September is always a pretty sensitive period for me in some way or another and it hasn’t even been 2 months since my last entry but it feels like there’s just so much to ramble about. The past few months had been a huge step up for me in my personal life as I am now a homeowner. Sounds pretty cool, but there’s a hell lot of things to decide and agonise over. There had been a couple of hiccups along the way, some things I manage to resolve while others I just shove it under the carpet and procrastinate a little more. Sometimes maybe if you hide the problem long enough, the problem will solve itself. Fat hope, but it’s still hope.
I kind of have a liveable space right now – though I have not yet moved in officially. I’m still doing an average of about 2 nights per week while spending the majority of the time still at my parents place. It’s really a huge huge huge mental effort to make the move permanently and it’s so hard to really decide on when is gonna be the ‘This is it.” decision. That being said, I really do enjoy the liberation of living in my own space – there’s no nagging to sleep earlier and I get to get out of bed on weekends whenever I feel like it. Truth be told, I’ve been having super irregular meals whenever I’m on my own as I’ll just eat when I feel hungry, but that ain’t that much of a bad thing right? Maybe I can end up losing some weight cause my body doesn’t exactly need 3 meals a day. Last weekend, I spent my afternoon just lazing on my surprisingly comfy taobao-bought sofa, with the fan blowing in my face and reading an e-book while drinking homemade iced honey lemon tea. It was quiet and I didn’t have any music turned on in the background. Lying there, I had the “So this is what it feels like to have a lazy afternoon in my own home” kind of feeling. No one to judge me, no one to comment on anything, no one to nag and no one to figure out what the rest of the day might be like. At times, I do wonder if there would be a day I’ll finally admit that it feels kind of lonely, but I hope that day doesn’t come that soon because I trialled-tested myself for singlehood many years ago and passed the ‘test’ I gave myself – to be comfortable dining alone, watch a movie in the theaters alone and to solo travel. I passed the ‘test’, so I figured out that I would be able to live alone in future and that’s where I am right now. Sorry if you need to catch your breathe for a moment as my rambling is insanely uncomfortable to read.
Despite the ‘liberation’, I had to battle with many annoyances, and the latest 2 are the baby cockroaches I see roaming around my kitchen counter and the inherited oven that trips my electricity whenever it gets turned on. It is sad to not be able to call for help instantly or to scream for some kind of attention. You know I always ask the people that scream like crazy whenever they see a rat/cockroach – do they scream the same way if they are all alone (and there’s no one around them), most of the time the answer is no. It’s the same for kids as well – based on my observation – if a kid run and fall down on their own, they usually don’t cry immediately. They will look around to see if there’s anyone worth crying for and if there isn’t, they might just pick themselves up (if the fall ain’t that bad). However, if there’s someone nearby (like their mum), they will start wailing and the moment they get picked up/carried away – the wailing will grow even louder. Might not be the same for all kids but it is just something I observed over the many years. Yea, so now whenever I see the mini cockroaches (which I still can’t find the source of it), I will just.. grab a kitchen towel and kill it. It’s still kind of do-able right now because they are really tiny but I’m dreading the day they get bigger and it looks too gross to squish it by hand. That being said, I don’t have a 100% success rate so there’s a couple more still roaming around playing hide and seek with me. Well, as for my oven, big girl me attempted all the self help guidance found online to no avail and finally filled up a form on the oven’s brand website (Bosch) and now I got to wait for them to come and check my oven. Sadly, it is no longer under warranty so I’m praying hard the cost won’t be too high. At the end of the day, there’s a way out to every single problem (I believe) in life, and the only difference now is that I’m gonna have to settle it all on my own. Wish me luck.
One good thing I really love about the house (and that I paid a premium for the location) was that I really like the neighbourhood. It is pretty convenient to the tiny market and food areas and it has a supermarket (though I feel the items are a little overpriced) and it’s also just an underpass away from east coast park. I bought a 90-day cycling pass which allows me unlimited bicycle rides (max 30 mins per session) and I found myself cycling to lagoon food center for dinner one evening. The commute is pretty decent to the usual places that I need to visit but it is also highly inconvenient for friends staying in a certain part of Singapore. There was a friend who dropped by and ended up spending 2 hours to get back to her house in Tengah. Oops. I’ve been an eastie my whole life and I guess I’ll continue this fant-east-y till I’m grey and old.
So over the past couple of weeks, I also went on my long-awaited trip to Europe. It was my first time experiencing the first class experience and it was all great but TLDR – my body probably couldn’t handle champagne and I puked on the plane. Oops. But it wasn’t that bad because after puking, I slept so well and ended up not drinking too much alcohol during the trip (yay for my liver), which ain’t a bad thing. The trip was a pretty decent one and I traveled most of the time with this kind of long-time friend of mine. I think we became acquainted in 2010 but we haven’t gone on trips together for a really long time. Travelling together ain’t always easy but the ‘passage of time’ makes us familiar with each others’ bad habits so there are many times I’ll be like ‘Oh, she’s doing this again but whatever, she’s just like that.’ kind of feeling. It may sound annoying to people at first but after a while you will realise that it’s very difficult to find people that are really compatabile (to travel) together and most of the time you just have to learn how to compromise along the way as ‘perfect’ fit is really rare. Ultimately, it was a really chill trip (my preferred travel style in the post-covid years) and we just went with the flow of weather and Gemini. The itinerary was planned out by Gemini 9 to 10 months prior and I booked the accommodation (in the various cities) based on their recommendation. They recommended the swiss travel pass – though I didn’t do a back-test of whether we ended up having that cost savings eventually cause we skipped the expensieve Jungfrau due to bad weather. We saw the mountains, the blue skies, the cows and the sheep, the Toblerone mountain, the windmills and most imporantly, I attended the final Zandvoort f1 race where Max crashed out and Lando won first. That’s the pure highlight of it all. Anyway, hope this ‘link’ to instagram works as I did a mini video on the adventures of my 14 days.
Anyway, so while I was away in Europe, my new boss (not direct manager) joined my department. It feels like dejavu all over again because earlier this year when I went to Japan, a new org chart was announced when I was away and I came back from my trip to a new department, new manager, new team and new scope of work. It feels so crazy how this is my longest-serving company in my entire career life, of which I changed scope 3 times and managers 5 times. Side note, I went to the temple to do a lot-drawing and got a reading to “Go with the Flow” – which is what I’ve been doing most of the time, so I guess I’m doing well? Apparently the second part tells me to “Trust the Process.” and ultimately this is a good lot so maybe my Q4 wouldn’t be that bad after all. Excited about what lies ahead but feeling a little anxious at the same time.
Autumn is gonna be here soon and I guess things will start withering and slowing down soon. Hoping to be able to fit in one more trip before the year ends so let’s see where that hope goes.
Cheers till the next time ^^
