End Stretch of 2020

We are now on the end stretch of 2020.

This post will not be a full retrospective---I have a tendency to do that nearer the start of the next year as part of the usual statistics information on writing.

Very many things have gone in and out of my head, as well as my heart. Losses are aplenty, but gains are not too few either. Overall, it is hard to say if there is an overall gain or an overall loss.

But does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Do I really need to keep a solid accounting of the so-called gains and losses on my own? I don't think so.

I think we'll leave the retrospective till when it is supposed to be out, and just switch gears to things that are less depressing.

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I have started on the Modesty Blaise comic series. I was introduced to this from a throwaway line from ashens, a long time Youtuber whose claim to fame is the sardonic humour displayed from reviewing various things on his infamous brown couch. The art style is on the realistic side, and follows the 3-panel format for each week. Naturally, the series had completed by now, but the serialised strips have been gathered into their own stories, and so the reading was relatively rapid.

It averages about 30 or so strips 30 or so ``pages'' or about 120 strips of 3 panels per story, so about 100-ish panels per story arc, if the first 30 or so of the 99 stories are of any indication.

I like Modesty Blaise. It reminded me of the old adventure type comics like Tarzan, instead of the more common ``a gag a week'' type comics that are out there. The stories are old school, the art work is great given that it was monochrome, and it definitely entertains. I think there were a couple of movies made, but they were flops---I don't think that I am going to watch them though. Something about how the comic format does not quite translate well into the ``standard'' format of a 100-minute film; to pull it off successfully will either require a long enough caper (which definitely involves new writing), or some kind of better way of stringing a few story arcs together, which is hard because they often had one or two months of time interspersed among them implicitly, which could probably affect the pacing of the film.

All in all, still a cool comic, and I hope that I can finish it all before 2020 comes to an end. It is probably one of the few good things that came out of this dumpster fire of a year.

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I have recently read David Copperfield in the original as written by Charles Dickens, and I must say that it was definitely more impactful than the heavily abridged version that I had read some twenty plus summers ago. That abridged version was part of a series of classics that had a small squarish shape in it. It had the rough story line for sure, but what was missing was a lot of the atmosphere and inner dialogue in the original that made it the masterpiece it was.

There were times in the book where it had made me weep. I am unsure if it is because of the circumstance [of this year in general], or that the writing was just that good---I will leave it to the reader of this blog post to decide for themselves.

Bildungsroman---it seems like I cannot escape this genre. I don't feel bad about it, but am just merely making an observation.

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Not so recently, I had finally read two comics from a series that I had been looking for for years ever since I read the first one---it was a cross-over comic of Doraemon and Sun Wukong. The title of the first was 机器猫小叮当西游记（上）：《大战红孩儿》, and it was later on that I learnt that the second title was 机器猫小叮当西游记（下）：《女儿国之游》. It was by sheer happenstance that I came across these two titles---a friend was doing his spring cleaning and talking about his Doraemon comic collection when I was lamenting about not knowing how the story went after reading the first title of this 2-part series, when he promptly snapped a picture of both books and asked me if these were what I was looking for. Amazed, I replied in the affirmative and borrowed them both from him.

The stories of the first book was still as I had remembered them (that's good---it shows that I didn't hallucinate it), but I was a little disappointed with the stories of the second book. First of all, it ended on a cliff-hanger, since there was no resolution in anyway---there was no indication that the group successfully picked up the Tripitaka scriptures, nor was there any indication that 大雄 (Noby in official media, but I'm used to calling him by the Chinese name) nor Doraemon ever quit their journey to the west and head back to their own timeline/world. Secondly, when I was trying to find the provenance of the story to update my read list, I kept running into problems---none of the official lists and compendia were listing any of these two titles. It was infuriating.

I was starting to suspect that while the books are real (I can slam my head into them and give myself a concussion), they could have been some form of bootlegged fan fiction piece, which would explain the two things that I was pointing out. The third thing was that the entire crew of doraemon was not present in the story---only the three boys were there, despite having 宜靜 (靜香, Shizuka, or Sue) on the cover.

Anyway, I liked the cross-over a lot, but felt a little disappointed at the cliff-hanger. I cannot even say that it was tainted by nostalgia, but more like being affected by expectations.

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I suppose that's all I have to today's entry. And with that, I end at around 1000 words. Till the next one.

Life is Strange

Life is strange.

I began this year with great hopes on a lot of things. I was at a job that I didn't hate, knowing that if I put in the time and effort to help the company to grind through the deliverables, I would be allowed to get into my element to do what I was hired to do. I was in love with a wonderful woman, and we were slowly making our way towards a life together as man and wife. My community Chinese Orchestra is going on thirty years strong, and we're about to go for our anniversary performance this year in November. The future, as they say in a clichéd way, was bright.

Then tragedy in the form of COVID-19 struck.

The grind at my job got worse in many different ways, the woman I was in love with decided finally that there was no future with me since our paths in life were clearly diverging, and rehearsals for my Chinese Orchestra are basically stopped.

What a fuck up.

There is some light amid the darkness, like always. I found Jesus, and had accepted him as my personal saviour. I am leaving my job, figuring out that it was not worth the sacrifices that I was putting in. Not the kind of redemption arc that I was looking for, but at this point, I would take almost anything that isn't a net negative.

In retrospect, it seems like some kind of upheaval happens every twelve years or so in my life. Supernatural interference or coincidence, I leave you to decide. But twelve years is roughly the breakpoint for each decade of life, give or take some fudge factors.

As I near the end of my thirty-sixth year of existence, I have started to ask myself, what was it I wanted, and who am I.

No matter how I wanted to swing it, there is no denying that I am middle-aged at this point. Without screwing up too much, I'll probably live till at least seventy, after which it is up to how much money I have. My parents aren't likely to live beyond twenty years, so I have that going for me too.

What was it I wanted, and who am I?

Some have said that I have accomplished a lot. Truly, what is it I have accomplished? Gotten a Masters in Computer Science? Please, it was course-based, and hardly worth mentioning considering that I don't think I learnt more than what I had already known---it was mostly a paper gathering exercise to satisfy those who command capital, just like every other activity those of us who can only trade our labour (mental or menial) for some capital to re-new ourselves and continue to pay the upkeep cost of living in modern society.

I want to say, all I want now is just to be with the Lord, because there really isn't anything meaningful left to do in this life, but that would be a sin. Theologically, my life has been ransomed by Jesus through the cross, and so I am not allowed to just die like this without doing anything to bring glory to the name of God. Pragmatically, there is perhaps some use for me and my so-called qualities---it is just a case of finding the right fit. Despite all efforts to be as knowledgeable as I can be, the world in infocomm tech is always run by greedy capitalists---it is never enough. Oh you know machine learning? That's cool, but ah, you don't have certification in cloud stuff, so you are useless. Oh you can program in Java? That's cool, but really we are looking for someone in NodeJS. Oh you know algorithms? That's cool, but can you also do UI/UX design? No? Oh too bad.

What the holy hell is that supposed to mean? Is all that I have learnt throughout my twenty years of experience in computer science reduced to only whether I can follow the trends of the last five years?

I'm just... tired.

Tired of all this bullshit from the world of infocomm tech.

It is never enough.

You can have deep knowledge of something that people need, but they will always find some way of demeaning you by comparing you against what you don't have.

Oh, you are trained in artificial intelligence concepts? Cool cool... but ah, it seems you are not PMI certified. Yes yes I know our job description didn't put that in, but you know, it's understood, right? So many coders out there (by the way, did you know that we need more coders? hint hint wink wink), but we really need coders who can do UI/UX, database design, embedded system, mobile apps, cloud service management, customer management, and agile, because we want to have an end-to-end product in three months.

It is never enough.

Never mind that I have programmed in more than twenty different types of languages by syntax, semantics, and paradigms. Never mind that I can pick up the latest trending framework within a month. Never mind that I don't mind working hard in the beginning to get up to speed without any form of training just to help move things along so that I can finally do what I was hired to do. As long as I don't fit the ``code monkey'' stereotype, I don't count.

Only in the world of infocomm tech that one is expected to take courses and update one's knowledge on one's own dime and time. Want to get certified in cloud? Oh, please go take the AWS courses on your own time---you must take leave to go for seminars and take your exams. By the way, you are expected to get the certification for your job---if you don't get it by the end of your probation, well, we may need to re-evaluate your fit. Oh dear, you took AWS? Apparently we are going to use Azure now, so your certification isn't enough any more---please be a certified Azure engineer so that you can work with us.

It is never enough.

Infocomm tech needs better managers, especially with respect to software and things relating to software. Just because the artefact created cannot literally hurt one physically when mashed into one's head doesn't make it any easier---it actually makes things harder. Because unlike hardware, software does not have innate physics to control what can or cannot be done. The design and building of software requires a lot of thought to ensure that the physics (i.e. world-level constraints that restrict what can be done the way the laws of regular physics limit energies and power in the real world) is present and correct. If I build a circuit board with certain parameters, I know full well that if I exceed those parameters, there is a high chance I will break the circuit completely, and it will fail. But if I do that to software with incomplete physics, the software will still go on its merry way, leading to a breakage in some obscure future that no one can easily predict.

Agile as a concept is good---it is better to reach clearly defined checkpoints, testing and failing bad concepts early, and to keep progressing. Agile as some prescribed ritual is terrible. Agile as some prescribed ritual with cover-your-ass documentation requirements that come with a normal waterfall model is downright sacrilegious.

But what was it I wanted, and who am I?

I don't know fully right now. And that's why I need to take a break and re-think things. Many things, actually.

God doesn't draw one out of something, but draws one into something. I have a vague sense of what it is, but it will take time for the pieces to fall into place to provide a good direction for me to follow.

After all, what turns out in the end isn't of my will, but His. I have the power of choice, but in the grand scheme of things, He is still in control.

And when He tells me it is time to go, I cannot disobey. Amen.

T'is December

It's a Sunday. The first Sunday of the month of December.

What do I feel? I would want to say, I feel almost nothing.

It's just another day now, considering that I am no longer in a relationship with another person. I spend time nerding out, reading mostly, and then doing some other things that are more geeky/nerdy in nature.

Like playing my 笛子, or flute, or even the 埙, which was a gift to me from HY about a year and change ago, with the request that I record myself playing a piece for her.

I am still working on that. I think I should have something ready before 2021 swings by, and if I were late, it would not extend to beyond January, when I have a couple of leave days around my birthday to do things that I enjoy doing, away from work-related things.

The past few weekends were filled with the meeting up of various people. This weekend, it's a quite a quiet one. Just sitting at home, resting as much as it is possible given all the stresses that are upon me, self-inflicted or otherwise.

NaNoWriMo had come and gone, and I am back to what I would call the new usual.

It was as though I had never been involved in a significant relationship with someone for five years.

It is actually pretty scary how those five years just felt like a glitch in the matrix that seemed to have been rectified the moment the circuit breaker came about.

Is this really the fate of one who claims to be ``a man with hardly a past''?

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Life isn't so bad. I still have a job; in this time and age, I suppose that is the single most important thing. Job satisfaction, personal mental/physical health and the like are definitely secondary to just being able to pay the bills. And boy are there many bills to pay these days.

Bitterness isn't a good thing to feel. So I need to learn to not feel that way. It can be hard at times, but it is important to remember that the Lord is with me, and that I can entrust Him with my fears, and He will deliver me from them, somehow.

Hey, even if it means I get called back to be with the Lord, so be it.

As I am nearing my next integer year of existence, and being in this state where I am no longer in a serious relationship, I have been starting to question myself more and more seriously again about whether I am better off alone, corporally.

Maybe being alone, at least for now, will give me a chance to dream once again. I seem to have lost that ability to dream for quite a while, and that was before I was involved in that last serious relationship, so let's be honest and not play the blame game here.

But what is there to dream about? The world is really messed up... are there really any dreams left that are worth pursuing?

...or is serving the Lord totally and absolutely, eschewing all other forms of human institutions the only way forward?

These definitely require quite a bit of meditation and praying to ``get right''.

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In other news, I have slowly reduced the amount of liquor that I have in my stash. The latest one to be consumed completely is the Bacardi 151 that I had purchased back in December 2014. That was when I decided to make the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which included Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, Jameson, and Bacardi 151. I can no longer make that drink because I have finished up all the liquor that go into it.

These days I just drink beer about once a month after a particularly long day of work with too many meetings at the bar near my office, Georges @ TS. Of course, I don't just drink beer... I also eat some (heh, more like too much) food, and do a lot of reading. It's just like when I would occasionally head down to Brotzeit @ VivoCity back in the day just to drink beer and read, except it is much closer. Georges @ TS being a small [franchise] bar meant that eventually the staff there knew me better, and there was always something to talk about every now and then as I take breaks between the reading.

Alcohol consumption is tricky, considering that I need to balance the amount of liver damage that I am willing to sustain, considering that Paracetamol is still the premier way of controlling tension headaches, but that drug does a real number on the liver, as does alcohol. Those two cannot mix, and I think that I thread a very fine line of permanent damage with the twenty-four-hour spacing that I set up.

But what's there to do? It's not like I can keep inviting friends out to chat and pass the time---I only have that many friends, and meeting them super often will only wear out my welcome.

Well, hello again books, my old companions from the dark dark times of secondary school. It seems like it's you and I all over again, almost as though nothing has changed in the twenty years in between.

Okay, when I start getting all maudlin with no other content is a sign that I have written enough for now. So, till the next update then.

I ATEN'T DED YET

About a month of silence. A little worrying in some ways, given the recent trend of posts and the subject matter in them.

But I have a valid excuse: honest! I was working on my NaNoWriMo 2020 entry. And it had been a rather weird month. For one, my usual writing time was no longer that of the lunch hour, but at stupid o'clock in the morning before work (it's more like 0630hrs to 0745hrs, so not really stupid o'clock). For two, I have not been having enough sleep for several weeks now, often turning in at around midnight, and waking up nearer 0530hrs.

Why? I don't know. I suspect dis-stress. I only claim that conclusion because I would often be nursing a tension headache from around 0900hrs till whenever I stopped work at the end of the day. I was really wired, and I am not referring to the amount of coffee that I was drinking. Before, I had been downing like four or five mugs of that thing before noon, but I had since cut it back down till like two or three at the most.

No change---the headaches still came. I've just learnt to live with it. I don't think any amount of sick leave or medication will help me deal with it. There were some fundamental things that needed to be addressed, and as long as they weren't going to be addressed, I would continue to have these headaches.

Anyway, back to waking up at stupid o'clock in the morning. One moment I would be dreaming, and the next moment, my brain would be running at full steam, jerking me wide awake. I dragged myself up only through the sheer power of will and prayer, praying to God and thanking Him that he had allowed me to live another day (I wasn't dead yet), and praying that He would bless me with wisdom to get through the day.

He hasn't disappointed me so far, and I have no reason to believe that He would disappoint me ever.

And at the end of the day, I just give a little prayer to God, thanking Him for the day that had gone, and asked Him to grant me good rest so that perhaps I would awake again the next day with renewed vigour to do what I do to bring glory to His name.

But all that aside, this year's NaNoWriMo entry is named The Lost Year, and is a real-life inspired fictionalised re-telling of all the nonsense that had gone on in my life for this year. In a meta sort of way, I had talked about it in the novel itself. Allow me to bring it up here to avoid having to re-think how to present it:

I had a rough plan of the story structure for this year's entry for NaNoWriMo---I had observed that the whole year had basically been shot down to hell for whatever reason, and that just trying to keep track of what had been happening in real life was already more dramatic than any form of fiction that I could come up with; this year was just that bad. There was of course the obvious relationship status change on my end, and my discovery and acceptance of Jesus Christ as my personal saviour, but there were also other bad things that had been happening, like the wild fires in Australia, the droughts in Africa, the overly severe hurricane season within the month, and of course, the once in a lifetime experience of living through a true blue pandemic during the era of technological supremacy guided by the most mal-organised of the natural world hegemon, the United States of America. With that in mind, the structure for this year's novel entry was straightforward---set up twelve months' worth of stories and events into individual chapters, and divide out the fifty thousand evenly among them, leading to roughly forty one hundred and sixty seven or so words per chapter. Given my usual rate of about two thousand words per hour, and limiting myself to an hour of writing a day (given my rather punishing work schedule for now), the numbers worked out to about twenty four days total time of writing, well within the range of the duration provided.

That of course was the basic plan. And so for the twenty or so days, I would diligently put in my two thousand or so words per day, completing one chapter roughly every couple of days. The more I wrote, the more amused I was seeing that I could actually find enough odd or bad events that had occurred to fill up the spaces---for what it was worth though, since it was fiction I took the liberty to alter the source event information in ways that I felt was more conducive to story telling, shifting time periods a little, changing the names of the guilty and innocent, and using inspired events to create fictional ones. Calling this novel ``The Lost Year'' was starting to prove prophetic---it was the lost year for me and world because it was the year where almost all of our plans were rudely stopped and forced to be reconsidered anew, as though there was no progress whatsover throughout the year. In fact, in some ways, it could even be thought of as the world undergoing a regression instead of a progression instead.

It was definitely a sobering thought.

And that was how this year's entry was completed.

Consider it a catharsis for myself as a new chapter begins once again.

Oh, the not-so-new website is still as bad as before, but I suppose we just need to make do with what we are given---it is not as though they are going to fix it anyway, considering that it has been a year already, and nothing has changed.

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In other news, I'm back to doing a lot of reading once more. Part of the reason is to re-saturate my brain with knowledge as I keep it soaked deep with the wisdom from the Bible, and the other part of the reason is to fill in the apparent copious amount of free time that come about from not having another person whom I need to spend time with, considering that I am single now. It's funny how quickly I got over things this time round, not ``got over'' in the sense that I am ready to date again, but ``got over'' in the sense that I was not drowning myself in alcohol or any of that sort of nonsense the last time something serious was seriously marred that way.

I am either getting more jaded, or just have found better coping mechanisms. It is hard to tell.

Knowing that God is there and is with me helps keep the darkest thoughts at bay, but there is still a sense of hollowness that is not easily filled in. It is not spiritual hollowness---that has been filled with the lovingkindness of Christ---but some kind of physical/interactive hollowness that drove me away from my original thoughts of slugging it out alone some fifteen years ago, and into the experimenting with being in intimate relationships with people. I suppose as one gets older, the concept of ``No man is an island'' will hit harder and harder until one of four things happen: I eventually settle it by having a spouse and starting my family (no matter what size); or I eventually settle it by having a robust community network of friends (regular or church family---it doesn't matter); or I eventually settle it by being overly engrossed in some kind of mission/vision that it did not matter to me any more; or I eventually settle it by being dead corporeally.

I still think that Ecclesiastes 3:1--8 is applicable. God will guide the way when I choose to listen to Him. I'm not as spiritually endowed the way some other believers are, but I believe that He knows the best way to get His message to me, and I have seen some of the ways that he is doing that. I just need to listen, and obey. So far nothing He has told me to do has gone against what is essentially my nature, and for that I am grateful, as it is a personal validation that God is indeed who He is.

Alright, that's all I want to write here for today. It's just a quick note to show that I'm not dead yet (thankfully perhaps). A semi-regular update will happen from now on, since there isn't a NaNoWriMo to absorb all the writing that I can do.

Till the next update then.

Busted Shoulder and Other Adventures

I seriously am not intending of making it a regular thing of writing an entry about once a week. But for now, it seems like it is going to be this way for a while.

I have a busted up right shoulder. It's basically a sprain on one of the anterior ligaments---it's going to take about six weeks for it to be fully recovered, assuming that I do the right thing and not aggravate it. This means that I can't do any of the usual morning exercises from now till roughly the end of NaNoWriMo. This is what happens when I use bad mechanics to move masses around (15kg on the first in an awkward ``up shrugged'' shoulder angle, 20kg ×2 for the water cooler refills). It makes typing on the laptop rather difficult, since the normal typing angle has my arms extended forwards.

I was given some strong NSAIDs in addition to a mild oral steroid dose to reduce the inflammation to reduce the pain and aggravation on the ligament through all the movements. It's definitely much better now, despite not being on any of the meds for the last two days or so. I just need to remember to not load up my arm with weights.

In other news, after more than a year, I can finally start cycling to and fro the office again. It had always been one of my wishes when I started work at the new place, but the time was never opportune---within a couple of weeks of first arriving and settling in, I was ``shipped off'' off-site to work on a project that was... problematic for six months or so, before the whole COVID-19 pandemic kicked in with us having to work from home due to the ``circuit breaker''. After the so-called Phase Two kicked in, I was told to return to work at the office, but my original assigned space was no longer mine to use, and ended up being a nomad, which made stowing away a foldable bicycle in the office a tough thing to do.

It was only recently that we had our office space sorted out that I could finally bring out my bicycle to cycle. And it has definitely helped my mood a lot. In place of the exercises that I did in the morning, I know replaced it with semi-cardio from the daily trip to and fro the office. I am amused that my legs could really take a beating---the round trip was about 8 miles, but every now and then I would throw in a 12-mile ``north east riverine loop'' run.

Because of one such move on Friday, I am pleased to announce that my Eddington Number for cycling is at E15.

I wondered if the cycling was something that was safe for my upper arms or not... so far it seems like that are no adverse side effects. I had obtained a better lifting handle for moving my bicycle about with my left (i.e. off) hand, and have been mindful in not using bad mechanics. The steering on my bicycle is very light, and thus there was little need to jerk my handle bars much.

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I mentioned how cycling was improving my mood. That is a fact. I think the rush from the physical activity was acting as an anti-depressant the way running would be done by me in the past when I was studying in the US to act as an anti-depressant. Already I feel significantly less affected by intrusive thoughts---when the body is adequately tired out through the physical activity, there just seems to be less energy left for the mind to come up with random, unnecessary, and downright bizarre ideation. It is also perhaps a side effect of just time and God doing their things in helping me to heal, which is a hilarious observation considering the massive amounts of changes that I am forced to seriously deal with in general.

But those are thoughts for a different medium, like something that is on paper. You know, like a paper journal.

I recently found out about ElectroBOOM, a cool Youtube dude who talks about electrical and electronics engineering in a way that is not unlike old school Mythbusters or even (haha) Brainiac. The content is really cool, the presentation is a good mix of funny accent, physical humour, and self-deprecative aphorisms all rolled into one. I really recommend giving his Youtube channel a watch to learn something. He does plug his sponsors in his videos, but they are often done in a tasteful way that makes it clear that it is a plug, while still maintaining some kind of continuity with respect to the content of the video that he was making.

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October is almost done, just another 12+ days more to go. And with that, the self-imposed hermitting is likely to end temporarily as we transit into the annual National Novel Writing Month of November. I am probably ready to meet up with people again when next month rolls around, but as always, it's all about the circumstances. It is not that I have everything figured out already---I don't---but that I suppose it is time to just reconnect with people who claimed to be my friends once again.

I have lost my best friend already, and I think that losing even more friends, best or otherwise, really isn't going to be good for my future mental health.

In some ways, I don't think that I have fully resolved the issues that are in my head. In many ways, I think I have just put them aside in the vault that used to be called ``MT's feelings'', the same place that all my feelings have resided in since before I turned twenty. I'm not sure why I opened up that vault when I was twenty-one, and right now, I'm not sure if I want to keep it open still. Only God will know what I ought to do with it, but for now, I'm just putting things away where they cannot harm me.

Jesus Christ is my personal saviour, and in many senses of the word, my life is no longer mine to dictate but His to control.

Maybe I am going to end up becoming even more insufferable. Initially, I was hard to tolerate because I was just so... cerebral about everything. Throw in now the born-again discovery of personal salvation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, would it just be the case that my destiny is to be one who will forever be apart from the rest of the world?

Is that... a good thing?

Doom Eternal and Dizi Research

The traditional witching hour has struck once again, and I feel compelled to fill in the void with a little bit of verbiage.

The Monday passed, I took a day of leave. Doesn't matter what the original plan was, but it evolved into a type of R&R for myself so that I don't get completely burnt out. What happened in the end was that I took the opportunity to run a few errands. Some of the errands included sending my bicycle off for servicing (the seat post was sliding a little too often for my taste), and purchasing replacement cup cushions for my over-the-ear headphones.

Those on their own aren't worthy of any major exposition. I just want to share that B-spokes offers damn good service. Very responsive, and very good workmanship. Maybe this is relevant to some of the readers of my blog.

I've also finished reading the Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd Edition) book by Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig. A good refresher in many ways, though the contents may be a bit dated at this point. But anything at this stage is better than just sitting there and vegetating away my training as I do work that is nearly orthogonal to what I have been trained in for about 40% of my life.

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In other less depressing news, I found out an interesting dizi fingering combination for the elusive low instrument B-C trill. In more traditional terms, when we are using 筒音作5̣, the 3-4 trill is notoriously non-existent. Most ways of treating it are to just play it as 3-4♯ instead, that is, by raising the left index finger and putting it down (assuming orthodox stance). Much of the dizi repertoire assumes this type of trill, based on the principle that trills are to be counted by alternation along the instrument hole design, as opposed to that of the scale used as in ye olde western music concept.

If we were to play 3-4 trill (or instrument B-C trill) normally, it would involve some complex acrobatics for the left hand, alternating between 6 and 54 (using the usual dizi hole numbering strategy). It's horrific.

The inspiration came when I was looking at the 4-5 trill (instrument C-D trill). It involved an alternation of 5421 and 54321, i.e. merely moving the right index finger. I messed with 542 and 5432, and heard a sound whose pitch was a tad sharper than instrument B. So I lowered it a smidgen by half-covering 1, and voila---I got a working instrument B-C trill just like that. This has the advantage of not having to flatten the instrument C pitch through lipping 5432. Works best for extended trills---if it is of a short enough duration, I suppose that alternating between 542 and 5432 is somewhat workable.

Naturally, I've reworked the tremolo fingering chart to reflect this finding.

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Work-wise, let's just say that things are getting more depressing in a different way. I'm not going to talk much more about it right now---there will be the right time and right place to say more; the time is not now.

I've gotten back to playing Doom Eternal on Eileen-II, in a bid to actually complete the game. I've started to get used to the so-called ``alpha rotation'' mechanism---it involves firing and then immediately switching among the three big single-shot conventional weapons of the Super Shotgun (SSG), the Ballista, and the Rocket Launcher using the mouse wheel.

The original ``alpha rotation'' was a technique for maximised DPS from Doom 2016, and it was done with the Gauss Cannon instead of the Ballista, and often combined with the glitch for ``instant Siege mode''. I first heard/saw it during the speedruns for the original Doom 2016. The key idea here is to use fast weapon switching [via the mousewheel] to interrupt the reloading animation for each of these weapons.

I cannot do the complete rotation now---I'm often just doing SSG↔Ballista. Sometimes I manage to do the SSG→Ballista→SSG→Rocket Launcher→SSG rotation. The main reason why I don't often bring the Rocket Launcher into rotation is that it is still my first play through, and I don't know where the enemy spawns are, and so having a weapon whose AOE can damage myself badly when fired point-blank really isn't that good of an idea.

But the ``alpha rotation'' definitely made the late-game for Doom Eternal that much more manageable. Previously, I would probably just run around with the SSG and maybe throwing in some Chaingun fun to help thin out the horde.

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Anyway, I think that's about it for this entry. I need to take a shower, and then go turn in for the night.

Till the next update then.

Edit: Made a mistake. The weapon that I used in my interpretation of the ``alpha rotation'' is ``Ballista''---the ``Arbalest'' is the mod that is used for charging to fire a single over-powered shot, sort of like siege mode for the Gauss cannon.

Each Day I Wake Up, I Thank the Lord

``Praise to the Lord! I thank You for providing me with another day in this world to do what I can with the talents You gave me that I honed through Your guidance. Amen.''

That is how I start my mornings these days, the moment I wake up proper. It's my way of reminding myself that I am not allowed to just die---my work for the Lord on this planet isn't quite done yet. If it is my time to go, He'd just take me like that, and I wouldn't be the wiser.

So each day that I can wake up, is a day of blessing, no matter what comes by. Work is happening still, and thanks to recent developments in the space of my industry, schedules are messed up all over again in different and more fascinating ways, and I find myself being torn in all directions once more.

I believe that amid the madness, there is a grander plan being set in motion that I am not fully aware of yet. With that solidly in mind, I just grit my teeth, pray for wisdom, strength, and patience, and go through the day. Things will need to be handled, I will handle them, and they somehow work out alright. Really, when the Lord is in charge, there is little that I need to worry about.

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Nothing truly bad has happened---I'm writing here only as a sort of inertia. I have already been writing here once a week, I might as well keep on writing. It at least acts as indirect proof that I have been keeping with my word of not offing myself.

I'll stop here for now. Till the next update.

SCP Tome 4 Down the Hatch!

Nothing too depressing today. It should be considered a good thing, I hope.

I've finally finished SCP Foundation Tome 4 of the SCP Foundation e-books (2017-02-01 dump). That just leaves some 8 more tomes to go. At the rate I am going, it seems like it will take me nearly 8 more years before I can finish reading this complete set.

It's okay. It's mostly a guilty pleasure anyway. Kind of my go-to for something light and easy to read when I am not in the mood for something super heavy like a text book/thesis, or something of middling weight like a paper, or something light like some bestseller-type novel.

My current reading list is a little biased towards clearing out the larger sized e-books, and some of the larger paper books that have been lying around for quite a while. Naturally, that link is going to show something rather different if this entry is read on a date that is not temporally close to when this blog entry has gone out.

On the topic of reading still, my copy of An Ethic for Christians & Other Aliens In A Strange Land by William Stringfellow has arrived as well. I will likely start on it soon-ish.

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This week has been awkward. I am doing more management/coordination work than programming---not sure how to feel about that. It is a thing I suppose, and nothing more. We'll just see what God has in mind. After all, I did not amass knowledge just so that I can sit there and vegetate---I'm pretty sure He has a good reason why I am who I am.

Just need to wait and see, praying to God along the way so as to learn of what His will is.

I don't really have anything else I would like to write here [in public]. The key thing was to document my milestone of finishing another SCP Foundation Tome, that's all.

Till the next update. Hopefully things are as mundane as they are now. Maybe I can slowly move back towards almost not writing any entries in here---it is almost always an inverse relationship between the amount of writing I do here and the level of happiness that I am at.

2/3 Through September

Welcome to ``yet more intrusive thoughts documentation''.

Today's set of intrusive thoughts involve the idea of being incognito. Suicide ideation reared its ugly head once more.

Once more, I want to emphasise that this is just a documentation of intrusive thoughts. I am in no way going to act on them.

Anyway this time, it was coupling it with the idea of being incognito. So something like, travel out to somewhere where no one knows who I am, and then just dying out there. Aokigahara comes to mind. Might be considered a great place for what the intrusive thought intends, since it combines several fun activities (travelling to Japan, hiking in a forested area) before the final end itself. Seems to fit the general mood I am feeling now, the compulsion to repulse people from my past, or what I have termed politely as ``hermitting it up''.

Bar guvat lbh'ir abgvprq ol abj vf gung gur yvggyr cnary ba gur evtug vf abj zvffvat gur ``Sevraqf/Npdhnvagnaprf'' one jvgu yvaxf gb bgure oybtf. Ncneg sebz ure, gurer vf ab bar ryfr ernyyl hcqngvat gurve oybtf nal zber. Naq V guvax fur unf svavfurq hc gur ynfg guvatf gung fur pna qb gb phg zr bhg bs ure yvsr. V nz abg oyvaq abe fghcvq---V rkgraqrq n sevraqyl punaary gb erznva nf cyngbavp sevraqf jvgu ure, ohg V xrrc trggvat ernpgvbaf gung fgngr jvgu vapernfvat ubfgvyvgl gung V nz rssrpgviryl crefban aba tengn, fubeg bs orvat gbyq cbvag oynax jvgu pehqr ynathntr gb ``shpx bss''. V pna gnxr n uvag; V'z abg jnagrq naljurer va ure yvsr ntnva. Zrffntr erprvirq ybhq naq pyrne. Gur cngu fur pubfr unf ab zber eryngvba jvgu jung V nz pheeragyl ba, rira vs fur naq V ner fgvyy cynlvat gur fnzr vafgehzragf nf Nznaqn fhppvapgyl chg onpx va gur ortvaavat jura V svefg zrg ure. V'z ab ybatre rira n sevraq; V trg gung. V jvfu ure nyy gur orfg.

Back to the topic of ``hermitting it up''. I think I might have overdone the meeting up with people bit---I am feeling rather distressed, or enervated. Things that spout out of my mouth seem to be misunderstood, offensive, or even strongly committing faux pas. During the run up to each meet up, I feel really energised and happy, because it is about meeting up with an old friend in meat space after so long of being cooped up. Then during the meet up, things seem to go smooth. Then after that, I realise that the ``smoothness'' I felt was all bullshit and I had probably pissed them off.

That's why I chickened out of an online hangout meeting with roticv and YT. That's also why I didn't feel ready when Ding asked me if I wanted to hang out with him and CH. I don't think I can handle it. I just don't think so.

I don't think that the world has a net positive with me in it. Maybe even God will snicker a little when He tries to find a use for someone like me---I wouldn't know; I just pray that He will grant me the wisdom and strength to be ready to receive from Him what my life's goal is. I am just thankful that despite the falling apart of the old social structures that sustained me, I am slowly being made a part of a new one. I don't know if I have pissed them off yet, but they seem to be welcoming still.

I just hope that I don't screw it up.

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What else is there for me to write here, now? Life is just a cycle of waking up, thanking the Lord for giving me another day of wakefulness, reading and learning from the Scripture, then going about the work day trying to make sense of the chaos that comes from a world that is currently in turmoil from all kinds of nonsense. Then at the end of the day, I break for food, thanking the Lord for giving me access to food before eating, then take the bus home to do more reading of whatever is on my reading list, do some lessons on duolingo, then turn in for the night.

I'm not expecting people to understand me any more. Heck, I'm not even expecting the people I call/called friends to understand me either---they are all on different legs of their lives, most of them have their own families to run, and the last thing I think they need is to have someone whining about how shitty that person's life is despite having a place to stay, a job, and skills that are apparently considered ``hard skills'' in this time and age. ``But MT, aren't you projecting yourself a little too much here? Maybe they are trying to reach out to you to give you the space you might need to bitch about things---have you stopped to consider that?'' Yeah, perhaps I have. Makes me so pathetic right, big grown-ass man with all these feelings that he cannot man-up and stuff it down a chute that he needs people to take pity on him and call him out for a hang out so that he doesn't wallow in his own shitty emotions.

If I knew what it was I wanted, it would have been easier. But for now, I just don't. And talking to people isn't something that I think I want to engage in just yet.

It'll be soooooooo much easier if I were dead. But alas, me being dead now does absolutely nothing to help with advancing the gospel, so it'll have to be on hold for now. It'll happen when it's supposed to happen, so I don't have to worry about advancing it.

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In other news, the dead-tree version of Instead of Death by William Stringfellow has finally arrived by post. It was a book that was recommended by Brian---I think I might just start reading it. I was a little surprised to find that it was a thin number---I was expecting something like a 300+ page tome of sorts. I have no reason why I would think so, but it was something.

I have also created a new on-line tool that replicated the old Blogger behaviour. In the old behaviour, one could just type and embed some HTML tags as needed, without having to explicitly chuck in some paragraph-tags to delimit the paragraphs. I liked that system because it made the blog flow so much easier---it felt more like writing a blog entry as opposed to coding a blog entry. It was an option that could be enabled in the old Blogger. But thanks to the latest update that was forced upon us, I was stuck with either ``pure'' HTML mode where I had to tag every thing, or in ``pure'' composer mode where I was supposed to work like it was some word processor. There was none of the hybridised behaviour that I was looking for, and it annoyed me.

I write blog entries to get stuff out of my head as fast as possible. Had I wanted to code up an HTML page, I'd just do it in my personal domain.

Perhaps there's still an option like that hiding about---if there is, I haven't seen it. Hence that silly little tool.

Okay, I think I've said as much as I cared to this time. Till the next update, I suppose.

Winding Things Up

Peace be upon you, me, and all of us in these strange times.

The winding up of a relationship is always fraught with many emotional upheavals. Those who have not undergone it do not understand---those who have will know what I mean. I am, of course, talking about serious relationships, the kind that was very likely to end up with the intention of starting a family kind.

There are moments where I would feel like I was completely at peace. Then there will be be moments where I feel the worst form of depression, whether triggered by something that I saw and therefore associated-thought to, or just an intrusive thought. I know it is normal to feel this way. I did spend five years with her, trying to make her a part of my life.

Now in retrospect, I was wondering if she ever did try to make me a part of hers. And my honest answer is... I don't think so.

Slowly. It takes time to get myself back into a position where I am sane again. I think part of why it hurts as bad as it does during the moments when it got bad was because of the external validation that during the times that I was with her, I was visibly happier.

So, did it mean that when I was no longer with her, I would be visibly less happy? I don't know the answer to that.

I recently had my first sharing session with my care group. There was a certain sense of warmth that I had missed. It was weird to be among a group of people where I was not the most learned nor the most experienced. It was actually exhilarating in a good way. Yes, the care group was mostly of married couples, but it didn't feel weird. We shared about the things that were deserving of praise for God, we also shared about the hardships that we were undergoing that needed prayers and support from each other. And when the consolidated list of prayer requests and thanksgiving came out, I was a little heartened to find that the sender helpfully put my jumbled descriptions of how I was feeling into the much more condensed line of ``suffered from bad relationship breakup recently'', and that my prayer request was that of ``pray for healing from this relationship, moving on''.

I was touched. So concise, and poignant. So, so, true.

I think it unearthed a deep feeling that I knew was there but haven't really had the will to really confront it. The relationship break-up was bad, and I didn't really acknowledge it much. Was it as bad as the time Ida dumped me? I think it is a matter of degree---the intensity of that break-up was high due to it being the second serious relationship. The intensity of this one was not as high at its peak, but it was something that took a long time to drag out. So I suppose the ``area-under-curve'' interpretation will say that this one is indeed worse than the other.

From a different perspective, this care group has basically extended my list of responsibilities to stave off the rationalising and acknowledgement of the suicide ideation. Because now I'm less of an island.

The irony is that I think I'm just going to hermit it up these days. I don't know why. Just feel like it's the right thing to do. Maybe I had overdone the ``reconnect with folks'' bit recently, causing a kind of burn out effect on myself. Or maybe I'm decompensating. Unless I start talking with a counsellor/therapist, there really isn't a good way to know.

I did have a random intrusive thought recently. It involved just quitting my job, and applying to be a security guard or even a janitor. Why? Who knows... I sure don't---they were intrusive thoughts after all. Most times I feel that all the studying (and side reading) I've done doesn't seem to justify what I am doing and/or my sense of worth---why this is the case, I honestly do not know.

Maybe I should go check in with a counsellor/therapist. Maybe.

Or maybe I should just go for a long scenic view cycle, just to literally 散散心. I've not done that in quite a while.

People ask where is God during this COVID-19. I say that God has always been here with us. This is the best time to really discover who we really are, and for us to learn how to live a life that is praiseworthy of God.

I think that's all for now. Till the next update.

Talking About Sax

I could write an entry of dealing with random intrusive thoughts, but I'm not going to. I think I already have enough entries on that for now. So for today, I'm just going to write about the recent pick up of my new tenor saxophone.

I finally picked up my ordered Wongful Tenor Saxophone from WindWorks Singapore.

The Wongful Tenor Saxophone is an amazingly fun instrument. I'm not as good a saxophonist as I am a concert flutist (which isn't as good as my dizi playing, which I still think isn't really good anyway). The sound is very even and mellow, responding really well with the Selmer S90 180 mouthpiece that I had. For a causal saxophone player like me, I could easily hit the lows and highs at low dynamics levels, and they were still in tune. Amazing---I would totally recommend this make of a saxophone to anyone who wants to play it. And mind you, the one that I have is not some professional version---it is their lowest grade instrument. In the hands of an excellent player, it is likely to sound even more magical. Windworks Singapore is the dealer for the Wongful brand in Singapore, and Mr Yap is amazingly knowledgeable on saxphones. I think that anyone who wants a good horn without breaking the bank should really talk with Mr Yap to try out Wongful.

I like the saxophone. The dizi is my most expressive instrument, but it is an instrument that I am most likely to be playing pieces that were written by others. The concert flute is my second most expressive instrument, and is really my primary compositional tool with respect to melodies because of the versatility (chromaticity) and range (3 octaves). The saxophone is a funny instrument for me. I think the role that it plays in my music making is still ill-defined for now---on the one hand it satisfies that inner ``rock-out'' feel that I want due to its timbre crossing between that of regular woodwind and brass, and on the other hand its range is much closer to that of the dizi than that of the concert flute (i.e. less than 3 octaves), making it a little less flexible as a compositional tool.

So I end up using the saxophone as a way of playing pop tunes more enjoyably than with the concert flute. I suppose it is also a side effect of observing that jazz music as played on the saxophone tends to be of that nature too.

Another interesting fact about the saxophone is that they are among the lowest wind instruments that I have. The soprano saxophone is akin to the alto flute (less the concert G3 note which, really, no one plays often), while the alto saxophone is closer to the bass flute (no concert C3, and therefore closer in style to dizi or Irish flute than flute). The tenor saxophone is thus like that of the contra-alto flute (no concert G2 note).

If I ever got a baritone saxophone, it would cover the range of the contrabass flute comfortably, especially if it has a low [instrument] A key. Which also means that it covers the cello range, and is definitely more powerful than the contrabass flute.

Hmmm...

But it won't be any time soon. I've run out of budget for any more new instruments in the near future. My income has basically been reduced to earlier than 2015 levels due to many reasons, and therefore I need to live back to the standard of living of that era, which unfortunately does not include having enough budget for extra instruments.

Well, I think that's about it for now. I've got some more reading to do before bed time today. Recreational reading, if one would believe the nonsense I spout.

Till the next update.

《羞答答的玫瑰静悄悄的开》

Another day another entry.

``Why?'' You may ask.

``Documenting intrusive thoughts,'' is my answer.

The last time I talked about intrusive thoughts, they involved suicide ideation. Thankfully, those have more or less gone away, to be replaced with something somewhat different.

It involves selling away or getting rid of all of my music instruments, basically more or less permanently quitting making music. I mean, the whole purpose of making music for me was to have some form of relaxation away from the world.

But the world has robbed me of that pleasure. Combine that with all the heavier and heavier politics I have to slowly start to deal with, making music feels more of a chore than fun.

It's a seductive intrusive thought, a very perverse one too, if I stop to give it more attention. There was also this other really extreme one---since I'm not getting married any time soon, and with each passing year going to seal my fate as a permanent bachelor, there really is no point keeping all the money that I have been saving to start a life with a significant other. Maybe I'll just do a meaningless spending of it on a platinum flute to play for a while before I off myself, or just donate it all away.

Yeah it's fucked up. You don't have to tell me that.

In case you were a sadist and thought that I would action on those intrusive thoughts, well too bad. I'm not too far gone yet to realise their nature and arrest them. I thank the Lord for the wisdom to see that.

But on a somewhat more sombre note, I really do feel like I want to isolate and hermit up. There really isn't anything to look forward to any more... I wasn't kidding when I said that if I were to be called home to the Lord now, I wouldn't mind. Only problem is that I still have an intern to supervise, so I'll at least hold on till after he is done with his internship---no point traumatising him unnecessarily. I had contemplated setting up a new web page (tentatively called ``death-clock'') that tracked when was the earliest I could off myself given my conditions. But it wasn't going to be a good idea anyway, since I had to wait till at least both my parents had passed, which honestly, isn't likely to happen in the next ten years.

So, I have to live till at least forty-five years old.

I honestly don't know what to make of that.

Anyway, I have a couple of social events to attend to this week, but after that, I think I'll just go hide away.

No one needs to deal with a basket case like me.

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In other news, I finally found another earworm.



The title is 《羞答答的玫瑰静悄悄的开》, sung by 孟庭苇. Seriously, the phrases used were no where near common, no wonder it took me so long to actually find it. I only succeeded due to using midomi and have a somewhat decent pitch in singing, and having the luck to have the song indexed.

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That's all for today. Hopefully I don't have more things to clear from my mind. It is really depressing.

I Feel

Well hello hello. Another piece of writing within ``a day''. Unexpected, ain't it?

I feel. That's something that I can say unequivocally now. I think I have much more empathy now than I have had a long time ago.

Or rather, I have relearnt how it is to have great empathy once again, having had that burnt out of me some twenty-two years ago when I was in a bad place.

But before I go all nostalgia, allow me to share the triggering event for this piece of writing. I finally got to meet up with some more church folk (while respecting the safe distancing rules!), and what some of them were experiencing hit me in ways that I would never have thought to be possible. I understood what she meant when she said that despite the advancedness of her cancer, she was ready to let the Lord lead the way. I understood that feeling of peace, a type of hopefulness in spite of the apparent hopelessness.

And I looked at my pissant nearly self-inflicted reactions to the most recently failed relationship, and I feel pathetic. I'm not in a life and death circumstance, despite how my heart feels---at least I know that tomorrow will not be snatched away from me as readily as in her case. Yet she wasn't going all ``woe be to me'' and being depressed about it---she trusted in the Lord to lead her along the way, and to carry her burdens. This is not to say that my feelings are invalid---it's just that it is important that I put things into perspective.

To be fair, I am and have been putting things into perspective. So yes, I do have some aspects of suicidal ideation, but they remain only as intrusive thoughts that will not be acted upon, because despite all the pangs of sadness that hit me, a deeper part of me knows that there is light ahead, that it is not the end, that it is merely an end.

It is rather hard to explain this, but if you are reading all the recent entries and feeling rather alarmed about it all, please don't be. I really am in a safe place, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

I found my rock, and will be fine. There's a time for everything, after all, and the Lord knows when it is the best time for certain things for me.

Like how today was the right day to be hearing her story and testimony, despite me having not known her before today, and really not contributing much to the conversation, and she being all apologetic about it all.

I see today as the start of a new set of relationships that I will be making with a group of people whom I am going to be living with for the rest of my life, and in many ways, I am looking forward to it. In many ways, my life has gone rather stagnant, and there are certain aspects of it that can be improved through this newer direction.

Okay, present-ness aside, time to tell a story about the Bad Old Days where I had my empathy burned the heck out of me.

When I was young (think younger than twelve years old), I used to be a much more empathetic person. Yes, I was still a nerd (you can't get rid of the nerdiness), but I was happy to help people, or in the Christian context, to serve. But when I reached my teens and was in secondary school, the change of environment was drastic. You see, I was from a neighbourhood primary school, where everyone was mostly just trying to do their thing---yes, we tried not to fail our examinations and what-not, but it wasn't a place that practised any form of elitism because there was simply no reason to. Secondary school was different, for one it was a ``prestigious school'' (no irony, it is really among the top ranked secondary schools of the day), and for two it was something akin to the ``aristocratic Chinese school''. I'm calling it ``aristocratic Chinese school'' only because the feeder schools to the place were largely elite primary schools (whatever that means), and those who ended up there had their established cliques as a result. And they were of the stereotypical conservative Chinese mentality---clannish to a fault, and never tolerating anything that isn't conforming.

For a neighbourhood primary school kid, who didn't buy into clannish behaviour, it was a culture shock. It didn't help that I had bad skin. But anyway, along the way, all these ``beat downs'' from the culture made it such that by the time I was done with secondary school, the last thing I wanted to be doing was to help people without any expectation of returns, i.e. out went the altruism that I had back in the day. One incident that stood out really strongly in my mind was one afternoon when I heard that a classmate didn't have enough money to take the bus, and I ran down a slope to pass him some that I had, but didn't stop in time, smashing my forearm against the metal railing, thus fracturing it. Said classmate didn't even thank me, and he didn't even cared that I fractured my arm.

I took the bus to the hospital on my own to have it looked at and placed in a cast.

I don't think I'm bitter now. It's just a story about the time when I started to learn about how the world works. It was just one story out of a slow increase of many, and it slowly became something that just gnawed at me for so long that I developed a new perspective---to be ``an equal opportunity hater of people in general'' because people, as a whole, are dicks.

To be fair, it is not that I didn't learn how to feel. I did learn how to feel---it can be seen through my steady improvement in how I interpreted music as I was playing on my 笛子---it's just that along the way, I learnt how to just repress the general empathetic feeling I had. Because it was something that people would take one to be a sucker for and just abuse the crap out of it.

The astute reader might be asking me now, why bring this up now?

Because one of the cutting reasons on why she chose to broke up with me was the apparent dissimilarity of values, as claimed by a third party, and as acknowledged by her as one of the reasons to let it all go. I could feel anger at the third party for causing a schism, unintentionally perhaps, I could also feel maligned that she didn't even try to see that I was finding some middle ground to work things out with her, but I'm not going to.

Because it isn't productive. I cannot change how they thought/think, and how they felt/feel. But I can change how I react to things, since I am in control of my own emotions.

At the risk of sounding vindictive, let them say and believe what they want. I just want to move on and not look back at the things that made me feel all sorts of bad. Everyone makes mistakes---it is not my place to judge them. God will sort it all out at the end, not me.

It's cathartic to just write these down here. Anyway, that's all for now.

Till the next update.

And Then the ``New Blogger'' Made It Worse

Welcome once again to stupid o'clock, the traditional time in which I end up ranting for a solid while in that half-awake and half-asleep state of mind that is best described as ``ill-present''.

The last time I wrote something here, I talked about suicide ideation. As expected, after writing it all out here, I've not had an intrusive thought about it since then.

But to be fair, that was roughly two days ago. It's funny---I could've sworn it was longer ago then ``just'' two days.

In other news, I've added a bit more work to my read list. The first big thing that I did was to put in each of the three completed SCP Foundation tomes that I have read into the read list instead of waiting for the entire 2017-02-01 dump is completed. The two big reasons are that each of these tomes have around 500 articles, and it takes forever to go through them, so I will roughly have to wait for nearly twelve years before I can move the whole SCP Foundation project reading materials to the read list.

The other little bit of thing that I've enhanced was to keep track of how many items I have read, and estimating the average number of items that I have read from the cut-off where ``more meticulous records'' were kept. It's funny; I knew that I read a lot, but after this script was added to the page, I realised just how much was equivalent to ``a lot''. As at this point of writing, the script estimated around 725 items read per year by me. That number feels about right---reading roughly 2 items a day does feel like the right amount of effort that I have been doing.

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Asking God questions is an interesting process. I don't think I've cultivated the level of astuteness to converse with Him directly (I think He tells me things through the coincidences of things that happen to me), but from what I heard, He seems fond of answering one of three possible answers: ``yes'', ``no'', and ``wait''. Of the three, the first two have closure and are easy to work with---it is ``wait'' that is tough.

Like now. My shattered sense of self is just sitting there on the ground in their miserable fragments. I asked God what's to happen to me, and the reply I got was basically ``wait''. And so, I wait, though as I said, this is the most uncertain and therefore the one that is most likely have the largest increase of suffering.

Okay, I can feel the forces of wakefulness being overwhelmed by the combined might of going past stupid o'clock and the anti-histamine chlorpheniramine.

All I wanted to do was to assure whoever is still reading this that yes, I had some suicide ideation, and no, I am not going to take any steps to fulfil the said ideation. I think it is better to just wait for now, and be in awe of God, and fear Him to glorify His might.

Okay, good night then.

On Suicide Ideation

At the risk of triggering reflex actions, I will first begin by saying that I am still safe and am still in a safe place.

Now, with that said, let me talk about suicide ideation.

I have been having random thoughts about that for the past few months. I think that they are intrusive---I did not begin the day thinking to myself ``ah, what if I would die today by my own hand''---they just appear in my mind just like that. And to be fair, it isn't even the kind of ``I wish I were dead'' types of thoughts---they get really specific.

For instance, death by [drop] hanging either over the accessible parts of the Nicoll Highway or out in the middle of the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve levels of specific. Hanging because of a broken neck is the fastest way to go, and that there are nicely prepared tables to ensure a clean break in the neck, which is many times better than the really awful way of asphyxiation.

Heck, I don't even have to go shopping for a rope---just re-use the toggle rope that I have lying around already. And if somehow I survive the attempt, the ensuing fall will finish the job. Or you know, just ensure that the height and the rope length are long enough to ensure decapitation, a 100% guaranteed death.

But they are just thoughts. It's not even a case of ``mostly just thoughts''---they are just thoughts. It's not that I have something to live for---I honestly don't at this point seeing that my life has basically been brought to a standstill in almost all aspects---but that it feels a little too weak-willed to just end it like that.

If I'm going to die prematurely and by my own hand, it will at least be after both my parents have passed on. And when that day comes, I will also need to check if I have anything still that I am responsible for.

Or if I lose agency of my self, as in, I reach the point where I cannot mentally even identify myself as myself any more---that's the day to die prematurely.

Consider this a pre-emptive advance directive unless otherwise superseded in future documents.

At this point, I'm just annoyed that these thoughts are creeping up on me like that. I suppose my work on this earth isn't quite done yet, otherwise the Lord would not have let me have the wisdom to realise that the thoughts were intrusive, to arrest them before they got out of hand, and put them out here so that the acknowledgement of their presence provides me with a better frame of reference to strongly refute the temptations that they bring.

The problem remains: what am I on this earth for? I don't know if I am ready enough to face the consequences of the answer to that question, and that is why I have not asked the Lord for one in prayer just yet.

These days, I just vacillate between random pangs of sadness and general numbness. My brain is usually in a fog, but when the situation arises, it does get back into its razor sharpness. Studying God's word helps to bring myself towards a different understanding, but at the same time, I am slowly finding my ego slipping away, as though I am slowly becoming a husk of some sort.

I want to scream and shout, but I don't know why. Some friends have offered to lend a listening ear, but I don't know what to say to them. Some times I just want to repeatedly slam my head into a hard surface, but I don't have the heart to break something through such silly actions on my part. I feel like I may need to take a break, but when I do, I end up being listless and just whiling the time away doing nearly nothing. Some days I'm super lucid, understanding many things with a clarity that I cannot begin to describe, but most days I'm just letting the time flow on by, almost literally just waiting to be called home to be with the Lord.

I write all these here with only a vague sense of why---whether I live or die, I suppose it is useful to at least try to pen down all these nonsense that is going through my head. Even if it doesn't benefit me, hopefully someone out there who stumbles upon this will learn that they are not alone. All I can say is, I'm sorry I don't have any solutions---all I have are just the complaints about how things just suck.

Before I turn in for the day, just observe that this entry came on in less than three days. And yes, things aren't going so well back in MT's head.

Before anyone gets all panicky, I want to reassure you, the reader, that I am still safe and am still in a safe place.

I seriously owe future-me a chance to live up to what he is supposed to be doing, and to do that, present-me needs to steward this body, brain, and soul well, and not die prematurely. I just hope that future-me knows what he needs to do, because present-me has no fucking clue.

Future-me, when you look back at present-me, please think back about the dark times, and how I tried to keep it together for you to shine. Remember me, okay?

It Would Have Been a Triumphant Day

See, today would have been a triumphant day.

About a year ago today I came to the conclusion that I was sick and tired of dragging my fat ass around, and so decided to spend effort to change my lifestyle to actually lose weight. I had a copy of The Hacker's Diet by John Walker for a while, and read it. The key ideas for weight loss (and subsequent control) are:

1. Recalibrate the body's feedback system;
2. Alter the lifestyle to keep the feedback system;
3. Ensure that the feedback system is sensitive enough to detect changes, but not sensitive enough to ``over-react'';
4. Much of the variation in body mass is water, so choosing the correct feedback system is crucial.

What Walker suggested in his text is to use an exponentially weighted moving average of the mass as the main computation.

He uses pounds, I use kilograms---the principle is still the same.

My original goal was to drop below 75kg first. That's a good 10kg or so less than the starting mass of around 85kg (84.2kg at the point of first measurement, but a variation of ±1kg is not unheard of). As you can tell from the screenshot, I've hit that goal by around December. The trick for me was to do ``one meal a day'' (OMAD). There were two reasons for OMAD:

1. The realisation that the hunger pangs I felt were more psychological than physiological (i.e. I wasn't keeling over from ``low blood sugar''); and
2. It was far easier to just have OMAD having anything I wanted for that meal than to calorie count like an OCD sufferer.

OMAD meant that I had to choose which meal it was that I would be having, and I chose dinner because it was the meal most likely to be needed due to all the usual socialisation aspects (and I was still in a relationship with her then, making it much easier to have something to do together at the end of the day). To avoid killing myself accidentally through a lack of the necessary micro-nutrients due to such a severe limitation [with almost no planning], I took a multi-vitamin daily as well. Suffice to say, the strategy worked well since I'm still alive now, and have suffered little side effects from malnutrition.

I went for surgery in January to settle an emerging problem (circumcision to tackle phimosis, if you have to know), but didn't stop my regime of OMAD. Recovery time was nearly a month, but it was all right.

The Hacker's Diet did talk about a daily 15-minute exercise component based loosely off the Royal Canadian Air Force's 5BX (RCAF 5BX). I didn't start on it till April, because that was when I guesstimated that I would have lost enough mass for the exercise to be somewhat meaningful. I had worked on the RCAF 5BX plan before, but it was, as Walker put it, rather confusing. More importantly, since it wasn't done with weight loss progressing at the same time, it also meant that I was stressing my body out more than expected with all the excess weight.

After that, I started to more seriously consider my goals. I know that the Body Mass Index (BMI) isn't exactly the best of benchmarks, but I thought it adequate for my needs because it was mainly for the sedentary individual. Last I checked, I have been sedentary for a long time. The small hiccup here was that the ``standard'' numbers for BMI were less correct for the smaller build of the typical South East Asian person, and so I resorted to using the Singapore standard for BMI instead.

Those numbers (and their associated masses given my puny height of 1.67m) are indicated in the screenshot as well. The more astute would notice that there are two numbers next to the one labelled ``Latest Wt''. The smaller number is the number of kilograms to the low-moderate risk border of 23 (64.1kg), while the larger number is the number of kilograms to the mid-point of the low-moderate risk border of between 18.5 and 23 (works out to around 57.9kg).

The next milestone to me was to dip below 70kg, something that I reached at around April---I took that opportunity to finally tailor some new pants since my old ones were really too large for me to even look remotely presentable. Incidentally, that was also when the ``circuit breaker'' began, and when she broke up with me via letter. At that point, I kinda started giving up a little as the bummedness came in (dare I call it depression?), eating coated peas and almonds with anchovies as snacks. The lowest trend mass I ever reached so far was just 67.1kg (with spot masses nearer 66kg), but it could not last. Part of the OMAD strategy hinged on being sufficiently distracted to not let the hunger pangs bother me (remember it was psychological), but with all the lock down and aftermath from the break-up, there was just too little to distract me from it.

And now, today, at the twelfth month, I'm at 69.9kg, just 0.1kg shy of the last big milestone I hit.

I have new resolve to get back into OMAD to drop the mass down to the next milestone, which is dipping to lower than 65kg. I'd probably either have to alter my dress shirts, or tailor new ones---I'm more inclined to do the former if I can help it, because I remember them being more pricey than the pants. Besides, I think it would probably be easier to adjust the shirts (reduce the waist line while keeping everything else), but I will only know when I bring it down to the tailor for suggestions.

I said earlier that today would have been a triumphant day. It would have been triumphant because I was making myself healthier and more presentable for my future married life. But that isn't happening, at least not with her, and that has bummed me out.

In a way, my slow and careful triumph over excessive mass is basically meaningless for the moment. A pity.

But Jesus did mention that He would raise a new temple from the razed one in three days; the temple He spoke of was the place where the Holy Spirit resides, and in this case, it is exactly this body that I am carefully reshaping to ensure that the risk of cardio-related issues due to excessive mass is heavily reduced. So perhaps there is some meaning after all.

I don't care how selfish I sound now. On those days when I throw away those rose-tinted nostalgia-ridden glasses for whatever reason (like today), I feel like I've been played out, and it annoys me. Don't get me wrong, there were many many good memories, just as there were many many good and fun plans for the future. I forgive, I truly do, but I'm no Christ---it still pains and annoys me that it took five years to end up like this. Five years of opening up myself, of thinking about our future with great happiness and anticipation. Five bloody years, to have everything ended in five days. I'm happy for her that she finally figured out what she wanted, and I am exceedingly glad for her that after being broken, she is finally made whole once more to right her relationship with Him.

But... what about me?

I'm still broken, am I not? Who would want me now? Can I even live with myself now? Do I even want me now?

My Heavenly Father, forgive me for feeling like this. To err is human, to forgive, divine. I forgive, but I still feel broken in ways that I don't know if I will ever be put back together in a way that is still acceptable by someone. I pray to You for guidance, for wisdom, and for strength to get through my days---I know not what else to pray for other than these generic platitudes. Part of me says to pray for death so I can go away from this world and have eternal life with You, but I don't even know if that is what I want, or if that is Your Will, or is it just the deeply repressed sinful nature in me seeking the easy way out. I study Your word every day---each time I read them and try to understand what they mean, I have an inner peace. I sleep well at night, dreamless and restful. But sometimes deep within the peace, an uneasy and undefinable stirring bubbles beneath, a feeling that I do not know nor understand. My Heavenly Father, I am troubled in ways that I do not understand; may the Holy Spirit intercede on my behalf to tell you what is it that my heart and soul needs. Into thy hands I entrust myself, for it is your will, not mine.

Amen.

Trooping Along

Heh, this is starting to become a thing, ain't it? Roughly a post a week, give or take a couple of days.

It's cathartic. I cannot claim to completely enjoy it, but it is definitely something that allows me to banish thoughts away from my mind, keeping it less cluttered and thus less headache-inducing.

It also fulfils the secondary aspect of keeping those who want to keep abreast of my happenings updated, without having to undergo the rather awkwardly ``intense'' discussion process that is talking with me directly.

Anyway, August is almost gone. We are down to the last quarter of 2020 to go. At the risk of really jinxing it, I cannot see how much worse it can get.

Wait, the US elections are happening in November. Never mind, let me take back what I said about how I cannot see how much worse it can get. Because I have this feeling that the worse is yet to come.

I pray for the safety of my friends who are living in the US right now. May the Lord bless and protect them through these tough and troubling times.

The last time I wrote something here, I mentioned how Cui was telling me what it was that I was grieving---it was about a future that was lost, the plans that were trashed due to the circumstances and the actions. After ugly crying and then mulling over it for the whole week, I completely agree with her. Already new plans are forming in my head---I know that I am now a believer, but it is my nature to plan ahead. What I am learning is to reconcile my planning through the agency of my free will against the sovereign will of God. It's less about a contradiction that needs resolution and more of a deeper understanding of what it is that God wills of us.

Besides, while in the end only God's sovereign plan matters, it is still important for me to be ready for whatever comes, otherwise I would be doing myself and God a disservice---after all, He had made me with the particular nature I have for His purposes. And as the recent reading on Romans 12:3--8 shows, there is no right/wrong in terms of what nature we have, as long as we have the fear of God within us, since it is through a body of believers that a perfect community may be formed from the contributions of each of our talents.

For now though, the plan is very simple. No more zero days. It's not so much that I had been wallowing so bad that I get zero days, but more like I need to keep on moving so that I don't fall behind long enough to start the wallowing process, a bit of a Red Queen situation too, come to think of it. I know that at some fundamental level, I am somewhat bummed out by all the things that have happened in the past four months, but I just do not know how deep that level of bummed-out-ness is. And frankly, I really don't want to find out.

So I just keep trooping along, doing my best to not look back at the bad things.

Scripture reading and bible study is great and all, but in between all that, I still need to do myself a solid. I can't be off on my next adventure if I keep on getting stuck on thinking about the adventure that I could not complete well. That's the part where my own personal plans come in---no more zero days and just keep on moving.

As to where I move on to, that will be up to the Lord. I'm not even going to bother thinking about whether I will be a bachelor forever or if I will miraculously get married within the next five years---now is not the right time for that. I am just glad that I can keep the connections with the friends that I had made along the way of these thirty-five long years, and maybe make new ones as I progress through the remaining half of my life.

Nothing else to add to this entry for now, and so, I will just stop here. Perhaps I will update again in a week.

A Time to Grieve

It's always hard having to take apart what was once built together with loving care and rebuild. It is not my nature to swing a sledgehammer to break something apart just to build it back. In fact, it is more of my nature to carefully put something together only after having put in some thought into how it might look like, taking into account the extent of the perimeters while doing the build so that in the end, if there are changes needed, the final built product will still be malleable enough within the perimeters.

You know, what they call the ``engineering mindset''. We plan, we build. We do not leave things to chance if we have means to control it. For things we cannot control, we try to estimate the range of possibilities so that we have contingencies for as large a proportion of them as possible---for everything else that we cannot estimate, we combine them into a number explaining the amount of catastrophic risk.

God is the master engineer. He creates, He builds, He shapes, He moulds. But He is eternal, so His sense of what risk/contingencies entails are completely alien to us mortals with a very severely limited life span.

For things of one's life that involves decisions that may affect others, it is important to consult God and to listen to His word. It is best to consult Him early, so that the path to His will is filled with potentially less suffering for all.

It is unfortunate that the romantic relationship I had was not of God's will. I don't blame anyone---what's there to blame? We miss 100% of all the shots we don't take after all, and even though it was five years (one seventh of my life thus far), it was five years of joy, good memories, lessons learnt, and discovery---I became a better person after it all. I do not regret it for a bit, though I do feel sad. Cui told me to take the time to grieve---I asked her a little confusedly, what was it I was grieving for?

``Grieving for the future you were hoping for, the plans you had. So it's more of having to set new plans, new things to mark your life. To give you some meaning and guidance in this otherwise confusing world.''

So, so true. Thank you Cui.

But I don't want to grieve, not like this. I want to celebrate it in joy. The joy of having known this relationship, the joy of helping a fellow pilgrim to learn of what it is God has for her, the joy of my realisation that there is eternal peace in the salvation from Jesus Christ at the end of my days. With the eternal future secured, I am safe to pursue what it is God has planned out for my life, through the talents He gave me, through the people I meet, and through the places I am at.

I still love her---I always will. But I love all those whom I call friends as well. Throughout my thirty odd years in life, it is only the last ten to twelve of which I started learning on how to really deal with inter-relationships of a romantic sort. My bad skin of the past haunted me, making it nearly impossible to cultivate any sort of understanding of romantic love---but it did teach me a lot of cultivating friendship love.

But before I get there, I need to grieve. I don't want to, but I need to---that's the difference. God is great and all, leading with wonderful guides to the goodness in His Word, but in the end, I'm still in a mortal body. The mind understands, but the heart is a laggard, and the soul is nascent and doesn't yet know how to lead the way. I am glad I finally met up with her face-to-face on Saturday just to talk, and get the clarity of where our relationship stood that I had prayed to God about.

Conflicted feelings are basically what I have now. I had kept it together for the most part for the past four months of circuit breaking, but I didn't really have a chance to heal, not with the types of uncertainties that I was still entertaining in my mind. With the clarity now, healing and transformation can finally begin in my heart, mind, and soul.

Till the next update, I suppose.

Resignation

The problem with me isn't with my stars---things that far cannot affect me after all, even if superstring theory holds.

It's that I'm an easy-to-read book.

It's not that I have no guile, but rather, I choose not to live a life where I am always cunning about what I do and what I think. I choose not to live such a life because it does not benefit me nor anyone in any way---it is not the right thing to do.

I say what I mean, and mean what I say.

I may choose when I want to say some thing, but I don't usually back down from saying it, especially when I am convinced that it is the right thing to say.

It was an epiphany from many years ago when I started to slowly meld all the different social groups together. So, instead of seeing MT-the-bleh, for different values of bleh depending on the particular social group, there is just MT the_laptop---the same person no matter what social group I happen to be in. Did it cause me grief? Yes, during that period where people are confused as to how best to deal with me. But in the long term, it helped let me be who I am.

Back to me being an easy-to-read book. It also means that it is easy to exploit me, to hurt me, and perhaps to ruin me if that's what the person so inclines.

Does it matter to me? Not any more I suppose.

I'm not destined for great things, be it earthly or godly.

I was not born into a rich or powerful family, I may have earned a government scholarship, but it was something that I did not fully exploit to gain unbelievable amounts of leverage climbing the corporate/civil service ladder. I'm good enough at what I do to not starve, and have no ambition of excelling so hard that I am the best in my field, and therefore according to most reckoning, am basically close to being useless without being completely useless.

I was not born into a Christian family, none of my parents are even Christian, am a new believer and I doubt that I will ever be skilled enough to be a pastor, or go on missionary trips to save the unbelievers---things that are highly valued among the godly. My talents as given by God through the careful opportunities as granted by His grace lie elsewhere, and how it can help advance the gospel is something that only time and His grace will tell. As at now, I just see myself as one of the many simple disciples of the Son of Man.

So yes, not destined for great things, be it earthly or godly.

All I have is just me. Plain old me, as unique as uniqueness can be given the 108 billion or so people to have ever lived on earth. That's all there is. That I am alive is a testimony to God's greatness---His grace allows for the existence of a useless dust mote like me to live, a dust mote that has no big dreams, no big promises to God or anyone, and no big ambition.

In some ways, I'm just glad I am alive; not happy, not content---just glad. And if I'm called to be with the Father, hey, it's okay. If it's my time to go, it's my time. I only hope that by the time that it is my time, I am relieved of responsibilities that I have in ways that will not harm the people around me; I'm not even praying for an easy passing. I just don't want to leave behind a lousy memory, even if it is going to be one that dies out within a generation. It doesn't matter if I'm remembered after death anyway---dust motes don't get remembered by anyone except for God, who will always know His own.

In the end, if the me that is present is good enough for someone to be a spouse with in this life time, it is God's will. If the me that is present is not good enough for anyone to be a spouse with in this life time, it is still God's will. In either case, I am still an easy-to-read book---I'm too old and serious to be playing silly games anyway; what-you-see-is-all-there-is. If anything is meant to be, it will be---no amount of human intervention and cunning on my end can change the outcome.

And since I've accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour and the Lord as my God, I will respect that acceptance and accept whatever it is that He has set up for me. Call it the blessing or the curse of being a believer---they are both the same thing anyway in this case. I get eternal life anyway, so no loss for me.

Amen.

I'm Tired

I'm tired.

I'm really tired of all the negativity that is happening in the world today.

I'm tired of the selfishness that everyone demonstrates, forgetting that it was the effort of society as a whole that enables their selfishness to be conducted without major repercussions to themselves. This includes the nonsense that is anti-science, anti-thought, anti-empathy, cancel culture, the five hundred different acronyms from identity politics, the two hundred different ways of virtue signalling, the ``me me me'' logic of social media, surveillance capitalism, and all the chilling effects that these come with.

It's not just something that comes from the US, in case folks are thinking that that's all I'm thinking about. It is really a general trend that comes with the hyper-connectedness of societies.

The current pandemic woes are a great way to bring to the foreground all that is wrong in ways that are louder than before. There are those who believe that they are making a change with their belligerent shouting, but failing to realise that with the precedents that they set with their ``the ends justify the means'' approach, it is just one revolution away before they end up on the receiving end of their tools.

If all of us were still in the bad old days of having to worry about when we can next put food on the table, all these ``first world problems'' would not occur. No, I am not advocating going back to the bad old days---we have advanced quite far, though we have indeed fallen a lot too. But overall, I still believe that we have progressed just a bit more than we had fallen.

Of course, whatever I say here is absolutely useless. I am no ``influencer''---I suppose only five people in the world are actual some kind of regular reader of what I write here---but it is one of those situations where I have no mouth, but I must scream. Scream I shall, indeed.

The theme for today's rant is ``why am I still alive''. No, it's not a suicide note---I don't believe in committing suicide in the conventional sense of myself taking myself out. If it is my time to go, it is my time---God will take me when it is my time; I do not have to hasten the process. If suicide were truly an option that I was seriously considering, it would not be the ignoble kind where I kill myself---I would rather make use of the last moments of my life to do things that no one would/could possibly do without being able to walk away from it alive. That's the kind of death that is most worthy, because it is a death that comes from doing something meaningful. It is the type of death that only the kamikaze of WWII understood.

But I digress. I'm not intending to die. Not just yet. Not before my time.

The normal answer is usually ``but I have so much to live for; I'm not ready to die!'' To me, I don't think that is true. I have been ready to die for quite a while really---I have very few regrets in my life, to my surprise. I used to think that when my life is over, it is done---there is nothing beyond it. That is the Christian notion of a fate worse than oblivion, a state where God literally turns His face away from one. I will say that I didn't really fear that state much---I was ready to be made unexisting anyway---but now that I've become a follower of Jesus, I am glad that I am at least saved in the sense that even after death, I still exist, and in a state that is perfect as it was God's intention.

That's a good thing.

But that aside, what I'm trying to say is, death didn't scare me that much. It scares me a bit less now with the assurance that Jesus has saved me, so it's all good. However, this doesn't mean that I'm going to roll over and die now. Allow me to back-track a little to add some coherence---I am starting to find my rant a little hard to follow, even for myself.

I don't have much to live for. I don't have big dreams. What is keeping me going on each day is just the remembrance of the responsibilities that I have. So it's less of me having things to live for and more of causing some bad trouble for people should I fail to live that keeps me living.

Is this Christ-like? I don't know---I'm still a neophyte in His ways. As far as I know, Jesus' life was totally ordered by God, just like everyone else's. But unlike everyone else's, His life, death, and resurrection was meant to fulfill the cosmic plan that God had to redeem His chosen. The reason of existence of his believers are to spread the gospel to redeem more of humankind from sin to be on the good graces of God.

There really isn't any other reason for existing.

KK did remind me of one thing though: I should remember to never take things to extremes. I thank him deeply from the bottom of my heart for his reminder. I don't really like to take things to extreme, but I suppose my attitude of not wanting to half-ass things does make it seem extreme at times.

But Jesus was a radical, was he not? Weren't we all taught to be as radical as he was, challenging the letter of the law with the intent of the law, to draw strength and divine inspiration through the Holy Spirit instead of trying to ``muscle'' our way through with the at-best misguided intentions without the consultation of the Holy Spirit?

Well, I think I'm going to stop here. Too much thoughts of these sort does strange things to my already not-super-happy state.

------

In other news, I've finally had the opportunity to get some replacement jeans. My old jeans, especially after the massive weight loss over the past 8 months or so, are way too frayed and too lose to keep on wearing comfortably. The replacement jeans I have bought fit me better; their only drawback was that the length was a bit too long, but the alteration step seems straightforward enough that I would probably do something about it over this upcoming long weekend.

I'll probably have to adjust my wardrobe a bit more soon---need to cycle in a different set of clothes, and cycle out those that don't fit as well. But that may be for another day.

Till the next update, I suppose. Maybe I will have less depressing things to write about (haha... what a joke).