyboard in way too long. Now, I’m not doing a keyboard post in hope of boosting my blog site views or anything. Nor am I trying to get more content out of my keyboard obsession. I’m saying this furreal, because I felt that today, as I was typing away…
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Two Tired
Does one ever feel too stretched in too many place? I’m watching through Formula 1 on Netflix, and whenever I watch this series, I always feel as if I’m living the driver’s life metaphorically, or in an another parallel. I feel the pressure of performance, the pressures of watching to get things done well for…
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A Poem: My Fingers Hurt
Ah, cool water over sore fingersEasing strains, swollen and tender. The result of climbing, stretching, gripping,An attempt at a sport known as bouldering. Not that actual boulders are in useJust in case you might confuse The scene of humans splayed on a wallFull of little grips, with colors and all. I was one human on…
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Heat
Today was a semi rest day from all the working out I’ve been doing, but I’m trying to pushups more consistently throughout the day. It was a semi rest day because I didn’t actually do a full work out, but I walked a whole bunch, and all the push ups made me still need to…
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The Need for Gold
The IPPT: The Individual Physical Proficiency Test. Every army around the world has their different testing systems. The Singapore Armed Forces has had the IPPT for a very long time, and the testing criteria have changed over the years. When I was first enlisted, as part of my National Service in the conscripted army of…
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Back to Work Blues
Usually most people would complain about Mondays in some way, but being away for the past three weeks, it was a real challenge to even just stay awake at some parts. My calendar dates were changed and there were things that I really had to tweak last minute to fit into time properly. I think…
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Reliving Memories
Today was a fun day out, Clarice went for spin and I went to do my daily readings in the morning. I’m on a 9 month long bible reading course, that I’m leading in my church. It’s pretty fun, it’s my fifth time doing it, and I do enjoy reading through it. When we got…
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More Minyak Memories
In the past few years, I think one of the key things that really marked my time here was my time in the army, as I lived here. It’s a very accessible location, and I think it really was quite nice moving to and fro, from this place. My army gear was always in an…
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The Last Time
There’s a time when some things will come to an end, and today, one of those things is my time in army. It is finally done. There is no more annual call ups to turn up for reservist; no more IPPT (physical fitness tests); no more staying in camp and being limited with what can…
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Last Night Jitters
It’s the last night that I’m staying in this camp for. Currently all my things are mostly packed, and it feels like the last night at an AirBnB. Everything’s mostly ready to go, just one more night of making sure the things are in place, and then getting ready to go. A lot of adrenaline,…
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Birds of a Feather
I have this idea that we will always meet the people that we enjoy meeting. Not because we’re actively looking out for them, but our lifestyles will make the world spin in a similar direction. The paths would cross, and we would find ourselves filtered through the different times and places. It would be a…
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Sunshine and Rainbows
Sunshine is really hot. Rainbows come after some seriously heavy or constant rain, and then the sun shines after that, then you get rainbows and tonnes of humidity in the air. Today is one of those days when everything is just so darn heavy, and just beats consistently on you. Like a rattly spacebar on…
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A Morning Post
Today I’m standing by on a number of things, waiting for people to appear, and waiting for things to be settled. It’s waiting, and uncertainty. But it’s okay, I mean I try to still get some things done. One of the first notifications I got was from a Subscriber on YouTube. It’s my first fan…
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Spoiled for Choice
I really tend to over prepare on too many things. I’ve usually thought through what I want to do, and presupposed that the amount of time I have. This has led to me first owning too many things, and secondly, I usually am overladen. This happens even in video games. I play the classic Diablo…
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In the Heat of the Moment…
you might end up buying the wrong things. I caught myself trying to purchase something that I really didn’t need yesterday. I was loading up a whole bunch of things into cart on one of the keyboard websites, and just as I was checking out, the delivery prices popped up and I looked at the…
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A Good Read
I think there are a many good days when the world can benefit from a good book, or something stimulating to read. I don’t think my blog is one of them, but I know my wife enjoys to read my posts. It’s a mix of emotions. Reading takes concentration, and sometimes that concentration isn’t something…
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Some Fears
In the midst of the current posts about memories, and some of the thoughts I have, I thought to share about some of the fears I carry with me daily. They’re the everyday anxiety type of fears, but some of them stem into the way that I live my life. Maybe this makes sense for…
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Raining Cats and Dogs
One of the deepest memories I’ve formed living in this area is the amount of cats and dogs that have been coming to my house. We’ve gotten visited by at least 3-4 cats, and one consistent dog (my neighbour’s). I really enjoyed it, and I think it makes me think a lot about taking care…
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Night Scenes
When Instagram was first starting out, everyone was trying their best to get these really cool artistic photos. It was all these really high saturation, high contrast, tonnes of grain type of photos. Then the whole tilt shift lens thing came in and everyone wanted their places to look mini and small. It was at…
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The Bump of Excitement at the End of the Day.
Today seemed to progress about just nice. I was all ready to give another memory of this place, with the rain and all that. But lo and behold, the day has a bump of excitement, with a rush of sudden things to think through. I would say, the scene that I’m currently working from has…
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Too Many Memories
Around the place I live, there are a ton of historical locations. There are places of Chinese heritage, tourist attractions, colonial monuments, everything of that sort. The thing is that now, many of my own memories of the locations are tied together with the stories that they hold. Nearby, down the street where I live,…
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Hot start to the day
Today is blistering hot. There are no words for it. At the start of the day, I thought it would be a good day to have a bath, but I’m really double think if I would want to do that later today. If I were in army again, and it were this hot, there would…
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Tightened Bootlaces
Early mornings, when the sun isn’t up yet. There’s the scuffle of people moving around, getting out of bed, alarms going off in different series of rings. It’s the day of the mission, and everyone’s tense on their things that they have to do, before we start our attack. I’m usually sensitive to sound when…
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Reliving memories
Today feels like a day from the past. Still another day in the army, but it feels like the days from long ago. A decade even, and it feels like humans are still the same. Everyone does things in the same way and behaves the same. Little actions that get you annoyed, or small inconveniences…
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Lighter Load, Heavier Heart.
Today comes as a huge mixed bag of emotions. There are some parts today that I’m really annoyed with. There are also some parts that I wish I could have more of. I’m on my Reservist at this time. That’s where all the Singaporean males are called back to the National Service, our Army. We…
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Cricket; the sound of rest.
Sometimes, it’s very peaceful to come back at night, and sit in my room, typing, as I listen to the sound of the crickets at night. When I was younger, it was annoying. But now, after the multitude of Japanese drama, and slice-of-life anime, I appreciate these sounds of crickets or cicadas chirping away at…
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Stretched Like Pizza
There are days like today, where my mind is just really pulled. It’s days like this when I question if I was a good explainer, a good communicator of any sort. If communication’s basis is how well people understand what you’re saying, I feel like I failed today in some big ways. It felt like…
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Double Work
There are days like today, where I felt there was So Much double work done. I needed to plan some deliverables a few months back, but because of the COVID scenarios, I’ve had to replan them on Friday, and then again today. I hate having to do work twice. Meaning that if I had known…
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The Money Relationship
My pay came in today, along with my keycaps that I had ordered from last July. And I just recalled the process I had to take in order to plan the purchase for these keycaps. It didn’t take too long, it was a process of thinking “hey these keycaps are kinda cute” and “hey it…
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The Smell of Piss
There are definitely times when the smell of human urination just hits your nose. It’s this horrible scent of metallic substances, just really sour, and pungent. It hits your nose when you approach a toilet that hasn’t been cleaned for very long, or sometimes when you walk past an exhaust fan outside a toilet. Other…
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Moments of Sadness
Today was a pretty good day. It was nice and rainy, Clarice and I went for a nice lunch and then a nice dinner. We even got to take a nice nap in the afternoon and we chilled out watching Filthy Frank and Joji evolutions heh. But somewhat suddenly, I saw a picture of someone…
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How Today Went for Clarice and I in Singapore.
We went out for a nice coffee at Glyph coffee today. It was worth the hype. The service was great as well. (Glyph is a trendy coffee place in Singapore) Before that, we had lunch at Han’s, and I had the Beef Superburger with Egg. (It’s basically just a burger from a Hainanese eatery in…
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Two too?
There were way too many good memes for today’s 22 Feb 22, so I will leave that for everyone to dissect in their own time. But today I did a lot of Filthy Frank catch up, that I never knew I would like this much. It’s the Jackass of the YouTube era, and just the…
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Distractions Pt. 2
There are some days when the distractions are wild, and they exist all over the place, but these are mostly the days when the distractions are internal. But there are definitely days where the distractions are external, and today has been one of those days. The daytime was full of people playing games downstairs, screaming…
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A Day in the Life of a Distracted Young Adult
Or whichever label society decides to place on who I am today. Today was one of those days that I just didn’t really feel like doing anything. It also led to me not doing much, and yet a little bit more than I thought. I managed to rearrange some keyboards, and put a couple of…
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Late Post; Late Day
Super long day; and its still not done yet. But it’s great conversations and life is working out fine. Gonna watch this video later
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Reflections of the Week
I remember I was trying to do weekly updates at one point last year end, but it’s quite a difficult process. Instead, I think I will reflect on a portion of my journey that I decided to cherish as a moment in my head. There is a short journey I take from my house towards…
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A Quick Break
I’m in the middle of cleaning up my study table and my study room because firstly, it was in somewhat of a mess. Secondly I was missing a stabilizer that I need for one of my keyboards. It’s frustrating me to no end, and I think I need to buy it. It’s an old type…
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Keyboard Update:
I always wonder how much of my blog here should be keyboard related. Namely because I think that my life is a lot more complex than keyboards. But I do know that most traffic here would be from my keyboard side of things. At the same time, I wonder how much my art and drawing…
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Background
There are many things that happen in the background of my mind. Some of the things I think about in the background are the expectations I have of the people around me. Sometimes its a running awareness of events that are happening around me, and what I need to do to manage them. Sometimes, it’s…
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Comfortable
In planning for the year ahead, I’ve been thinking about the range of things that I want to try for myself. It’s somewhat because I have been comfortable with the things that I’ve been doing. For example, I feel that my YouTube channel has been somewhat dead, and I’m letting the views stack slowly over…
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Heat and Humidity
There are some easy days in Singapore. These are the days when the air is nice and cool, and it rains all day long. And then there are days where it is really hot and sunny, and it feels like standing in the sun is like sticking your hand into an oven. And then there…
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Sleep Stats: My Night Time Routine
There’s some pride I take towards getting good sleep score when I sleep and wake up the next day. I think its mostly me being proud of myself getting in a place to get good sleep, like reading, and chilling out. Getting a good night time routine going to get me asleep. Currently this is…
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Unexpected Friendships
I think there are times when I am meeting new people for the first time, and when I do get to talk to them, all of a sudden, it feels like we were always meant to be friends. This doesn’t happen all the time, and its not because the person is charismatic or anything, but…
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Trying to type with a very old and ancient keyboard
I had read somewhere that the writers of old had really appreciated the pen, in the way that the speed of writing would play as a speed limit for an author’s thoughts. At that time, it was also thought that the typewriter would kill the author’s writing processes, and yet we progressed further to the…
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Talking and Walking
Sometimes I really enjoy doing this; talking with a friend, as I walk around. Its fun to just move and talk, and to get some bits of exercise as we’re talking, to notice the scenery around. It makes for some distractions sometimes, but otherwise, I find these conversations very enjoyable. Granted, meeting times are meant…
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Today’s Tough Thought
How do you tell someone that they’re not good at something that they think they’re good at? An example of this is someone who thinks that they’re good at social engagements, but unfortunately, they’re actually quite socially awkward. I find this specific example very difficult to explain to people, because their perception of what made…
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Perspectives: The Ant
There’s a bible verse that reads as this: Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Proverbs 6:6-8 It was during today’s short work out in the morning where I saw the ant, and saw…
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Sleepy Sunday
I actually slept in past 10AM today. In a normal day, I would usually be up and about by 8AM, with cup of coffee and daily journal in hand. But there was something very soothing in today’s morning sleep. It felt like I had some interruptions in sleep, I do remember getting up to go…
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Unfinished Business
Finish the task at hand before starting a new one. I think this is the line I have the most trouble with sometimes. I have a million things on hand, and I keep having to find separate times to finish different bits of it. I hate it, and I find that sometimes one of the…
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Simple Fridays
were never really possible to begin with. Because most of the time, Fridays are spent rushing around, making sure a range of things are happening at exactly the right times. What makes it even crazier really is that today I had my intern come over to learn how to use design softwares, and I had…
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4 Minute Post
Time has been really tight today, and I would say it is by choice. I was slow in the morning, and it felt like the day really snowballed in many ways. One of the most surprising things today was that a cat came into our house, and was stuck under our chest of drawers. Then…
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Revisiting Memories
Just watched The Matrix today with Clarice. It was really quite interesting to rewatch many of the sequences that I had remembered as a child. And to pair them with scenes from Matrix Resurrections, it was really something I didn’t expect to recall in specific ways. The Matrix does hold a special place in my…
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Relative Time
It feels like today passed really quickly, and even more than that, we’re already into the second month of the year. Every day passes as if I’m on a skateboard rolling downhill. It doesn’t help that the days are filled with different types of meetings, and I’m just in the capsule of my room or…
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Chinese Reunion Dinners
As a Chinese person, I have the luxury of celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. Luxury of stuffing myself with a multitude of reunion dinners, where the pure aim is to eat as much food as possible, and to commend your family for their great cooking. At the same time, there’s the constant talk about…
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Bad Influences
There’s some major ideas of what is good, and what is right. And most of the world is willing to get behind most morally good things. But sometimes, you get some really dark and weird influences, like Filthy Frank: It’s mean, it’s racist, its everything, but at the same time you know its satire, and…
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Another Rushed Post
I keep writing these really last minute posts, just to keep my writing streak. I think it’s a balance to the super long ones that come in between. I went for a Barter Market today, and I traded things that I actually wanted to give out. It was quite fun, and had a really quick…
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Staycation Ends
Today started out fine, but man it snowballed through. Thankfully it ended okay, but going through the hump of the middle of the day was really not easy. We almost couldn’t find a way to get out of the airport, the areas were all boarded up to direct the human traffic flow. But it meant…
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Busy, good, fulfilling rest
There’s a lot to say, but not enough time to right now, because we’re going to watch another movie. More updates tomorrow, but in other news, I hope everyone buys the dip – regarding the ETH and other things crashing lol.
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Now It’s a Holiday! (Taking leave from work amidst a pandemic)
When taking a break from work, especially in this COVID situation, it always feels as if you’re not really off from work, or it feels as if there’s no point being away from work. But I deeply disagree with that, because there’s too much of a clash, from too many things. The compartmentalized part of…
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New Keyboard Test Post
I should have a standard set of things I write for a test post for a new keyboard. Or maybe I should just make things up as I go along. Currently writing on this: Prime E – a 40% Alice. I’m trying to get used to the typing, and sometimes writing numbers and symbols really…
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Getting over blocks
I think today is one of those days, where I’m trying to vault over all the issues that I’ve been mentally dealing with. Over the weekend, I gathered a really long list of things that I needed to clear today. I cleared through about 80-90% of them, and tomorrow I will clear through the rest…
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A HOT day out
Today was so hot. I felt my skin burning under the sun, and the moment I hit the shade, it really felt so cool. The only time I’ve felt sun this hot and scorching was when I was in Australia. It was a dry heat too, so maybe that’s why I thought of Australia too.…
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Missed a day!
I think that’s really one of the troubles of a daily blog. I would miss some days that are too busy, and sometimes I just wouldn’t have the space to talk about something that happened. But I guess that could be a topic on its own: on yesterday’s busy day. One of the dinners we…
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The Daily: Artisans and another slump
There are some things that I do that and I wonder if they’re insignificant. For example, yesterday, I added an artisan on my keyboard, and I was wondering if I should talk about it. In some sense, artisan keycaps are something I do wonder about a lot. If someone bought a mechanical keyboard just for…
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Re calibrating; Raw Denim Jacket First Wash
Whenever I do these daily blog things, I end up going into two very different mindsets. Either it becomes this huge philosophical piece, or I get into my emotions and end up becoming very frustrated at a range of things. Then I question if I could maintain this blog in the first place but maybe…
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The End of the World
There are some things that I’ve thought often about. One of those things is really the end of the world. It’s not the cliche, it’s more of the reality of it. The thought that perhaps tomorrow we would realize the farce we live in. The pointlessness of the money we try to earn. The silly…
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Gratefulness
I really feel handicapped at times, when I want to make or progress in a creative direction. I feel this sense of a lack of time, a lack of resources, and just don’t have the right things in hand. Then I go on this spree and buy a million things to make sure that I…
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Anti Me
There are days that are good, and I feel at ease, But right now, my days are off by quite a tangent, and I am not me. There seems to be a different version, Something maybe broken, but probably, its just me being anti me. As much as I’ve been able to write some of…
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Directions
Where is this going? Is there a need for it to go a certain way? What are the benefits? Am I enjoying the present? These are some of the questions that I was asking myself at the start of the day, and surprisingly enough, I think I was forced to answer these questions for myself…
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Special and Sad
I’ll do a few more posts on how sad it is to be different from people, then later I’ll see what else I can make sense of in happier ways. Feeling like you’re always on the outside I would think that everyone actually deals with this, but sometimes being the person that speaks up and…
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The Pains of Peculiarity
In line with what I was saying yesterday, there’s some very specific things to think about for one to actually be different. Only the expressed unique being is unique. It doesn’t matter whatever the internal thoughts are, because many are thinking the same things. But it’s the one who lives them out that really makes…
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Unique
What makes me special? What makes anything different? Are we even different? Or is everything the same? From my youth, I understood that people always viewed being special as something important. At the same time, people also viewed people who didn’t fit in as weird. Special and weird were sometimes correlated, but self perceptions were…
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TLDR; I’m sad
I think I’m personally in a dark phase at the moment. I feel as if there are many things inside my mind that I am troubled by, and I have to be careful how I express it. I have disagreements with how the world is working around me, and with my perceptions of what value…
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How much does one diversify? I honestly think that there’s a lot that I think about that I don’t really express too much. That’s really because I have so many thoughts on so many things. I think many people are like this too, and sometimes, we dismiss thoughts that might not match our character. But…
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Planned Processes
So here’s my balance to yesterday’s creative meanderings: There’s definitely a part of me that over plans everything. I think way too much over too many small things and I am always almost all over the place because of those thoughts. I’m either all over the place, or very prepared, because I’ve thought of the…
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Creative Late Night Posting
Man! Doing a daily post is really something I found difficult last time, and now, its still something I need to put some effort into to get it right. Almost missed today’s post and I had a lot of good thoughts that I wanted to place here but the day is almost over and I…
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Brick Walls
Today is starting to feel like an opposite of yesterday. Yesterday, there was a sense of lethargy to get things going, but today it feels like there are many things waiting to get started, except that I keep running into walls. A text updating me about something I had planned, a random person shouting below…
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Momentum
What do you do on the days when you don’t feel like doing any work? It’s not that we’ve been lazy (yes, I dragged you into this), but maybe we’ve just done enough. There’s no more need to do any more. The cool weather, with a nice touch of sun to light up the home,…
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Time vs Money
I awoke earlier than expected today, which led me to think, why not? And I decided to go for a morning run at 630, instead of rushing it at 730. This gave me a whole hour ahead, and I’ve already cleared through some of my morning routine before my regular waking hours. It might mean…
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Process and Productivity
Definitely made good progress from yesterday to today! I utilized as many productivity processes that I could think of and here are the ones that I settled with. Notion Template I use a year – month – week – day Notion template. I was trying really hard to find it, but the template gallery has…
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2022: It begins
It’s been some time since updating here. I had the weekly review just before the absence, and I think I was really struggling to keep it going somehow. It was great when I was doing the daily blog, and when I just missed it, it just started to slip away. There’s many things I’ve learnt…
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New Routines
Making a new routine is legit tough work. The night before, I wrote out this really long line by line time table of the things I needed to go through, and man, it really was quite detailed. But I think after the first part of the day, I couldn’t really keep to it. I’ll do…
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Keyboard Post: Marshmallow Switches
Straight up one of my favourite switches I’ve ever bought, and one of my favourite switches that I can go to at almost any day and find myself really happy with whatever I’m typing with. It’s a switch that gets a great sound from it, and paired with any board, no matter how stiff or…
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Denim
I’ve been in a seriously hardcore denim phase for the past few weeks. I think it started from the denim jacket that came during my birthday, and since then I’ve been wearing my raws like almost every day. Its pretty intense. Here’s a quick breakdown of what I have, and what I am enjoying. Momotaro…
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One Day
Maybe one day, there will be no such thing as hunger on the earth. Maybe one day, where there is only great keyboards to use. One day, the weather would be great, cooling enough and yet not too hot. One day, and donuts won’t add to your calories. Maybe someday, but not today. Days like…
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Aims and Purposes
Whenever I have a meeting, or start a discussion of some sort, there’s always that question of what the point of the meeting is. Or maybe what do we hope to get out of it, after the meeting. After some time, one of the most ironic things that I’ve realised, is that the meetings with…
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Personal Pressure
Talk about worse things in the world to happen. Just as I was starting to write this post, I spilled all my freshly made ice coffee all over me. If there’s any clearer a sign for being under personal pressure, I think it would have a director yelling “Action!”, as the coffee was about to…
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Coffee on Hot Days
Why do I do these things to myself? I just wrote a (fake) 10 things to do to survive hot Singapore, and yet the next morning when I wake up I make a hot cup of coffee. The amount of sweat that I keep giving out is intense, and I really just can’t deal with…
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Top 10 Tips on How to Survive Hot Weather in Singapore
1. Decide if you want to deal with it or not. (You could just complain about it and not do anything, that’s a real thing) 2. Constantly refresh weather forecast apps, in hope of “rain”. Hope is extremely refreshing 3. Stay in the shade as much as you can. Even the shadow of a traffic…
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Thresholds & Credibility
These are the two learning points today. What are the limits and thresholds to what I am willing to go through as a human being, and the other is the credibility of myself as a human being. On Thresholds After at certain point of going through some sort of difficult encounter, I need to ask…
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Off Day Post Day
Still writing without my pinky. Honestly it’s really not that easy, because I do use my left pinky to hit a lot of the letters. I’m trying to make up for it by using my right pinky to type more instead. Today is a pretty good day to try different things. Clarice and I have…
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The Littlest One
I had no idea how much I really needed my pinky for, until yesterday and today, when I’ve sliced it. Strangely enough, I was watching a video from Reddit, where a guy makes a whole new hand for himself, after the insurance companies deemed that it was not essential for him to have fingers. Anyway,…
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Fear of Blood
I found out today that I have a fear of blood. This is not something that I knew about before. Strangely enough, I sense fear when I see bullets or needles. But never before for blood, or at least not to my knowledge. So what happened today was that I had sliced my finger at…
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False Sense of Urgency
Sometimes there’s this weird lie I tell myself: “You are very busy this week.” I’m actually not really that busy, but with a weird scale of things to do, it does feel that way. By weird scale of things to do, I mean tasks that are not clearly time defined, and might spill over into…
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A little earlier!
I have some time literally set aside right now, to get things sorted out a bit. It’s great, that I can write, and that I have a good half hour or so, just to start things going. But it doesn’t really mean that I can type endlessly for a straight half hour. I usually take…
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ALMOST
missed today. I had carried out this huge back of things again, but unfortunately, I actually did not have time to type much today. It was a super hot day, and the heat made my head hurt. Topping it off with little sleep last night. Good night, World. A longer post awaits you tomorrow.
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4
There are too many times when I take out a huge bag of stuff, thinking that I would use all of it. I’ve got an iPad, one keyboard, two diaries, a denim jacket, two types of earphones, my pencil cases, a sketchbook. You’d think I’ll be out for the day, but I’ve just got two…
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Time adjustments
I’ve been writing these in the afternoon or evenings, and it feels a bit weird. I do prefer writing these blog posts in the mornings, it really feels good to have some thoughts like these out nicely in the morning. It also feels better to know that I’ve cleared some daily to-do’s that I personally…
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Success
I think if I define my blog into different areas, and start to build specifically on some topics, it’ll become one of those really typical self help blogs that I honestly don’t always agree with. But I can’t help myself, I really do think about these topics, and they do mean a lot to me.…
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A Short Story about Mosquitos
A small mosquito flew around the room. It sensed the heat of a human being, and flew around, and landed on the person. Phew, the person didn’t feel the needle piercing through his skin. The mosquito got a bit of a blood snack, and with a slightly bloated belly, flew towards a ledge within the…
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Today’s almost done…
And I almost didn’t post! It’s been a whirlwind of a day today. I really feel it. I’m writing in bed, because I decided to bring the iPad in bed, and just writing away on the HHKB because I miss typing on this thing. Every now and then I forget where my fingers are supposed…
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Old Stuff Part 2
Talking about things that age well, keyboards fall into this range too. Most keyboards get smoother over time, as you use them more and more. But some others, like the one I am typing on right now, is just really old, and some of the keys don’t register the same as the others. Like the…
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Intentionally Old
A lot of the hobbies I have are hobbies that get better with age. The items might be new, but a lot of them would work better when worn in, when weathered out and tested over time and time. One of these things is the somewhat silly addiction to Raw Denim. I really enjoy raw…
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A Grocery Bag with Wheels
It sounds like a great idea. There’s thermal insulation, and theres a drawstring at the top, and then with all of that, you still have wheels that helps to roll up step by step. But the biggest question is where are you going to keep it? Or how? It’s big, and it doesn’t fold up,…
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Waves of Life
There’s times when I’m really quite disciplined to get things done consistently through the day or week. And there are times when I just don’t feel like doing anything for another range of time. I think I mask this quite well by being competent at most things, but otherwise, it’s actually really quite a bummer.…
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Which comes first? The Chicken, or the Egg?
Or in my case, does the keycaps come first, or is it the keyboard? I’m legit stuck on which keycaps I should get, and honestly I wish there were other ways around it. I don’t want to get any more keyboards because I’ve already got a ton. But some of the keycap options are just…
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Blast from the Past
If you didn’t realise by now, there’s actually tweaked paragraph spacing between the paragraphs in this site’s reading. It’s because I was going through it the other day, and I saw how close everything was and I really didn’t like it. It was too tight, and I know too much about typography to leave it…
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Be Myself
How does one approach personal growth and understanding? One of the hardest things that any artist actually has to do is finding their own style and their own feel. The artists have to deal with this as part of their occupational stand, they have to express themselves in the most personal way possible. But it’s…
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Old T Shirt: Ctrl + Z
This one is one of the oldest T-Shirts I have that is still in good state. It was one of the first few that I had gotten in that whole Threadless era of T-shirts. There was a shop I used to visit at Far East Plaza that sold other Threadless Tees, but by the time…
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Keep trying
I’ve been following this app called Stoic, because my daily disciplines have been out of sync. This probably sounds really weird, considering I write a post up every day. But this post is the only thing that I’ve really been doing consistently. Prior to this, I was on a Notion template, to try and get…
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Another Hot Day
There are days like today, where I just sit there and feel the heat pour over me. I just showered to get myself going, and to just feel a bit more fresh. But I just feel damp after. It just feels like the sun is covering me with a thick hot wet blanket, sucking away…
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Day to Day
I had really bad sleep again last night. I was rudely awakened by the clock in the hall falling down and basically breaking into a few parts. It crashed, and I jolted awake, and basically looked at the mess that laid outside. Then I decided to just leave it and go back to sleep. But…
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Hot Day
Sun shines bright on me No words, just light; no control Eternal summer. Nice to form a haiku every now and then, I wonder if these would be appreciated. In other news, my neighbours next door have gotten COVID. A little shocked and surprised to say the least. I keep checking to see if I’ve…
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A Regular Disclaimer
Just in case! I thought it would be good to put some general guidelines and disclaimers to what I write about here. All of these posts are my own. They’re my thoughts, they’re a blog I mean. I feel like sometimes we forget what a blog or what a vlog is. It’s not meant to…
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Bubble Boys
I shall coin a new term, and I’m not going to research it right now. I thought just to put my idea out here straight away, and just to define what I think, and later I might read an article or two or three about what I’m talking about here. Bubble Boys Definition: Men, of…
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Old Tees: 99 Red Luftballoons
Haruki Murakami did a long running column on Popeye Magazine, where he shared his stories behind his different t-shirts that he had. I thought I could do something similar, and maybe just to give myself a good time to say good bye to some of my things from my youth. I had gotten this T-shirt…
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Old Habits…
I always end up buying things, or I end up doing things in a certain way that I might not necessarily think is the most effective or efficient. That doesn’t mean that they’re bad, but the mind or the body reverts to something that they’re used to. I don’t think it’s always a fair statement…
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Things Money Can’t Buy
It’s always a good reminder to have things in life that money can’t buy. Like family, friends, happiness or joy. Those are things worth having. Good memories, great dinners. Things that you couldn’t peg to a dollar value, and you can’t get immediately either. The dream or the movie family might sound unreal, but also…
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1989
It’s my birthday, and it’s been 32 years since. There’s many ways to think about it, but one of the things I’m really most thankful for today and this time is really how much I’ve been seeing myself grow in the past few years. It’s been extremely reflective this past two years, and I’ve been…
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Learning Points
I remembered reading once or twice from friends that they would chance upon the blog every now and then, and then I thought to myself, maybe there should be more intentional learning points. I didn’t really work on that, until yesterday, I thought about it again. So here’s a learning point: Never skip a step…
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The Life I Choose to Live
I’m in constant dilemma in my life. I’m really enjoy watching videos about single bag trips, or a guy living out of a bag for years, or about minimalism and being able to live with nothing or very little things. But at the same time, I really love having the things that I have, and…
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GooD SleeP
The past week has been quite bad on my sleep for some reason. The weeks before I had pretty tough time trying to stay asleep; I would wake up to go pee in the middle of the night and just not be able to get back asleep. Now I can sleep pretty easy, but I…
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Sunday Funday / Simple Sunday
Having a good meal on Sunday is something I really enjoy. I think I’ve had them growing up, and its become somewhat of a reminder of what Sundays are for me. When I was younger, it was Spaghetti’s at Tanglin Mall that really made the day for me. It was a family lunch, and I…
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Making this work
So the past week I’ve had really long posts. It’s actually really fun to type because I’m typing on keyboards that I really like. But that’s not always the point. Or maybe it shouldn’t be. Like maybe I should be writing about something because it needs to make a strong point, or it needs to…
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The Comfort of Strangers
Yesterday I had two occasions where I saw myself comforting strangers in two extremely different circumstances. The Man A man boarded the train that I was on, and stood near the doors, leaning on the side. When he boarded, there was a whiff of alcohol that came in with him, and after some time, it…
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The False Impression of Choice
Sometimes, it really doesn’t make sense if we think about the idea of choice. Do we really have it? Do you really have a choice to make the decisions that you do make? Or more precisely, is there really a choice? For example, having options to choose between what foods to eat at a food…
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One thought away
Maybe its yesterday’s long post on Steve Jobs that is making me think this, but I am currently thinking: Some of the world’s best ideas are just one thought away. It’s not that far. It’s just another step and we have to hit that step somehow. Daily blogging mixed in with typing on a RealForce…
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The Apple Generation
Steve Jobs who designed Apple for the current generation Reviewing the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. Another draft post from 2017. I honestly had loaded up quite a few draft posts then, thinking that I was going to be blogging often and all that. If I’m right, it was because I had come back from…
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Childish thoughts
It was good sleep for both Clarice and myself last night. We sang ourselves to sleep on a whole range of songs, and now we’re up and awake on a bright hot Sunday afternoon, listening to the songs that we were singing to last night. It’s fun to just not have to care about anyone…
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The beauty that the Artists draws from
How do you get inspiration, and how does this propel you to do better work? — — — Wow so I wrote this post in 2017, July. I can’t remember what exactly I was aiming for, but this gist is something that I find so hard even now to think about. I mean like, how…
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Simple Silly Stuff
Time to get somewhat technical on all of you: I’ve just managed to switch my site to a “https://” page. Every single month, I try to tweak the different parts of my site, to keep it lighter, to make sure that I have enough space for all my posts and whatever else. And then to…
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Kanye’s Donda
Let’s not talk about the audio, or how it sounds. Because even though I love Kanye, musically this album wasn’t anything ground breaking. But the album stands for a few things. It definitely stands as a voice for those who need help, from their ethnic backgrounds and upbringing. It also stands for his remembrance for…
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When is now?
I keep forgetting where I am on these daily updates. I forget what week I’m on, what day it is, and the list goes on. There are days when I forget when I’ve eaten, and when I’ve exercised. I forget when I’ve replied people, the meetings and other things that I’ve scheduled together. Maybe it’s…
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Sudden Rain
There’s that time when all is calm, and then it rains suddenly. It’s the worst feeling in the world because you didn’t plan for it, and it gets you so badly soaked. And then after a few minutes, the rain lightens up, and you’re there, still soaked, but now in a humid mess of weather.…
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Late Night, Last Minute
I’ve been wanting to sit down all day. More than that, I’ve been wanting to type on this particular keyboard that I’m currently typing one for the whole day too. It’s a big keyboard, a full sized one, with the number pad and all that. I’ve not typed on any of these for the longest…
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Daily Blogging is tough
I have to keep thinking about what to say, and its just like on and on and on. LOL. I have a lot of things to talk about, but not everything is “blog worthy” I guess. And to make a post, I shall complain about blog-worthiness. It feels like there needs to be a point…
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How Time Flies
It doesn’t really fly, but it moves so quickly and it’s as if I’m sitting in a time machine every day. It’s moving at the pace of one second a second, but every moment just moving on and on as we drift through space on this planet. Nostalgia and regret; the two biggest enemies on…
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The Relaxed Position
Today was a day that I really wanted to try something new: I wanted to try to be as relaxed as I possibly could. I wanted to just be a teenager again, and watch TV shows as I ate leftovers from the fridge. I wanted to just chill and take naps where I felt like…
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Finding a Personal Space
I think it’s always something that I struggle with. While I might be friendly, sometimes I find it hard to share what is really on my mind. I think I lean towards different people’s preferences a lot of the time. Today we had a time of reflection, as part of work. During that time, I…
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Today’s New Attempt: Yahoo Auctions Japan
I tried to use Yahoo Auctions Japan for the very first time today. It was a mad rush to try and bid for a crappy RealForce board. I wanted to harvest it for the keycaps and place them into a secondhand RealForce board that I have already (that doesn’t have keycaps). I’ve never tried this…
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Mango’s on an Apple Tree
There’s always this saying that you can’t expect an apple tree to grow mangos, and in that same way, we shouldn’t not expect something unnatural out of someone. As much as we think that, we also keep asking people to get out of their comfort zones. Isn’t that similar, or at least asking an apple…
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The daily grind
Apparently it was something to note that I had written a blog post every day for three days in a row. WordPress gave me a little achievement award that I had done that. And I think that the three day streak is gone now, but at least I have something in mind that I can…
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Typing in Bed
This sounds absolutely ludicrous, but after years, I am finally typing in bed again. It’s a thing because when I was much younger, say about 17, 18 years old, I used to love typing in bed, and just spilling my thoughts out. I would write an email newsletter to a range of friends and acquaintances.…
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The Rush to Wait
Christmas rushing is always a thing for the year end. It’s so exciting running around shops, hunting for the best discounts that match your friend or family the best. I lose myself at the shelf of red tags stating a large cut from the original price, picking and repicking the items that I was looking…
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Creative Dilemmas
24 hours in a day is too little. Yes, wildly known fact. But the hardest part I find is that my passion level in each interest grows or wanes everyday. For example, last week I really wanted to run. And I still kinda do. But today, I awoke and hey, there’s time for a run…
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A daily –
Something. Anything. After the daily challenges, of lettering and of sketching/inking, I’m feeling the laziness hit me. It’s like when I stopped running, I could feel myself still able to do a 12k run easy, but the physical toll after would be some effort recovering. I can draw okay, I just really need to focus.…