Frankly, nothing noteworthy. The soreness of the intramuscular injection site (missed it the first couple of times) is nearly non-existent. There seems to be light pain from potential lymph node swelling in the left arm-pit, but I only notice it when I choose to notice it, i.e. also not noteworthy.
I spent a little bit of this morning reposting some of the longer Flute Forum posts that I had put up yesterday, spelling errors and all, and elaborated a little more on one of them. But that's not really noteworthy either.
I did power through The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew last night. Fuelled by a little too much energy drink/soda, and the relatively interesting subject matter of secession from Malaya that the last third of the book was talking about, I completed that book. I must say that after I had read through this volume, I can see why the Old Man treated unions the way he did---unlike in the western countries, the unions in SIN city had been tainted with communist tendencies in the past, and the Old Man had observed how they were wielded as a blunt weapon of subversion against the governing body.
I mean, he literally worked with the folks who did all that right in the beginning when SIN city was still under colonial control.
An organisational weapon that was used successfully before to force control away from the incumbent becomes a prime target for nerfing when the new person takes control: this is to be expected.
I wonder if such extreme influences still exist these days. It's hard to tell because unlike SIN city of that era, there is no obvious oppressor/emergency to deal with. The problems of today have a longer horizon than the problems of the 1950s--1960s. We are, on average, still wealthier than 80% of the world's population despite all the complaints that we have, though the nature of the complaints need to be taken into the context of actually having to prosper here in the face of mounting pressures.
Politics then shares similar characteristics as today, but with one key difference: there really isn't a strong identifiable rival to unite against per se. That could be a reason why the modern SIN city politician seems to be ``softer'' than those of that era.
But hey, what do I know? I'm an armchair critic---who knows what kind of deep negotiations are going on in the background to guarantee SIN city's continued independent existence even as the world's superpowers posture for hegemony as regional powers continue their game of subtle one-upship.
All I know is, that's probably the last book for 2021, with 《毛主席语录》 by 毛泽东 being my next book to read.
In the event that this post is the last for this year, take care, and see you all in the annual summary tomorrow.
Friday, December 31, 2021
Thursday, December 30, 2021
Does There Exist a Trade Off In Bore Geometry for [Concert] Flutes?
As a reply to a post on Flute Forum that segued from how a flute played easier in the altissimo range compared to the regular, with the poster musing about conical versus cylindrical bores, and asking if there is generally a trade-off between ease of play in low and high register:
I would go as far as to say that in many cases, any differences in musical/artistic expression considerations end up with that particularly designed/made flute being designated differently---you can see this even in the Wikipedia list of flutes.
But for my internal learning reasons, I tend to group them differently to facilitate cross-system training, keeping close mind to how to express the actual music with the particular flute, while also observing the subtle differences in choices for the positions of the tone holes. That latter bit usually does not affect the lowest register of the flute in question (it's usually a diatonic major scale, or rarely, some minor scale like the shakuhachi's pentatonic minor scale), but it does affect what kind of middle/high register pitches we can attain.
In the end though, as what sifu said before: we adapt to the instrument; the instrument does not adapt to us---that is the very fundamental fact. It is after our experience from adapting to the instrument that we eventually learn of its limitations, and then decide if those limitations are truly stumbling blocks for our expression (in which case it is time for a ``better'' version of the instrument), or if they were deliberate artistic choices.
Short answer: yes.To add on a little for things that I didn't have the chance to write more about because it is, after all, still a Facebook post despite the length, real-world instrument making has many musical/artistic expression considerations that need to be taken into account even before the specific engineering trade-offs are chosen. The concert flute, for instance, had its shaped drastically adjusted and its first register flattened just so that its ambitus can be raised from the traditional 2 octaves and a fifth to a full 3 octaves, while overtone flutes like the fujara has the ratio of its inner diameter to bore length reduced greatly to facilitate the production of overtones instead.
Less short answer: it's not "just" about cylindrical bores versus conical bores -- the bore's inner diameter, the stopper position, tone hole positions, the size of tone holes, and the relative outer dimension at the tone hole (or tone hole height for the Boehm flute) matter as well. Acoustic models often simplify the flute to an open pipe ideal, with a column of massless air molecules that instantaneously form stationary [longitudinal] waves when a suitable energy source is provided.
But the reality is that real flutes have real air molecules with real mass/inertia, and we don't excite the end of the "open" pipe directly (we do it transversely), relying on the stopper to "bounce" our real energy source through with losses from all the air molecules' inertia, whether they are moving longitudinally down the pipe or venting through a tone hole. This means that the kinetic energy received from the air molecules farther from the embouchure hole is significantly less than the air molecules closer to the embouchure hole where the driving force (our air stream) is. Not to mention that sometimes, if the energy imparted is high enough (like playing high register notes), the air molecules farther away may still have enough energy to continue on beyond where they are "supposed" to "stop".
Long story short, without suitable engineering compensation, your flute will be horribly out of tune when you don't take into account all these real losses that the models simplify away when they are trying to explain things. "Cylindrical" bores and "conical" bores are just simplifications of the two broad compromises in flute design -- "cylindrical" bores have slight tapers nearer the head joint while the majority of the flute (i.e. the body + foot) are true cylinders; while "conical" bores have their tapers towards the foot of the flute body, with the head joint retaining a more or less cylindrical shape.
The ease of playing in low and high registers with respect to these two design choices is subjective. Humans are highly adaptable, so the real question is which of these two designs results in a flute that is more in tune with itself. A flute that is more in-tune with itself (i.e. when you overblow the pipe to select the appropriate standing wave mode, they form integer multiples of the fundamental frequency) will be easier to play across the registers. As to whether you can REACH the high notes, it depends on how easy it is to force anti-nodes at places where you WANT the wave length to be shorter (i.e. where you open your tone holes, and their sizes).
That said, I'm not the most knowledgeable about this. 😅
I would go as far as to say that in many cases, any differences in musical/artistic expression considerations end up with that particularly designed/made flute being designated differently---you can see this even in the Wikipedia list of flutes.
But for my internal learning reasons, I tend to group them differently to facilitate cross-system training, keeping close mind to how to express the actual music with the particular flute, while also observing the subtle differences in choices for the positions of the tone holes. That latter bit usually does not affect the lowest register of the flute in question (it's usually a diatonic major scale, or rarely, some minor scale like the shakuhachi's pentatonic minor scale), but it does affect what kind of middle/high register pitches we can attain.
In the end though, as what sifu said before: we adapt to the instrument; the instrument does not adapt to us---that is the very fundamental fact. It is after our experience from adapting to the instrument that we eventually learn of its limitations, and then decide if those limitations are truly stumbling blocks for our expression (in which case it is time for a ``better'' version of the instrument), or if they were deliberate artistic choices.
Playing High Notes Requires Blowing Edge Angle Changes, Not More Volumes of Air
In response to the poster replying ``It's a wooden bamboo flute brand new.. (sic)'' when the suggestion of leaks/bent keys was proposed in response to the poster's original complaint about inconsistency in sounding out the low notes while in scale with the knowledge that ``high notes have to be blown harder and the lower notes softer'', and the observation that when the poster focuses on just getting the right tone for these notes, it was effortless. The poster's original question was if more practice with breath work was required, stating an experience of about a year:
OP, no offense, but that doesn't mean anything.
If it has keys and associated pads, leakages are possible. Doesn't matter if it is metal, plastic, wood, or bamboo.
If it is a simple flute system with no keys/pads, leakages are still possible, except this time it is your fingers that aren't covering the holes properly. Again, it doesn't matter if it is metal, stone, plastic, wood, or bamboo.
It is only half correct that high notes need to be "blown on harder". You need a higher air speed, but you need it at a shallower angle (relative to directly across the embouchure hole) as compared to the low notes. So blowing "harder" but with the wrong angle does NOT cause the higher frequency harmonics of the standing wave to sound.
Air stream angle of attack on the blowing edge changes as the register of the flute being used changes, with the lower registers have steeper angles compared to the higher registers.
Air steam angles of attack are also affected by how you seat your flute's embouchure hole relative to your embouchure. Assuming that your flute is of a decent playable quality, you will need to find that sweet spot.
If you haven't had lessons with a teacher, you might want to consider having one to more accurately and quickly diagnose and fix any issues that you are facing as they can observe how you are playing. Often times when people are facing trouble in playing and they try to describe it in words, they tend to miss out quite a few very important points, because they aren't aware of what it is to look out for since there are so many minor things that can stack into a major problem. A good teacher can help with the awareness bit and can lead to geometric improvements in playing ability.
You have also asked the correct rhetoric question: everyone can always benefit from more practice, provided they are practicing CORRECTLY.
~48 Hours After mRNA-1273 Booster...
Okay, we're more than 48 hours since the booster jab, and frankly, I'm fine. I'm probably going to take one more dose of paracetamol, but then switch back to a more normal set up of... nothing.
This means that by the time I am done, I would have consumed 16× 500 mg of paracetamol for pain/fever relief. This also means that I am not doing any drinking to celebrate the upcoming new year.
That's not really that big of a problem, I suppose.
By my estimates, I think I will be completely fine by tomorrow.
That will be all for now. I'm going to continue putting together more fingering charts specific for the piccolo---I realised that the charts that I had set up for the regular concert flute are not that applicable for the piccolo due to the different acoustics. For one, the concert flute has a longer pipe with vent holes (C-foot/B-foot), which allows higher harmonics to be energised more easily. This means that the higher notes (instrument third register) require slightly different venting set ups on the piccolo (which cuts off at the end for register #1 D) to enable the higher notes to come out more correctly.
I can't make use of the chart for the one-keyed flute for the same reason why I cannot use the piccolo's fingering charts for the the dizi---the addition of two more ``trill key holes'' beyond the C♯ hole means that the piccolo can force new anti-nodes that are of a shorter wavelength than what the dizi and the one-keyed flute can.
Anyway, that last bit is a big tangent over what I wanted to report---the post 48-hour mark of the booster shot.
My point still stands: take the damn booster shot if one is eligible and able to. The cost-benefit analysis should weight outrageously towards being more beneficial than otherwise.
This means that by the time I am done, I would have consumed 16× 500 mg of paracetamol for pain/fever relief. This also means that I am not doing any drinking to celebrate the upcoming new year.
That's not really that big of a problem, I suppose.
By my estimates, I think I will be completely fine by tomorrow.
That will be all for now. I'm going to continue putting together more fingering charts specific for the piccolo---I realised that the charts that I had set up for the regular concert flute are not that applicable for the piccolo due to the different acoustics. For one, the concert flute has a longer pipe with vent holes (C-foot/B-foot), which allows higher harmonics to be energised more easily. This means that the higher notes (instrument third register) require slightly different venting set ups on the piccolo (which cuts off at the end for register #1 D) to enable the higher notes to come out more correctly.
I can't make use of the chart for the one-keyed flute for the same reason why I cannot use the piccolo's fingering charts for the the dizi---the addition of two more ``trill key holes'' beyond the C♯ hole means that the piccolo can force new anti-nodes that are of a shorter wavelength than what the dizi and the one-keyed flute can.
Anyway, that last bit is a big tangent over what I wanted to report---the post 48-hour mark of the booster shot.
My point still stands: take the damn booster shot if one is eligible and able to. The cost-benefit analysis should weight outrageously towards being more beneficial than otherwise.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Abuse Mechanic in PayNow?
So okay, thanks to the exigencies that is COVID-19, I find myself dragged through necessity to setting up and using ``PayNow'', sort of in the same way I got dragged into the whole stupid mess that is WhatsApp (that's another story for another day).
Anyway, I just want to share a potential abuse mechanic of the PayNow onboarding process. After one is set up, the next thing is to register the mobile phone number/NRIC of the recipient. You can basically enter any number there, and eventually you would be brought to a page where you would be required to enter a six-digit OTP that is sent to one's cellphone via SMS.
Now the potential abuse mechanic here is that the registering of a recipient number automatically reveals the name/nickname of the recipient number if the recipient already has a PayNow account linked up with their cellphone number. Considering that the effort here is ``just'' a single SMS OTP, it becomes a quick way to obtain more information that can be used in a targeted approach.
So, instead of just phishing with a generic message, with just a little effort, it is now possible to convert the generic phishing attempt into a spear phishing one.
I wonder what the mitigation can be for such an abuse mechanic?
Anyway, I just want to share a potential abuse mechanic of the PayNow onboarding process. After one is set up, the next thing is to register the mobile phone number/NRIC of the recipient. You can basically enter any number there, and eventually you would be brought to a page where you would be required to enter a six-digit OTP that is sent to one's cellphone via SMS.
Now the potential abuse mechanic here is that the registering of a recipient number automatically reveals the name/nickname of the recipient number if the recipient already has a PayNow account linked up with their cellphone number. Considering that the effort here is ``just'' a single SMS OTP, it becomes a quick way to obtain more information that can be used in a targeted approach.
So, instead of just phishing with a generic message, with just a little effort, it is now possible to convert the generic phishing attempt into a spear phishing one.
I wonder what the mitigation can be for such an abuse mechanic?
~24 Hours After mRNA-1273 Booster...
It's a little more than 24 hours since my booster shot. Frankly, apart from the soreness of the intramuscular injection and the overall fatigue that comes as my body consumes energy to activate the immune system to fight off the generated spike protein, I am still doing fine.
Brain's slow due to the fatigue though, that's for certain, and I definitely will not be literally running around for a bit, as stated in the suggested behaviours with respect to the post-booster shot.
That will be all for now. Till the next update.
Brain's slow due to the fatigue though, that's for certain, and I definitely will not be literally running around for a bit, as stated in the suggested behaviours with respect to the post-booster shot.
That will be all for now. Till the next update.
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Boosted But Sleepy
That booster shot... was something else.
I was at Buona Vista CC bright and early this morning, way ahead of the appointment time of eight. The stations weren't manned, and the signs were not really set up either. Eventually everything would be ready, and I just waited patiently for it.
Registration proceeded painlessly. The booster shot mRNA-1273 used a much lower amount compared to a regular vaccine dose (250 μL versus 500 μL), and the protocols seemed to be updated to require only 15 min of observation time as compared to 30 min. There were quite a few others who were present for their booster shots as well, but everything went smooth.
The injection site is a bit sore as per the usual intramuscular injections, but was generally un-notable. I did end up sleeping the whole day though, and supplementing myself with more food than usual.
And that's about it. Go get your damn booster shots if you are offered it---this is especially the case when they are heavily subsidised by your government in their overall management of the pandemic. That potential few days of impairment from side effects of the booster shot is nothing as compared to becoming yet another vector of infection for COVID-19, especially if one is living with or has close contact with people from the more vulnerable demographics.
And for those who have not even gotten their basic vaccination series for COVID-19 for no other reason than willful disobedience, fuck you and the horse you came on. You've had two years to observe how the pandemic has spread, and how the vaccines have protected people from death and the vulnerable from infection (the vulnerable's constitution isn't strong enough to fully recover from the infection). There is no excuse to not take the damn vaccine at this stage. And don't quote random verses from the Bible to protect your indefensible position, and don't even bother quoting whatever constitutional law that claims that your freedom of expression or whatever is being violated---the pandemic is not a conspiracy limited to only your country; it is happening world wide. No single national government in the world has that level of influence to create a national level conspiracy that seems to be global, and no group of national governments are competent enough to synchronise their conspiracies to such a degree that they are coherent, so get off your stupidity horse and start listening to medical experts for once.
Don't get me wrong, it's not the stubbon unvaccinated that I am trying to save here with my righteous anger---it's for those vulnerable who are medically unable to take the vaccinations or benefit from the vaccinations that I am trying to save here. Whenever there's a pool of people where the virus is allowed to proliferate, the overall likelihood of a new mutation that can evade whatever defenses we created via vaccination goes up geometrically. The more people are vaccinated, the less likely we have large pools of people from which the virus can pass on useful mutations across the different mutation groups. And the less likely we have useful mutations being passed along, the faster we can wind up this pandemic with an overall win for humanity.
That initial burn of COVID-19 has already passed---we are now in the tail-end management phase of the pandemic. This is likely to be long drawn as we strike ever deeper into harder and harder to reach populations to train their immune systems to fight off the virus faster. For reference, small pox took ten years of constant effort to eradicate complete. COVID-19 isn't going to be eradicated in ten years... especially not with this kind of ``vaccine hesitancy'' nonsense. In the mean time, death will still happen due to a failed fight against the infection, and there will always be those who are maimed badly from a prolonged fight without the pre-emptive training of the immune system via vaccination.
But I suppose those who do read my blog aren't completely dumb enough to fall into that category of people, right?
I was at Buona Vista CC bright and early this morning, way ahead of the appointment time of eight. The stations weren't manned, and the signs were not really set up either. Eventually everything would be ready, and I just waited patiently for it.
Registration proceeded painlessly. The booster shot mRNA-1273 used a much lower amount compared to a regular vaccine dose (250 μL versus 500 μL), and the protocols seemed to be updated to require only 15 min of observation time as compared to 30 min. There were quite a few others who were present for their booster shots as well, but everything went smooth.
The injection site is a bit sore as per the usual intramuscular injections, but was generally un-notable. I did end up sleeping the whole day though, and supplementing myself with more food than usual.
And that's about it. Go get your damn booster shots if you are offered it---this is especially the case when they are heavily subsidised by your government in their overall management of the pandemic. That potential few days of impairment from side effects of the booster shot is nothing as compared to becoming yet another vector of infection for COVID-19, especially if one is living with or has close contact with people from the more vulnerable demographics.
And for those who have not even gotten their basic vaccination series for COVID-19 for no other reason than willful disobedience, fuck you and the horse you came on. You've had two years to observe how the pandemic has spread, and how the vaccines have protected people from death and the vulnerable from infection (the vulnerable's constitution isn't strong enough to fully recover from the infection). There is no excuse to not take the damn vaccine at this stage. And don't quote random verses from the Bible to protect your indefensible position, and don't even bother quoting whatever constitutional law that claims that your freedom of expression or whatever is being violated---the pandemic is not a conspiracy limited to only your country; it is happening world wide. No single national government in the world has that level of influence to create a national level conspiracy that seems to be global, and no group of national governments are competent enough to synchronise their conspiracies to such a degree that they are coherent, so get off your stupidity horse and start listening to medical experts for once.
Don't get me wrong, it's not the stubbon unvaccinated that I am trying to save here with my righteous anger---it's for those vulnerable who are medically unable to take the vaccinations or benefit from the vaccinations that I am trying to save here. Whenever there's a pool of people where the virus is allowed to proliferate, the overall likelihood of a new mutation that can evade whatever defenses we created via vaccination goes up geometrically. The more people are vaccinated, the less likely we have large pools of people from which the virus can pass on useful mutations across the different mutation groups. And the less likely we have useful mutations being passed along, the faster we can wind up this pandemic with an overall win for humanity.
That initial burn of COVID-19 has already passed---we are now in the tail-end management phase of the pandemic. This is likely to be long drawn as we strike ever deeper into harder and harder to reach populations to train their immune systems to fight off the virus faster. For reference, small pox took ten years of constant effort to eradicate complete. COVID-19 isn't going to be eradicated in ten years... especially not with this kind of ``vaccine hesitancy'' nonsense. In the mean time, death will still happen due to a failed fight against the infection, and there will always be those who are maimed badly from a prolonged fight without the pre-emptive training of the immune system via vaccination.
But I suppose those who do read my blog aren't completely dumb enough to fall into that category of people, right?
Monday, December 27, 2021
Everything Comes Together
One theme from my baptism testimony was how God was always orchestrating things according to His way, and how I have always been caught up by His plans in general without my interfering.
Today is something of that example.
I finally received notice from MOH in the morning that I am now eligible for the booster vaccine, and so I quickly went online to sort out the appointment date. Considering that I would be starting work on Monday, it was important that I do not start it while under the side effects of the booster. I had been on Comirnarty earlier for the original shots, and naturally I was going for the Spikevax (Moderna COVID-19) one instead. The unfortunate thing was that the number of vaccination centres in SIN city that provided Spikevax had been greatly reduced, and more importantly, most had their earliest available time slots being set on Thursday. That is a little too late for my liking, and it was a showdown between Buona Vista CC, and Hong Kah North CC. Of these two, I was most familiar with the location of Buona Vista CC, and so I grabbed the earliest slot that they had, which was tomorrow first thing in the morning.
Subsequently, I received notice from my audiologist's secretary that my earplugs were ready, with a request for a convenient time for me to show up and test them out. By that time, it was past one, and had this come earlier, I would have set the appointment to Tuesday instead. But I already had it marked down for the booster shot---I was not going to risk running about with potential side effects to test out something that required my fullest attention to learn how to use effectively. And so I suggested some time today, before the meet up with the care group's dinner.
The timing worked out well, and I went down to have it tested, only for us to realise that our worst fears on how the sharp angle on my ear canal made the insertion of the ear plug exceedingly difficult. And so it would be another week before a modified version would be ready for trying. I had also taken the opportunity to take the complimentary hearing test, and it turned out that I was not as deaf as I thought I was. There was some discrepancy for my hearing between my two ears across the tested frequencies of 125 Hz to 8 kHz in octave bands, with my left ear being less sensitive to the lower frequencies while my right ear was less sensitive for the higher frequencies. A bone conduction test was done and it was verified that there was nothing wrong with my hearing nerve, and a further test confirmed that my ear drum was not as flexible as it should. All in all, my overall hearing sensitivity spanned between 15 dB HL to 30 dB HL, which translates to the qualitative assessment of mild hearing loss, which leads to minor confusion of sounds. Any further assessment would likely involve the ENT, though to be fair, most of my hearing was within the normal hearing range on average.
There was no dip near the 4 kHz frequency, a usual indicator for noise-related hearing damage. Neither was there any noticeable drop logarithmically as the frequencies in the high range increased from 1.5 kHz to 8 kHz---this means that age-related hearing loss was not present.
So I am satisfied with my hearing, and now know how best to mitigate the types of sounds that I want to hear most clearly.
Relating back to how God's plans work out, it's a good thing in many ways that I could get all these important things sorted out before I started work. I am glad that it has turned out the way it has.
Fellowship dinner with the care group was heartening, as always. The food was good, and the company was great. The weather was trolling, but that was to be expected considering that the place where we were meeting to eat was near the coastal regions of SIN city after all.
And with that is the entry for today. Till the next update.
Today is something of that example.
I finally received notice from MOH in the morning that I am now eligible for the booster vaccine, and so I quickly went online to sort out the appointment date. Considering that I would be starting work on Monday, it was important that I do not start it while under the side effects of the booster. I had been on Comirnarty earlier for the original shots, and naturally I was going for the Spikevax (Moderna COVID-19) one instead. The unfortunate thing was that the number of vaccination centres in SIN city that provided Spikevax had been greatly reduced, and more importantly, most had their earliest available time slots being set on Thursday. That is a little too late for my liking, and it was a showdown between Buona Vista CC, and Hong Kah North CC. Of these two, I was most familiar with the location of Buona Vista CC, and so I grabbed the earliest slot that they had, which was tomorrow first thing in the morning.
Subsequently, I received notice from my audiologist's secretary that my earplugs were ready, with a request for a convenient time for me to show up and test them out. By that time, it was past one, and had this come earlier, I would have set the appointment to Tuesday instead. But I already had it marked down for the booster shot---I was not going to risk running about with potential side effects to test out something that required my fullest attention to learn how to use effectively. And so I suggested some time today, before the meet up with the care group's dinner.
The timing worked out well, and I went down to have it tested, only for us to realise that our worst fears on how the sharp angle on my ear canal made the insertion of the ear plug exceedingly difficult. And so it would be another week before a modified version would be ready for trying. I had also taken the opportunity to take the complimentary hearing test, and it turned out that I was not as deaf as I thought I was. There was some discrepancy for my hearing between my two ears across the tested frequencies of 125 Hz to 8 kHz in octave bands, with my left ear being less sensitive to the lower frequencies while my right ear was less sensitive for the higher frequencies. A bone conduction test was done and it was verified that there was nothing wrong with my hearing nerve, and a further test confirmed that my ear drum was not as flexible as it should. All in all, my overall hearing sensitivity spanned between 15 dB HL to 30 dB HL, which translates to the qualitative assessment of mild hearing loss, which leads to minor confusion of sounds. Any further assessment would likely involve the ENT, though to be fair, most of my hearing was within the normal hearing range on average.
There was no dip near the 4 kHz frequency, a usual indicator for noise-related hearing damage. Neither was there any noticeable drop logarithmically as the frequencies in the high range increased from 1.5 kHz to 8 kHz---this means that age-related hearing loss was not present.
So I am satisfied with my hearing, and now know how best to mitigate the types of sounds that I want to hear most clearly.
Relating back to how God's plans work out, it's a good thing in many ways that I could get all these important things sorted out before I started work. I am glad that it has turned out the way it has.
Fellowship dinner with the care group was heartening, as always. The food was good, and the company was great. The weather was trolling, but that was to be expected considering that the place where we were meeting to eat was near the coastal regions of SIN city after all.
And with that is the entry for today. Till the next update.
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Today, Was a Good Day
Today, was a good day.
An old friend reconnected with me, and I shared the news of my baptism with a couple of other dear friends as well.
The day passed on by uneventfully, with me reading a few more chapters of The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew.
If only all days were to be like this... but that can not be. Simply because we are still living in the fallen world, and in this world, there will always be ups and downs in the days just so that we can separate between them, to learn from the days that are down, and to rejoice in the days that are up.
I don't really have much else to talk about, so I will keep this short. This end-of-year moment is really one that I would remember for quite a while, not because it was very eventful, but how it was the end of the true and proper break that I had in so long.
There really isn't many days left till the end of 2021. Here's to hoping that it will pass on by quietly and without drama.
Till the next update.
An old friend reconnected with me, and I shared the news of my baptism with a couple of other dear friends as well.
The day passed on by uneventfully, with me reading a few more chapters of The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew.
If only all days were to be like this... but that can not be. Simply because we are still living in the fallen world, and in this world, there will always be ups and downs in the days just so that we can separate between them, to learn from the days that are down, and to rejoice in the days that are up.
I don't really have much else to talk about, so I will keep this short. This end-of-year moment is really one that I would remember for quite a while, not because it was very eventful, but how it was the end of the true and proper break that I had in so long.
There really isn't many days left till the end of 2021. Here's to hoping that it will pass on by quietly and without drama.
Till the next update.
Saturday, December 25, 2021
I Am Baptised
Long story short, I have been baptised in a Protestant church.
Henceforth I am a publicly declared man of God.
That's all for this entry. Till the next update.
Henceforth I am a publicly declared man of God.
That's all for this entry. Till the next update.
Friday, December 24, 2021
Blunt Affect or This Title Does Not Fit the Contents, Mayhaps
I spent much of the day digging out another couple of floors in the hill of my base in Minecraft while having various Hololive VODs running in the background to keep my company. I also watched a few ESA Summer VODs as well, and discovered Lion Speedrunners Assembly, a SIN city speedrunning crew.
It's the eve of Christmas; there isn't much to talk about since I'm holed up in my apartment with only my thoughts to myself. I satisfied my craving of hash browns in the morning with a big meal from McDonald's, and compensated with a light dinner of only two small Char Siew Paus and a Hong Kong styled Chee Cheong Fun washed down with a herbal tea.
That last meal was about seven hours ago. It's fine.
Tomorrow I am getting baptised. Am I excited? Well... barely. I hope it isn't because of some blunted affect thing that I have going on---I also have the same level of excitement when it came to actually starting work on Jan 03, i.e. barely.
More realistically though, logistics is on my mind, but it isn't something that I am not ready to handle.
I swear it is possible to simultaneously belong to a group of people and also feel like one is an outsider---it is, after all, my default state of being anyway. And unlike most people, I have more than thirty years of experience doing that, so I ought to be fine.
Mayhaps.
But as they say, if one wants/needs something and doesn't say it out loud, it is unrealistic to expect others to realise that one is having a need/want. So the real question to ask is, to what extent am I willing to lose myself into a group so that I am inexorably intertwined with the group's identity.
The short answer is probably slim to none. I believe in thinking for myself and making my own damn decisions about things. Groupthink is the one big thing that I always try to avoid as much as I can.
``But MT, didn't you just say that you are getting baptised? Isn't the church like the biggest groupthink organisation in the world?''
Yes, sort of. I don't follow a personality or a denomination of church---I aim to follow Christ Himself. That is why I am at this particular [independent] church, whose doctrine can be distilled to ``please read the Bible carefully and apply it accordingly''. Personalities can be corrupted by the relative power that a congregation can bring, while denominations of churches can introduce other elements that are more likely to be substantiated by a cultural tradition than what is based on Biblical truths. To me, the Bible is an inerrant source of truth for living---one should not take away or add things to it and claim that it is still a part of the Bible itself. If the Bible doesn't say about something, it's because that something is irrelevant to the moral living code that the Bible seeks to explain, together with the great plan of salvation since fallible humans can never be righteous on their own merits.
``But MT, you still didn't refute the `groupthink' aspect I raised!''
I think I did. ``Groupthink'' is the mindless following of a paradigm; there is no attempt to even consider alternatives or explanations as to why a particular decision/course of action is made. One is in groupthink when one seemingly loses their ability to exercise their own mental faculties and free will; one is not in groupthink just because they agree with someone's words alone. In many ways, while both outcomes are the same, the path taken by someone in groupthink is devoid of critical thinking, while the path taken by someone not in groupthink has at least some semblence of internal debate for understanding before a free-willed decision is made.
So, following a body of people blindly is groupthink, while following a body of people after thinking long and hard about their positions and comparing against one's personal positions isn't.
Anyway, groupthink is just a diversion. The point here is that while I am in a group, I just don't believe that the joining of the group involves the sacrificing of one's self to lose free will. If we fall into that type of behaviour, then we are no better than a machine as opposed to a thinking, feeling, living person. That ``outsider'' feeling is probably just a visceral reaction towards this sense of self that I am unwilling to lose completely while in a group.
Does that make me hypocritical in the sense that I use a ``manufactured'' persona in groups then? No, I don't think so. There's nothing ``manufactured'' about the way I behave---I am the same pendejo within and without the group, to misquote a comedian.
Anyway, it's still more trite observations and drivel. I'm sorry that you have to read the 600+ words of uninteresting brain-dump that is ultimately meaningless.
Till the next update, I suppose.
It's the eve of Christmas; there isn't much to talk about since I'm holed up in my apartment with only my thoughts to myself. I satisfied my craving of hash browns in the morning with a big meal from McDonald's, and compensated with a light dinner of only two small Char Siew Paus and a Hong Kong styled Chee Cheong Fun washed down with a herbal tea.
That last meal was about seven hours ago. It's fine.
Tomorrow I am getting baptised. Am I excited? Well... barely. I hope it isn't because of some blunted affect thing that I have going on---I also have the same level of excitement when it came to actually starting work on Jan 03, i.e. barely.
More realistically though, logistics is on my mind, but it isn't something that I am not ready to handle.
I swear it is possible to simultaneously belong to a group of people and also feel like one is an outsider---it is, after all, my default state of being anyway. And unlike most people, I have more than thirty years of experience doing that, so I ought to be fine.
Mayhaps.
But as they say, if one wants/needs something and doesn't say it out loud, it is unrealistic to expect others to realise that one is having a need/want. So the real question to ask is, to what extent am I willing to lose myself into a group so that I am inexorably intertwined with the group's identity.
The short answer is probably slim to none. I believe in thinking for myself and making my own damn decisions about things. Groupthink is the one big thing that I always try to avoid as much as I can.
``But MT, didn't you just say that you are getting baptised? Isn't the church like the biggest groupthink organisation in the world?''
Yes, sort of. I don't follow a personality or a denomination of church---I aim to follow Christ Himself. That is why I am at this particular [independent] church, whose doctrine can be distilled to ``please read the Bible carefully and apply it accordingly''. Personalities can be corrupted by the relative power that a congregation can bring, while denominations of churches can introduce other elements that are more likely to be substantiated by a cultural tradition than what is based on Biblical truths. To me, the Bible is an inerrant source of truth for living---one should not take away or add things to it and claim that it is still a part of the Bible itself. If the Bible doesn't say about something, it's because that something is irrelevant to the moral living code that the Bible seeks to explain, together with the great plan of salvation since fallible humans can never be righteous on their own merits.
``But MT, you still didn't refute the `groupthink' aspect I raised!''
I think I did. ``Groupthink'' is the mindless following of a paradigm; there is no attempt to even consider alternatives or explanations as to why a particular decision/course of action is made. One is in groupthink when one seemingly loses their ability to exercise their own mental faculties and free will; one is not in groupthink just because they agree with someone's words alone. In many ways, while both outcomes are the same, the path taken by someone in groupthink is devoid of critical thinking, while the path taken by someone not in groupthink has at least some semblence of internal debate for understanding before a free-willed decision is made.
So, following a body of people blindly is groupthink, while following a body of people after thinking long and hard about their positions and comparing against one's personal positions isn't.
Anyway, groupthink is just a diversion. The point here is that while I am in a group, I just don't believe that the joining of the group involves the sacrificing of one's self to lose free will. If we fall into that type of behaviour, then we are no better than a machine as opposed to a thinking, feeling, living person. That ``outsider'' feeling is probably just a visceral reaction towards this sense of self that I am unwilling to lose completely while in a group.
Does that make me hypocritical in the sense that I use a ``manufactured'' persona in groups then? No, I don't think so. There's nothing ``manufactured'' about the way I behave---I am the same pendejo within and without the group, to misquote a comedian.
Anyway, it's still more trite observations and drivel. I'm sorry that you have to read the 600+ words of uninteresting brain-dump that is ultimately meaningless.
Till the next update, I suppose.
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Disappointment and Bird's Eye Tour of Hilltop Base
Hm, the ``year end blues'' have finally started hitting. I was expecting it any day now, so it wasn't really that much of a surprise.
Speaking of expecting things, here's a lesson for the road: to avoid disappointment, try to remove as much expectation as possible within one's life. The logic is at least explainable without having to invoke God (sorry God, not that You are not in charge, but that I am trying to convince someone, so faith is not a valid approach). Let the set of possible outcomes be U. If we develop expectation, what we are saying is that there is some subset S such that S⊂U contains the set of outcomes that we are interested in. We define a disappointment as the event where we obtain an outcome o∈U such that o∉S. Clearly then, the more specific our expectation (i.e. the smaller S is), the larger the number of events that are not contained in it. Sicne we are not clairvoyant, we may assume that the events in U are all equiprobability, so the cardinality of U\S is directly proportional to the probability of disappointment.
Thus, if we set S=∅, then we can never be disappointed since U\S=U, i.e. we are willing to accept whatever possible outcomes appear and roll with it.
Us believers are assured by our faith that in the long run, God is in control and has a plan, and so any small ``bumps'' of seeming set backs are unimportant to the whole picture.
The reason for raising the whole disappointment arc (and the year end blues really) is just a light reflection of an outcome that showed itself up today. I just want to say that if something is important enough for one, then it is always important to plan contingencies to the extent that one is able to assert control over, after which everything else we will leave it to God. That's what I do... partly because I never want to be a burden to others, and partly because as a trained computer scientist working (or going to work) as an engineer, it is our duty to think ahead from the perspective of what the system can/cannot do, and to engineer things so that we maximise what we need the system to do, minimise what we don't want the system to do, all while keeping things affordable and on time, applying the knowledge and experience that we have developed in our specific domains of expertise.
That's about all I want to raise about this for now. Maybe I'll have more to mumble about, but we'll just have to see.
------
The thing about Minecraft is that every thing that we do in the world has a sense of permanence. Minecraft has been described by some as virtual Legos, but the analogy doesn't quite capture the allure of the game. As most of us know, at the end of the day, all Legos constructions need to be taken apart back to their original component pieces to be packed away so that we can play with them another day. Some might protest about this concept, but I would gently point out that they are building Legos model kits as opposed to playing with the Legos---they are not the same.
Minecraft, as I mentioned, has permanence. Build a house today, and the next time we load the world, the house will still be there, especially if it is in single player. Dig a long-ass tunnel underground, and it will remain there, possibly populated with mobs the next time you log in. Permanence... this is what makes Minecraft an excellent game to putter about when there's nothing better to do, since any and all changes stay in the game world. Not to mention that there is no real ``end state'' of the game---it being a genuine sandbox game means that apart from the basic physics and [crafting] chemistry, the scope of what one does in game is limited only by the imagination of the player. Yes, there is a game-like ``goal'' of killing the Ender Dragon, but even after doing that, it is not the end of the game itself---there are more resources to gather, more physics to play with, and more construction/exploration of the world map one can get involved in.
That was also why I was hesitant of dropping my old map to launch a brand new one in 1.18.1.
Anyway, I spent much of the day just puttering about. I seem to develop an interest in digging out the hill that my base is sitting on, but through layers and using glass to cap the exposed ends, creating something that looks like an apartment layout. You can see the exposed ends of it here:
I also built a simple red-stone based archery range with distance markers every 5 blocks. At the 15-block mark, I built a moving minecart to simulate movement of the target. Man, shooting from that moveing minecart is hard.
Actually, let me just put up the hilltop base plan and give a simple tour.
The bottom red-bricked rectangle with the six beacons atop an iron block pyramid is my sleeping area, warehouse, and enchantment corner. To its right is my miniature factory for smelting cobble stones, glass, beef, as well as my mini-iron farm which also generates bone meal. Exiting to the left are two parallel minecart rails---they are the original overworld lines that lead to my mob farm (line below) and the end portal (line above).
Across the one-block chasm from my red brick living quarters where I split the original hill is the large rectangular farming platform. On the extreme left is the wool farm with all sixteen coloured wools. Then sweeping from left to right and top to bottom are my automated chicken & feather farm, my automated chicken egg farm, my manual cow pasture with dual fence gates, my manual watermelon and pumpkin farms. The middle is then my airlock controlled apiary with associated flower bed, with the red brick structure housing my nether portal, and my netherwart plot.
Continuing the sweep, one would find the newly constructed archery range, the manual carrot farm, the manual potato farm, and manual wheat farm. The right side would find my manual beet farm, followed by a small complex of my automated sugar cane farm, my semi-automatic bonemeal composter, and automatic cactus farm.
It's not a great Minecraft build by any account, but it has been quite fun building it up all throughout this sabbatical year. The surrounding areas (except for the left) have been denuded with my tree chopping sprints, and there is an extensively empty 3-block high layer that is my deep mines that supplied all the stone and minerals I needed. Glass came from sand way out in the desert. I used Jack O'Lanterns as my main light source due to their relative ease of creation compared to Glowstones that require extensive digging through the nether (Jack O'Lanterns just required carved pumpkins and torches, and those are quite easy to make/obtain).
Well, that's about all I want to talk about. Till the next update, I suppose.
Speaking of expecting things, here's a lesson for the road: to avoid disappointment, try to remove as much expectation as possible within one's life. The logic is at least explainable without having to invoke God (sorry God, not that You are not in charge, but that I am trying to convince someone, so faith is not a valid approach). Let the set of possible outcomes be U. If we develop expectation, what we are saying is that there is some subset S such that S⊂U contains the set of outcomes that we are interested in. We define a disappointment as the event where we obtain an outcome o∈U such that o∉S. Clearly then, the more specific our expectation (i.e. the smaller S is), the larger the number of events that are not contained in it. Sicne we are not clairvoyant, we may assume that the events in U are all equiprobability, so the cardinality of U\S is directly proportional to the probability of disappointment.
Thus, if we set S=∅, then we can never be disappointed since U\S=U, i.e. we are willing to accept whatever possible outcomes appear and roll with it.
Us believers are assured by our faith that in the long run, God is in control and has a plan, and so any small ``bumps'' of seeming set backs are unimportant to the whole picture.
The reason for raising the whole disappointment arc (and the year end blues really) is just a light reflection of an outcome that showed itself up today. I just want to say that if something is important enough for one, then it is always important to plan contingencies to the extent that one is able to assert control over, after which everything else we will leave it to God. That's what I do... partly because I never want to be a burden to others, and partly because as a trained computer scientist working (or going to work) as an engineer, it is our duty to think ahead from the perspective of what the system can/cannot do, and to engineer things so that we maximise what we need the system to do, minimise what we don't want the system to do, all while keeping things affordable and on time, applying the knowledge and experience that we have developed in our specific domains of expertise.
That's about all I want to raise about this for now. Maybe I'll have more to mumble about, but we'll just have to see.
------
The thing about Minecraft is that every thing that we do in the world has a sense of permanence. Minecraft has been described by some as virtual Legos, but the analogy doesn't quite capture the allure of the game. As most of us know, at the end of the day, all Legos constructions need to be taken apart back to their original component pieces to be packed away so that we can play with them another day. Some might protest about this concept, but I would gently point out that they are building Legos model kits as opposed to playing with the Legos---they are not the same.
Minecraft, as I mentioned, has permanence. Build a house today, and the next time we load the world, the house will still be there, especially if it is in single player. Dig a long-ass tunnel underground, and it will remain there, possibly populated with mobs the next time you log in. Permanence... this is what makes Minecraft an excellent game to putter about when there's nothing better to do, since any and all changes stay in the game world. Not to mention that there is no real ``end state'' of the game---it being a genuine sandbox game means that apart from the basic physics and [crafting] chemistry, the scope of what one does in game is limited only by the imagination of the player. Yes, there is a game-like ``goal'' of killing the Ender Dragon, but even after doing that, it is not the end of the game itself---there are more resources to gather, more physics to play with, and more construction/exploration of the world map one can get involved in.
That was also why I was hesitant of dropping my old map to launch a brand new one in 1.18.1.
Anyway, I spent much of the day just puttering about. I seem to develop an interest in digging out the hill that my base is sitting on, but through layers and using glass to cap the exposed ends, creating something that looks like an apartment layout. You can see the exposed ends of it here:
Actually, let me just put up the hilltop base plan and give a simple tour.
Across the one-block chasm from my red brick living quarters where I split the original hill is the large rectangular farming platform. On the extreme left is the wool farm with all sixteen coloured wools. Then sweeping from left to right and top to bottom are my automated chicken & feather farm, my automated chicken egg farm, my manual cow pasture with dual fence gates, my manual watermelon and pumpkin farms. The middle is then my airlock controlled apiary with associated flower bed, with the red brick structure housing my nether portal, and my netherwart plot.
Continuing the sweep, one would find the newly constructed archery range, the manual carrot farm, the manual potato farm, and manual wheat farm. The right side would find my manual beet farm, followed by a small complex of my automated sugar cane farm, my semi-automatic bonemeal composter, and automatic cactus farm.
It's not a great Minecraft build by any account, but it has been quite fun building it up all throughout this sabbatical year. The surrounding areas (except for the left) have been denuded with my tree chopping sprints, and there is an extensively empty 3-block high layer that is my deep mines that supplied all the stone and minerals I needed. Glass came from sand way out in the desert. I used Jack O'Lanterns as my main light source due to their relative ease of creation compared to Glowstones that require extensive digging through the nether (Jack O'Lanterns just required carved pumpkins and torches, and those are quite easy to make/obtain).
Well, that's about all I want to talk about. Till the next update, I suppose.
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Dragging My Quasi-Survival Solo Player into 1.18.1
Alright, today was a calm day.
I talked about the whole Minecraft 1.18.1 updates, and how I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring my tech-laden world up from 1.17.1 to 1.18.1. I chose to in the end. The reason was simple: I had lots of resources and the associated technology/buildings from 1.17.1 that would remain unchanged in 1.18.1, and the new extension of the depth by another 64 blocks did not affect my resources in any bit, since I already have generated much of the chunks before, and have mined lots of resources beforehand.
Besides, I did try to play a 1.18.1 map from scratch, and was really bored. The cave systems was fine from an adventure perspective, but when it comes to resource accumulation and the cathartic ``mindless'' mining part of Minecraft, it really felt lacking.
And I had invested in enough infrastructure in my 1.17.1 world that having to start all over again in 1.18.1, with the newer more scarce resource distribution just felt like work. This was different from the transition of the new 1.17 world while ignoring my old 1.16.5 map---I really had not advanced far in 1.16.5, and there was sufficient distance of time for me to be willing to forego the scant progress that I had made in that map and start anew.
The 1.17.1 world that I have represents a compact-type of set up that I was striving for---I had miniature factories and my warehouse all set up in a moderate building atop a hill. I dug a deep shaft to the then bedrock level, and mined out three blocks height's worth of resources along the plane. It was as compact a mining operation as it could be. I had carved the hill into half, and flattened the other side enough to create a massive platform from the mined resources to house the more spread-out factories. My nether portal led to a miniature rail hub that led to various interesting parts, like my end portal, my blaze hunting grounds, the jungle biome, and my simple mob farm.
I liked what I had done, and I had done much more than I had ever thought I would in Minecraft. Ditching all that for 1.18.1 felt wrong.
And so, my 1.17.1 world is now brought into the 1.18.1 one, and I did some work dropping another shaft down to the new bedrock level, and extended my water elevator to service that. I also lit up the deep cave that was present, but have no plans to develop anything at that layer just yet. I think I might bring this world map into 1.19 when it turns up, with the fabled Warden and other tough mobs in the deep dark. I also started creating large rooms within the hill that my base was sitting on---so far I had only built upwards, using the hill mostly as a foundation, rather than actually building into the hill itself. I couldn't do it before because it would require too much resources that I didn't have then, things like glass, or even pick-axes with silk touch or just better mining efficiencies. I've cleared out two floors for rooms, and that's when I stopped---I'll probably work out what to do with them later on. Maybe a larger storage mechanism or something?
Anyway, that's all I'd like to update for now. Till the next one then.
I talked about the whole Minecraft 1.18.1 updates, and how I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring my tech-laden world up from 1.17.1 to 1.18.1. I chose to in the end. The reason was simple: I had lots of resources and the associated technology/buildings from 1.17.1 that would remain unchanged in 1.18.1, and the new extension of the depth by another 64 blocks did not affect my resources in any bit, since I already have generated much of the chunks before, and have mined lots of resources beforehand.
Besides, I did try to play a 1.18.1 map from scratch, and was really bored. The cave systems was fine from an adventure perspective, but when it comes to resource accumulation and the cathartic ``mindless'' mining part of Minecraft, it really felt lacking.
And I had invested in enough infrastructure in my 1.17.1 world that having to start all over again in 1.18.1, with the newer more scarce resource distribution just felt like work. This was different from the transition of the new 1.17 world while ignoring my old 1.16.5 map---I really had not advanced far in 1.16.5, and there was sufficient distance of time for me to be willing to forego the scant progress that I had made in that map and start anew.
The 1.17.1 world that I have represents a compact-type of set up that I was striving for---I had miniature factories and my warehouse all set up in a moderate building atop a hill. I dug a deep shaft to the then bedrock level, and mined out three blocks height's worth of resources along the plane. It was as compact a mining operation as it could be. I had carved the hill into half, and flattened the other side enough to create a massive platform from the mined resources to house the more spread-out factories. My nether portal led to a miniature rail hub that led to various interesting parts, like my end portal, my blaze hunting grounds, the jungle biome, and my simple mob farm.
I liked what I had done, and I had done much more than I had ever thought I would in Minecraft. Ditching all that for 1.18.1 felt wrong.
And so, my 1.17.1 world is now brought into the 1.18.1 one, and I did some work dropping another shaft down to the new bedrock level, and extended my water elevator to service that. I also lit up the deep cave that was present, but have no plans to develop anything at that layer just yet. I think I might bring this world map into 1.19 when it turns up, with the fabled Warden and other tough mobs in the deep dark. I also started creating large rooms within the hill that my base was sitting on---so far I had only built upwards, using the hill mostly as a foundation, rather than actually building into the hill itself. I couldn't do it before because it would require too much resources that I didn't have then, things like glass, or even pick-axes with silk touch or just better mining efficiencies. I've cleared out two floors for rooms, and that's when I stopped---I'll probably work out what to do with them later on. Maybe a larger storage mechanism or something?
Anyway, that's all I'd like to update for now. Till the next one then.
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Inching to the End of the Year
Today was mostly a reading sort of day, and a continuation of the slow shutting down of various internal processes that were allowed to run free during my sabbatical.
You see, as the sabbatical year reaches its end, and I start to get closer to when I begin work anew, a certain adjustment in my lifestyle is required once more. No more am I allowed by the conditions stipulated for work to wake up at nine or ten in the morning having slept at like two. There is also a need to change my mindset to rebalance it, from the more ``survival'' instinct that I was having during my sabbatical to one that is closer to being of a ``thriving'' instinct.
I wasn't kidding when I said that it would be a closing of a long chapter and the opening of a new one. Not sure if I said that some where among the 370+ posts this year over here, or in some conversation with someone.
Future is still bleak, don't get me wrong. There are still many things that can and will go wrong, and not all of them will be controllable by me. But among the bleakness that might extend for several years, there are still pockets of happiness that I can look forward to, and that's where I suppose my sabbatical has done the most in helping me remember and rediscover.
Like the voracious habit of reading without caring about the world.
Like the ability to just improvise tunes continuously on any flute (or instrument that I am competent in, really) for as long as I care to.
Like the silly retro-programming involving vintage technology.
Like playing those PC/video games that I used to play in years back via legally gray means that I can now (over the past decade, really) pay for official ports/versions to play.
Like catching up on a more active [unscripted] slice of life type entertainment that is Hololive, an extension and evolution of the slice of life comics that I loved (of which many have either stopped after fifteen years, or have evolved into more unbelievable contexts as the disconnect between the writer/artist and the characters increases) and the artist collective-type videos that I enjoy.
Like going for walks on my own, just taking in the sights of the world around, being an observer.
Like remembering who I am, what I stand for, and how I really don't have to put up with certain types of behaviour/people not because of my superiority, but because I am an adult and have the means to live through the consequences of my choices in a more robust way.
Like writing down the things that I observe and think about for no reason other than just wanting to write it down.
The future is still bleak though, but those little things I highlighted that I learnt from my sabbatical, they are the little bits of happiness that I can hold on to when I need them. Notice also that ``linking up with friends'' isn't on the list, for the simple reason that as I enter this particular age group (``middle age'' for those who are keeping score), we don't really have friends any more.
Or rather, we don't really have [many if any] close friends any more. The few we have are still close, but the reality is that everyone, on hitting ``middle age'', have their own [out-sized] demons to slay. And a large number of them will have significant others, either in the process of getting married or already married. And as they say, the heart of a lover is as jealous as the fragility of glass---they might be married, but they aren't some twenty-year old couple who really know each other inside out to not second-guess whether that old friend of theirs is truly just an old friend, or someone else altogether.
With that kind of a major life commitment, their life path just isn't going to be as parallel as mine, no matter how close we were before. It's never an outright rejection---everyone's just too polite to do that---but the drift will always happen.
Actually, it has already happened. Many times, in fact.
I feel a little bad about it, but it's just the way it is. Maybe ten years down the road, someone might remember and try to look me up again to talk about the old times, but that's not a bet I am willing to take.
As they say, out of sight, out of mind. And it happens both ways too---there are people that I end up just not wanting to reconnect again for whatever reasons, most of which is prosaic in nature. Or maybe they are just terrible people that I shouldn't reconnect because I'm just not strong enough to withstand their terribleness the way Jesus is strong against His critics.
No need to set up my own stumbling block, eh?
------
I completed Robert's Rules of Order in Brief today. It's a nice little hand book that summarises the basic rules when it comes to running decision meetings.
``MT, a rule book on decision meetings? That sounds lame... and more importantly, it exists?''
Yes, it exists. This is just the summary though---there is a more authoritative tome that describes the basic rules (20%) and all the other exceptions (80%) that is called Robert's Rules of Order. I don't think I'm going to read it.
In general, the book (the brief one I mean), is an interesting read. It is a bit overkill for small decision meetings (small being less than five people), but it provides an excellent framework for handling massive deliberative meetings that involve tens of people.
Think ``parliament'', ``senate'', ``company annual general meeting'' and the like.
It's really a communications protocol book for humans. There's a mutex (``being recognised by the chairperson to have the floor''), a trusted central coordinator (``the chairperson of the meeting''), formal messages and associated syntaxes (the different ``motions'' available), all set up to ensure that the conveyance of the question that requires a decision will be understood by all, debated/deliberated fairly and timely, before being finally resolved (or postponed).
In my years working with people who make decisions in meetings, this is the first time that I am exposed to such a formalised rulebook. At no time was I ever told that such a protocol book even existed; much of how I conducted meetings was based on whatever I learnt from the meetings that I was a part of.
And somehow, I suspect that many of the meetings that I was a part of were run by people who probably also did not know about the existence of such a protocol book, and were just cobbling whatever they had observed before in imitation.
No wonder meetings are seen as the bane of the modern workplace.
In other readings, I have finally started on The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew. Make what you will of it; I'll just say that it is interesting to see the context that had shaped his point of view and choice of style in ruling SIN city.
I think that's about it for today. Till the next update.
You see, as the sabbatical year reaches its end, and I start to get closer to when I begin work anew, a certain adjustment in my lifestyle is required once more. No more am I allowed by the conditions stipulated for work to wake up at nine or ten in the morning having slept at like two. There is also a need to change my mindset to rebalance it, from the more ``survival'' instinct that I was having during my sabbatical to one that is closer to being of a ``thriving'' instinct.
I wasn't kidding when I said that it would be a closing of a long chapter and the opening of a new one. Not sure if I said that some where among the 370+ posts this year over here, or in some conversation with someone.
Future is still bleak, don't get me wrong. There are still many things that can and will go wrong, and not all of them will be controllable by me. But among the bleakness that might extend for several years, there are still pockets of happiness that I can look forward to, and that's where I suppose my sabbatical has done the most in helping me remember and rediscover.
Like the voracious habit of reading without caring about the world.
Like the ability to just improvise tunes continuously on any flute (or instrument that I am competent in, really) for as long as I care to.
Like the silly retro-programming involving vintage technology.
Like playing those PC/video games that I used to play in years back via legally gray means that I can now (over the past decade, really) pay for official ports/versions to play.
Like catching up on a more active [unscripted] slice of life type entertainment that is Hololive, an extension and evolution of the slice of life comics that I loved (of which many have either stopped after fifteen years, or have evolved into more unbelievable contexts as the disconnect between the writer/artist and the characters increases) and the artist collective-type videos that I enjoy.
Like going for walks on my own, just taking in the sights of the world around, being an observer.
Like remembering who I am, what I stand for, and how I really don't have to put up with certain types of behaviour/people not because of my superiority, but because I am an adult and have the means to live through the consequences of my choices in a more robust way.
Like writing down the things that I observe and think about for no reason other than just wanting to write it down.
The future is still bleak though, but those little things I highlighted that I learnt from my sabbatical, they are the little bits of happiness that I can hold on to when I need them. Notice also that ``linking up with friends'' isn't on the list, for the simple reason that as I enter this particular age group (``middle age'' for those who are keeping score), we don't really have friends any more.
Or rather, we don't really have [many if any] close friends any more. The few we have are still close, but the reality is that everyone, on hitting ``middle age'', have their own [out-sized] demons to slay. And a large number of them will have significant others, either in the process of getting married or already married. And as they say, the heart of a lover is as jealous as the fragility of glass---they might be married, but they aren't some twenty-year old couple who really know each other inside out to not second-guess whether that old friend of theirs is truly just an old friend, or someone else altogether.
With that kind of a major life commitment, their life path just isn't going to be as parallel as mine, no matter how close we were before. It's never an outright rejection---everyone's just too polite to do that---but the drift will always happen.
Actually, it has already happened. Many times, in fact.
I feel a little bad about it, but it's just the way it is. Maybe ten years down the road, someone might remember and try to look me up again to talk about the old times, but that's not a bet I am willing to take.
As they say, out of sight, out of mind. And it happens both ways too---there are people that I end up just not wanting to reconnect again for whatever reasons, most of which is prosaic in nature. Or maybe they are just terrible people that I shouldn't reconnect because I'm just not strong enough to withstand their terribleness the way Jesus is strong against His critics.
No need to set up my own stumbling block, eh?
------
I completed Robert's Rules of Order in Brief today. It's a nice little hand book that summarises the basic rules when it comes to running decision meetings.
``MT, a rule book on decision meetings? That sounds lame... and more importantly, it exists?''
Yes, it exists. This is just the summary though---there is a more authoritative tome that describes the basic rules (20%) and all the other exceptions (80%) that is called Robert's Rules of Order. I don't think I'm going to read it.
In general, the book (the brief one I mean), is an interesting read. It is a bit overkill for small decision meetings (small being less than five people), but it provides an excellent framework for handling massive deliberative meetings that involve tens of people.
Think ``parliament'', ``senate'', ``company annual general meeting'' and the like.
It's really a communications protocol book for humans. There's a mutex (``being recognised by the chairperson to have the floor''), a trusted central coordinator (``the chairperson of the meeting''), formal messages and associated syntaxes (the different ``motions'' available), all set up to ensure that the conveyance of the question that requires a decision will be understood by all, debated/deliberated fairly and timely, before being finally resolved (or postponed).
In my years working with people who make decisions in meetings, this is the first time that I am exposed to such a formalised rulebook. At no time was I ever told that such a protocol book even existed; much of how I conducted meetings was based on whatever I learnt from the meetings that I was a part of.
And somehow, I suspect that many of the meetings that I was a part of were run by people who probably also did not know about the existence of such a protocol book, and were just cobbling whatever they had observed before in imitation.
No wonder meetings are seen as the bane of the modern workplace.
In other readings, I have finally started on The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew. Make what you will of it; I'll just say that it is interesting to see the context that had shaped his point of view and choice of style in ruling SIN city.
I think that's about it for today. Till the next update.
Monday, December 20, 2021
Inverse of Brevity
And just like that, two thirds of the month are now gone.
I honestly do not know what to feel about that. I've been marathoning me some books, like Why Are You So Sad?, and the a couple of the latest crop of Hugo award short stories, Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher and Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker. Combined with having read about surveillance capitalism as well recently, to say that my mind is ``flooded with dark thoughts'' is probably pretty accurate.
The type of dark thoughts though are of a different timbre (to borrow from music) than the ones that I had been harbouring nearer the start of the year. They are of a more impersonal nature, a vicarious type of experience about someone else's pain. This naturally differs from the personal existential dread of a life post-serious relationship or the general ``world is fucked'' type of existential dread that I was experiencing before. The vicarious nature provides sufficient distance that I could feel without being overwhelmed, something that I am finding necessary these days.
Anyway, enough of those types of dark thoughts.
I had a brief post yesterday about the meet up with some of the old fogeys, so I'll just do a slightly more detailed post today to round things up more thoroughly. It was nice to meet up and talk with some old friends even as the raging pandemic has basically diminished most opportunities that we used to have before through our weekly rehearsals.
Frankly at this stage, I still don't know if we are ever going to have rehearsals again, and how soon, but that's a tangent for a different post.
The order of the day was about housing---after all, we did meet at one of our group's apartment for our catch-up activities. Naturally I'm the single weirdo left, and everyone is at different stages of their planning with their significant others to get their first apartment to kick start their long life journey together.
To say that I was not affected at all by the talk is a big fat lie. Of course I was affected by it... I was supposed to be en route towards spending my life with someone whom I thought I could spend the rest of my life with before everything fell to pieces in the shockingest most unkindest way. But I don't fault them; I simply can't. House/apartment hunting with a significant other, married or about-to-be-married is a major milestone in a person's life. For many living in SIN city, it's probably also the first time that they are living on their own outside of their parents' place. SIN city is repressed, so having that sense of independence in the form of living is of paramount importance, especially for couples wanting to start a new family unit together.
Therefore I can understand the enthusiasm that they share. I mean, I an equally talkative and excited over the things that I enjoy or am about to sink a huge chunk of money in to, and even though sometimes (okay fine... most times) they don't share the same amount of enthusiasm, they were still polite in listening and participating, and generally being decent people.
They did try to be inclusive and asked if I was going to get my own place, but I just replied that there was really no net benefit for me to do so, being single [and weird]. Unless one is rich, SIN city really does not like to support singles in their bid to live independently---most affordability schemes are geared towards singles who have literally no other family left, or are too old to contribute to the total fertility rate, and even then, they are severely limiting such that in the miraculous outcome where the single person suddenly has a chance of not being that single, they will need to hunt for a new apartment anew since it is not possible to have two people live in a one-room apartment.
Seriously though, it really isn't beneficial for me to be moving out to live on my own. Sure, having my own place means more room to house my books, musical instruments, a server rack, and other paraphernalia associated with my needs and wants, but all that does is encourage more hoarding behaviours and make me more tied to the material world. Besides, I'm only committed to the child-free lifestyle, not sure if I am committing myself to being a single weirdo forever or not yet.
I'm okay with what I am at the moment. I'm not exactly praying to the Lord for a wife or anything of that sort---all I am praying for is some kind of clear signal on whether I am to be wedded, or to be single to be made known to me at His pleasure. Again to be fair, a marriage is as long as one lives anyway, so there really isn't any loss to not be married if it were meant to be the case.
I'm okay living with myself and with the Lord guiding me from above. So whatever God has in store for me on this front, I think I should be ready enough for it.
Maybe.
Anyway, after the talk about housing and what-not, there were other meandering discussions that also revolve around our rehearsals, work from home nonsense, what food to eat and the such. A fun time was had by all, and the evening passed on by really quickly.
Yeah, I think that's about it for this entry. Till the next one then.
I honestly do not know what to feel about that. I've been marathoning me some books, like Why Are You So Sad?, and the a couple of the latest crop of Hugo award short stories, Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher and Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker. Combined with having read about surveillance capitalism as well recently, to say that my mind is ``flooded with dark thoughts'' is probably pretty accurate.
The type of dark thoughts though are of a different timbre (to borrow from music) than the ones that I had been harbouring nearer the start of the year. They are of a more impersonal nature, a vicarious type of experience about someone else's pain. This naturally differs from the personal existential dread of a life post-serious relationship or the general ``world is fucked'' type of existential dread that I was experiencing before. The vicarious nature provides sufficient distance that I could feel without being overwhelmed, something that I am finding necessary these days.
Anyway, enough of those types of dark thoughts.
I had a brief post yesterday about the meet up with some of the old fogeys, so I'll just do a slightly more detailed post today to round things up more thoroughly. It was nice to meet up and talk with some old friends even as the raging pandemic has basically diminished most opportunities that we used to have before through our weekly rehearsals.
Frankly at this stage, I still don't know if we are ever going to have rehearsals again, and how soon, but that's a tangent for a different post.
The order of the day was about housing---after all, we did meet at one of our group's apartment for our catch-up activities. Naturally I'm the single weirdo left, and everyone is at different stages of their planning with their significant others to get their first apartment to kick start their long life journey together.
To say that I was not affected at all by the talk is a big fat lie. Of course I was affected by it... I was supposed to be en route towards spending my life with someone whom I thought I could spend the rest of my life with before everything fell to pieces in the shockingest most unkindest way. But I don't fault them; I simply can't. House/apartment hunting with a significant other, married or about-to-be-married is a major milestone in a person's life. For many living in SIN city, it's probably also the first time that they are living on their own outside of their parents' place. SIN city is repressed, so having that sense of independence in the form of living is of paramount importance, especially for couples wanting to start a new family unit together.
Therefore I can understand the enthusiasm that they share. I mean, I an equally talkative and excited over the things that I enjoy or am about to sink a huge chunk of money in to, and even though sometimes (okay fine... most times) they don't share the same amount of enthusiasm, they were still polite in listening and participating, and generally being decent people.
They did try to be inclusive and asked if I was going to get my own place, but I just replied that there was really no net benefit for me to do so, being single [and weird]. Unless one is rich, SIN city really does not like to support singles in their bid to live independently---most affordability schemes are geared towards singles who have literally no other family left, or are too old to contribute to the total fertility rate, and even then, they are severely limiting such that in the miraculous outcome where the single person suddenly has a chance of not being that single, they will need to hunt for a new apartment anew since it is not possible to have two people live in a one-room apartment.
Seriously though, it really isn't beneficial for me to be moving out to live on my own. Sure, having my own place means more room to house my books, musical instruments, a server rack, and other paraphernalia associated with my needs and wants, but all that does is encourage more hoarding behaviours and make me more tied to the material world. Besides, I'm only committed to the child-free lifestyle, not sure if I am committing myself to being a single weirdo forever or not yet.
I'm okay with what I am at the moment. I'm not exactly praying to the Lord for a wife or anything of that sort---all I am praying for is some kind of clear signal on whether I am to be wedded, or to be single to be made known to me at His pleasure. Again to be fair, a marriage is as long as one lives anyway, so there really isn't any loss to not be married if it were meant to be the case.
I'm okay living with myself and with the Lord guiding me from above. So whatever God has in store for me on this front, I think I should be ready enough for it.
Maybe.
Anyway, after the talk about housing and what-not, there were other meandering discussions that also revolve around our rehearsals, work from home nonsense, what food to eat and the such. A fun time was had by all, and the evening passed on by really quickly.
Yeah, I think that's about it for this entry. Till the next one then.
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Making It Brief
This will be brief.
I met up with some TGCO old fogeys for an afternoon/evening of catching up.
It was fun.
It is late now, so this post will have to do.
Till the next update then.
I met up with some TGCO old fogeys for an afternoon/evening of catching up.
It was fun.
It is late now, so this post will have to do.
Till the next update then.
``Tonguing''
In reply to a Flute Forum comment asking what is ``double tonguing'':
Assuming you're not trolling...Of course it is a bit more detailed than that, especially the part on the ``harmonic-specific vowel''. The details may be found at my dizi article explaining the matter.
Single tonguing uses only the tip of the tongue with either the "T" or "D" consonant sound + harmonic-specific vowel as articulation. So if you see people say things like "Tee Tee Tee" or "Duu Duu Duu", it's single tonguing.
Double tonguing uses the tip of the tongue and the base of the tongue in a coordinated way to produce articulations that are double the speed of single tongued articulations. The tip of the tongue is still "T" or "D" consonant sound + harmonic-specific vowel, while the base of the tongue uses "K" or "G" consonant sound + harmonic-specific vowel. So if you see people say things like "Tee Kee Tee Kee", or "Duu Guu Duu Guu", it's double tonguing.
Triple tonguing is double tonguing, but for faster rhythms. The main use of triple tonguing is for handling triplets -- you'll often see people say "Tee Kee Tee; Kee Tee Kee", "Tee Kee Tee; Tee Kee Tee", "Duu Guu Duu; Guu Duu Guu" or even "Duu Guu Duu; Duu Guu Duu". In other circles, the rhythmic pattern of quaver-double-semi-quaver may also be referred to as triple tonguing ("Tee <breathe> Tee Kee", "Duu <breathe> Duu Guu").
Saturday, December 18, 2021
Drivel
Ah... what a hectic day it was!
As a rule of thumb, I don't like scheduling more than three activities in a day. There is nothing magical about the number three---it's just a good rule of thumb that I figured out over time. Assuming a general non-sleeping 16-hour day, the three-activity rule reduces activities to a duration of about 5 hours or so. Now note that these 5 hours includes any travel time, and so realistically in SIN city, without the assistance of ``Uber''/``Grab'' and/or taxis, we're looking at roughly 3--4 hours of unfettered activity time.
Now, doesn't that sound like a good amount of time?
More realistically though, we don't use 16 hours that freely---the most that we can mess with a single day for activities is closer to 12 hours, and it works out to about 4 hours, and with careful transit planning, can easily see about 2--3 hours per activity. That still sounds quite reasonable by every regard.
So anyway, today was hectic because I had two activities scheduled back-to-back of sorts in the vening. The first is the usual Saturday church service, and the second is another session of the baptismal classes. They were not long by any regard, but they do consume [travel] time. And by the end of it all, I'm just exhausted.
Thankfully the baptismal classes aren't super extended, so it's still alright.
------
Anyway, that's quite a bit of drivel, isn't it? It's the end of the year, and it is easy to become more retrospective. But I kind of want to reserve that for the annual statistics write-up instead---the end of year is near, but the end of the year is not done. Plenty of time for weird things to happen really, and while I am not wishing for weird things to happen, I also am not completely naive to assume that they won't happen.
So let's just leave it as that for now.
I could watch some more VODs of my favourite Holomem's videos while reading Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden edited by Stuart Ross, but I think I'll just turn in for the night.
Till the next update.
As a rule of thumb, I don't like scheduling more than three activities in a day. There is nothing magical about the number three---it's just a good rule of thumb that I figured out over time. Assuming a general non-sleeping 16-hour day, the three-activity rule reduces activities to a duration of about 5 hours or so. Now note that these 5 hours includes any travel time, and so realistically in SIN city, without the assistance of ``Uber''/``Grab'' and/or taxis, we're looking at roughly 3--4 hours of unfettered activity time.
Now, doesn't that sound like a good amount of time?
More realistically though, we don't use 16 hours that freely---the most that we can mess with a single day for activities is closer to 12 hours, and it works out to about 4 hours, and with careful transit planning, can easily see about 2--3 hours per activity. That still sounds quite reasonable by every regard.
So anyway, today was hectic because I had two activities scheduled back-to-back of sorts in the vening. The first is the usual Saturday church service, and the second is another session of the baptismal classes. They were not long by any regard, but they do consume [travel] time. And by the end of it all, I'm just exhausted.
Thankfully the baptismal classes aren't super extended, so it's still alright.
------
Anyway, that's quite a bit of drivel, isn't it? It's the end of the year, and it is easy to become more retrospective. But I kind of want to reserve that for the annual statistics write-up instead---the end of year is near, but the end of the year is not done. Plenty of time for weird things to happen really, and while I am not wishing for weird things to happen, I also am not completely naive to assume that they won't happen.
So let's just leave it as that for now.
I could watch some more VODs of my favourite Holomem's videos while reading Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden edited by Stuart Ross, but I think I'll just turn in for the night.
Till the next update.
Friday, December 17, 2021
Ear Impression: Done
I finally completed The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff. To say that she has put into words what have been vague ideas that was floating in my head is a severe understatement---she named things and gave definitions on what she means.
And as I have mentioned before in the recent past (not going to self-cite---too lazy/tired), anything that can be named/labelled can be discriminated against, with discrimination being a technical term meaning a classification of whether something is the in-group or the out-group. In this case, naming the behaviours as ``surveillance capitalism'', the type of dysfunctional society we are living in as being under an ``instrumentarian one'', and explicitly pointing out just how the surveillance capitalists managed to get away with things has created a mental framework from which one can think further.
But enough of that---I think I do the book an injustice with my lousy summary here. It's probably much better to read the book for oneself---it is quite readable, especially for those who have lived through the ``before'' and ``after'' of things.
------
In other news, I had gone and have impressions of my ear canals made, and have placed an order for the −25 dB non-distorting filter for my musician's ear plugs. I'll probably write more about the whole process once I have the ear plugs themselves, so for now, just let this little note act as a stand in.
I managed to indulge in some Five Guys food again after the consultation with the audiologist. The burger's still nice, but as usual, grease was just spilling everywhere due to the order itself. I got myself a small cajun fries, and it was definitely not as crazy as the normal amount of fries that one would expect from a Five Guys. I spent some time after that just walking through Plaza Singapura and paid a visit to the Yamaha shop. The baritone saxophone that had been sitting there for so long was no longer present---in its place was a bass clarinet instead. I did think of getting a pianica (the three-octave range one), but thought better of it. I managed to see the new Alto-Venova up close, but felt that for that dimension, I can just play on my soprano saxophone. The YPC-82 piccolo looked really tempting with its price point of about SGD3k, but as I said, no budget.
Maybe I'll get it later when I do have the budget. Maybe.
Anyway, that's all for now. Till the next update.
And as I have mentioned before in the recent past (not going to self-cite---too lazy/tired), anything that can be named/labelled can be discriminated against, with discrimination being a technical term meaning a classification of whether something is the in-group or the out-group. In this case, naming the behaviours as ``surveillance capitalism'', the type of dysfunctional society we are living in as being under an ``instrumentarian one'', and explicitly pointing out just how the surveillance capitalists managed to get away with things has created a mental framework from which one can think further.
But enough of that---I think I do the book an injustice with my lousy summary here. It's probably much better to read the book for oneself---it is quite readable, especially for those who have lived through the ``before'' and ``after'' of things.
------
In other news, I had gone and have impressions of my ear canals made, and have placed an order for the −25 dB non-distorting filter for my musician's ear plugs. I'll probably write more about the whole process once I have the ear plugs themselves, so for now, just let this little note act as a stand in.
I managed to indulge in some Five Guys food again after the consultation with the audiologist. The burger's still nice, but as usual, grease was just spilling everywhere due to the order itself. I got myself a small cajun fries, and it was definitely not as crazy as the normal amount of fries that one would expect from a Five Guys. I spent some time after that just walking through Plaza Singapura and paid a visit to the Yamaha shop. The baritone saxophone that had been sitting there for so long was no longer present---in its place was a bass clarinet instead. I did think of getting a pianica (the three-octave range one), but thought better of it. I managed to see the new Alto-Venova up close, but felt that for that dimension, I can just play on my soprano saxophone. The YPC-82 piccolo looked really tempting with its price point of about SGD3k, but as I said, no budget.
Maybe I'll get it later when I do have the budget. Maybe.
Anyway, that's all for now. Till the next update.
Thursday, December 16, 2021
Scratching That Aburi Nigiri Itch...
Mmmm. It really is much easier to realise what one has missed once it is gone out of one's life.
And I'm referring to awesome aburi nigiri sushi that I have been missing since my favourite sushi place has wound up.
Today, I scratched that itch again by heading to the Sushi Tei out at Serangoon Gardens Circus at the odd hour of three in the afternoon. It was fairly quiet; I was one of three customers that were present in the restaurant. I had some aburi nigiri sushi, and had me some ootoro.
Mmmm. That was nice.
It was not the same as my favourite sushi place, but it did scratch the itch.
In other news, I have decided on the birthday gift to myself for 2022---a pair of customised musician ear plugs. It's not exactly cheap, but compared to the price of a new instrument, it's about a tenth the price, but with an effect that is probably worth 10× more---a more comfortable and complete protection of my hearing while I play my 笛子. It is something that I have been thinking of getting for a while, but have been delaying for one reason or another. I am currently using some Vic Firth musician's ear plugs; they work well, but I'm just looking for... something more.
It's like Azumi all over again---she works well, but I ended up looking for something more, and thus ended up with Aurelia.
I said that it works well because with all the restrictions that have been in place, test playing of new instruments is not allowed. Apart from that, I also don't have the budget for any new instruments anyway, since my income for this sabbatical year is zero.
Anyway, that customised musician ear plugs require impressions of my ear canals, and so it will be a trip to the audiologist to get it done. Because of that, I am getting myself this gift right now, before the start of work makes it harder to run about meeting appointments.
That's about all I want to write about. Till the next update.
And I'm referring to awesome aburi nigiri sushi that I have been missing since my favourite sushi place has wound up.
Today, I scratched that itch again by heading to the Sushi Tei out at Serangoon Gardens Circus at the odd hour of three in the afternoon. It was fairly quiet; I was one of three customers that were present in the restaurant. I had some aburi nigiri sushi, and had me some ootoro.
Mmmm. That was nice.
It was not the same as my favourite sushi place, but it did scratch the itch.
In other news, I have decided on the birthday gift to myself for 2022---a pair of customised musician ear plugs. It's not exactly cheap, but compared to the price of a new instrument, it's about a tenth the price, but with an effect that is probably worth 10× more---a more comfortable and complete protection of my hearing while I play my 笛子. It is something that I have been thinking of getting for a while, but have been delaying for one reason or another. I am currently using some Vic Firth musician's ear plugs; they work well, but I'm just looking for... something more.
It's like Azumi all over again---she works well, but I ended up looking for something more, and thus ended up with Aurelia.
I said that it works well because with all the restrictions that have been in place, test playing of new instruments is not allowed. Apart from that, I also don't have the budget for any new instruments anyway, since my income for this sabbatical year is zero.
Anyway, that customised musician ear plugs require impressions of my ear canals, and so it will be a trip to the audiologist to get it done. Because of that, I am getting myself this gift right now, before the start of work makes it harder to run about meeting appointments.
That's about all I want to write about. Till the next update.
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