My boss's quality of being late...

I had to deal with my first disgruntled customer at work today and this whole situation was honestly something that could have been avoided had my boss not procrastinated and did things so last minute.

So for some background, this customer had been introduced to me as my boss's ex-boss kid, my boss had watched him grow up and he had came to us, along with his wife, to do renovation works for their upcoming home.

My role in this whole process is just purely the brains behind the design of the home, once the design aspect of it is done, I will pass the torch to the next person in charge, who is the Project Manager and my involvement will be significantly reduced. In my attempt to make this whole renovation as smooth as possible, I decided to visit the tile shop with the homeowners a month ago just to firm up on everything before the renovation would start. This was something I had taken initiative to do because I notice my boss's style with his other projects has always been to visit the tile shop literally one week before renovation begins and then just select the tiles for the customer super last minute, which is not the way this should be done, just based on my past experience at ID4. 

The client and his wife had both taken leave just to make the tile shop visit last month possible and it was quite a fruitful visit, we were able to shortlist a few options and then finalize the selection within a week. After the tile trip, we even took time to come back to the office to confirm all the colors for the cabinets, including how the internal components would work, so my part in this whole renovation process was pretty much done last month and I had just been touching up and fine tuning on all my drawings so the Project Manager can have as much information as possible to ensure a smooth handing over of the torch for the project.

Fast forward to this morning, my boss suddenly requested for me to list down all the tiles that had been selected for the renovation because he wanted to order the tiles today, renovation starts next Monday, today is Thursday, ordering the tile now is just super last minute, but I figured since my role in this is done, everything else will now be in my boss's hands because he is the Project Manager for this particular project, if any issues arises, he will be the one who has to deal with them. I did all the calculations for the tiles needed and sends him the list.

And an issue arises.....

Few hours later, he drops me a text and informs me that the one of the tile that we had selected is unfortunately out of stock, this was the main tile for the whole renovation. I was really annoyed because the renovation will be starting next week, we literally only have 2 working days left to reselect another tile. I had met the both the clients in advance to finalize all the tiles JUST SO we can avoid last minute bullshit like this, they even took leave from work to meet me on a weekday for the visit, and now we are in this fucking situation because my boss decided to only make the order so last minute.

He already had all the information he needed to make the order weeks ago, but he just kept sitting on it. I knew we didn't have time to dilly dally anymore, so I shared the bad news with the clients as quickly as I could while my boss was still contemplating if he should tell them or I should tell them.

He should have been the one to tell them, but the bearer of bad news ended up being me because we have no time anymore, the homeowners need to know as soon as possible so we can come up with a plan and settle this in time for the renovation to commence next week.

Initially the husband didn't take the news very badly, but as the conversation progress, I could sense that he was getting more and more agitated, asking us in the group chat why the order was never made in advanced because we had literally confirmed them weeks ago. My boss just didn't bother to chime in, so I had to do the replies and that made it seemed like I was the one at fault for not ordering the tiles in advance.

I was really not in a good mood because I just felt really indignant about this whole thing. I did my due diligence as the designer, selected and confirmed everything that needed to be confirmed way in advance, but because of my boss's habit of procrastinating, all the advance work that I had done with the customers just went down the drain.

My boss and I headed to the tile shop to look for a replacement and the husband said he will also drop by, usually when I meet a customer who is upset  over chat in person, they will drop the aggression they have been exhibiting in chat and approach the whole situation with a much friendlier attitude, but when this client came to the tile shop and saw us, he was NOT HAPPY.

I was in the midst of putting some alternative options together and when the husband approached us, he was just exclaiming out loud...

"What is going on? Why is this happening? Why like that?"

.... he was saying it with a slight smile on his face, but you can sense in his tone that he was very upset and was trying to mask his annoyance with the smile, I tried to explain that my boss and I have shortlisted a few tiles for him to choose from, and a few seconds later, my boss just bolts off to go look for other alternatives around the tile shop and leaves me alone with the unhappy customer. It was so uncomfortable 

I was extremely unhappy, not at the customer because his anger is completely valid, but at my boss because this was an issue that had been caused by him due to his negligence, and he just kept running away from it, literally going to the furthest corner of the tile shop so he can avoid talking to the husband.

The husband walked around the tile shop a little after he looked at what I had counter proposed, comes back to me and ask me where my boss was because he wanted to talk to the both of us before his wife came, so all of us found each other and he basically expressed his disappointed at us. My boss kept coming up with excuses, saying all this is out of his control because the stock was only recently swiped up and to have a stock get wiped out so quickly is not a common occurrence, this made the situation worst because everything could have been avoided if the tiles had been reserved in advance like he, so the husband just got even more emotional, my boss also felt like he wasn't in the wrong, so he didn't feel the need to apologize to the client and instead kept reiterating how all of this was out of his control. I kinda just sat there and not say anything because to put it very bluntly, this is not my fault and shouldn't be my shit to clean up. 

One of the salesperson in the store came over in the midst of all this and pulled my boss one side to explain the tile shortage situation, so my boss excuses himself and I was once again alone with the husband. 

I was able to change topic and distracted the husband from the issue at hand, so the mood got less intense after that and when the wife finally arrives, the air just stopped feeling so heavy. I guess because he didn't know how his wife would react to the situation, the husband was initially really affected by it, but the wife didn't seem very upset when she arrived, and we eventually went back to looking for different options. We were able to confirm the reselection, but instead of just reselecting one tile to replace the one that's out of stock, they decided that they wanted to reselect all the tiles and just explore a new look.

Again. All of this extra work could have been avoided if my boss had just ordered the fucking tiles earlier. 

If we had informed the customers that the tiles were out of stock two to three weeks before their renovation is scheduled to start, I'm sure the customers will still be understanding and just go visit the tile shop with me to reselect with no issues because 2 to 3 weeks advance notice would mean we DID make the effort to order in advance, and if it is out of stock then, then it is beyond our control because had already taken the precaution to attempt to order it early, 2 to 3 weeks would  also have given us sufficient time to reselect the tiles and for me to properly update the drawings. I can completely understand the customer's anger because if I were them, I would also be livid, and I was livid as the designer of the project because it wasn't just the clients time that was wasted during the first tile shop visit, mine was wasted as well because that trip ended up being for naught. 

I really got my work cut out for me because now, I have to rush out the 3D model for them with the reselected tiles within a day, just so they can have a visual of how everything will look together. Now I cannot help but wonder how many more fuck ups will actually happen once the renovation starts because to get the customers so upset before we even started the renovation is not a good sign.

Project Manager Problems and more Perfume.

So I had to attend a site visit a over the weekend with my boss in the East Coast area and it is for a project that will be starting the renovation phase in about a or two week.

My boss will personally be managing this project because one of our PMs recently tendered his resignation, this particular PM, whom I shall just refer to as Dave, apparently has the tendency to "quit" when he gets stressed out at work, the reason Quit is in quotes is because he doesn't actually quit, he would usually end up rescinding his resignation letter and just come to work again as per usual after he has completed serving his notice period, that is according to our accountant, who has been with the company for almost as long as Dave, apparently this is his sixth time pulling his stunt.

One of the current projects that he is currently working on is a project that I am involved in and compared to the other PM, whom I shall refer to as Jason, Dave is not very good at his job. Jason, the other Project Manager, is very meticulous and will show initiative, he will take time to study all my drawings and clarify any issues that he has with me before proceeding with the renovation work, if he notices that I have made certain design decisions that are not viable, he will take the initiative to adjust them on-site and then explain to the clients why those amendments were made, so I barely ever have to get involved.

Dave on the other hand is the completely opposite. He will glance through all the drawings I have prepared, but he won't study them in detail and will expect information to be spoon fed to him, information that can be found on my drawings with a little deduction skill.

For example, when I present to him the electrical plan, it will be filled with information such as where the switches will be, where the powerpoints will be and where the lights will be. 

For this current project, we had to demolish a wall, and on that wall, there were existing powerpoints that would be affected once it was taken down.  As an experienced Project Manager, I had expected him to look at the electrical plan and understand how to deal with those affected powerpoints, which would simply be to relocated them to where I had reflected in the electrical plan, but instead of automatically thinking of that, he sends me a photo of that freshly demolished wall with all the dangling wiring and ask me to think of a way to deal with them.

I have already thought of a way to deal with them... in the electrical drawings. In the end, I had to literally draw out on the photo how to re-run those wires and where they will be relocated to. At that point, my mind was blown at how inept he was and my expectation of him as a Project Manager dropped.

After that, he went on and arranged more works, but had stopped requesting for any clarification on my end, so I figured he probably had everything under control and that my drawings I had prepared were sufficient for him to plan the works smoothly. 

I was wrong. 

My boss had brought me to that site to take a look at the ongoing works together and I realized Dave had done the false ceiling wrongly, I showed the drawings I did to my boss on-site and my measurements on it were a bit off, but it was very obvious that the false ceiling designs were meant to be aligned with certain walls. 

This is how a False Ceiling Plan would look like. (I found it off the internet)

If we were to look at the yellowed coloured part, we can see that the false ceiling will end in alignment with the wall on the right. I had a false ceiling that followed a similar concept, but instead of an alignment with a wall, it's in alignment with a door. 

On my False Ceiling plan, I had also included measurements, those were meant for my accountant because she needed the measurements to prepare her quotation. I had assumed that Dave would have the sense to look at the False Ceiling plan, catch these little details, and maybe ask me for clarification before he instructed the sub-cons on how to do the false ceiling, but he doesn't and instead, just gives the workers those measurements and they followed them to the dot. The floorplan isn't to scale because it's one of those condo floorplans like the one pictured above, they have no measurements and are usually not accurate, so the false ceiling that was constructed ended up extending beyond the door frame and that was an issue because it meant the full height wardrobe that was directly facing the false ceiling would no longer have enough allowance to open the wardrobe doors, they will end up hitting the false ceiling.

When my boss and I saw that, we checked all the bedrooms and they all had the same problem. If Jason had been the one running this project, I am very certain he would have foreseen all this and pointed out all this issues to me, but unfortunately, Dave is the one in charge and he didn't. Luckily my boss and I were able to come up with a solution, so nothing had to be redone, we also didn't want to message Dave because it was a Friday and we know that alerting him to all this issues would just spoil his weekend.

And that is the other problem with Dave, it's the fact that we have to baby him so much because if we don't, he will have a mental breakdown and then just go MIA, like he did last week. He was so stressed out that he just became uncontactable for 2 days, my boss had texted me about it last week and literally told me not to message Dave because he was under a lot of stress, that even my boss couldn't reach him. I was actually flabbergasted that my boss allowed Dave to pull this stunt because just like his habit to "quit" when the job gets tough, he also has the habit of disappearing for a while as well. Usually his modus operandi is to disappear for a while, and then make a reappearance to throw his resignation letter. 

SIX times.

And every time, once his notice period has been served, he would come return to work like he had never thrown the letter at all. I am honestly hoping that my boss will actually find another Project Manager soon that is as capable as Jason, because Dave is just not that great at his job, and he cannot just keep disappearing and then quitting when the job gets too difficult, only to come back again to potentially repeat that cycle. It's so disruptive to the company because projects that he is running mid-way through will have to switch hands and then projects that had been assigned to him in advance will have to be reassigned to another PM who may already be overloaded, and if that other PM has too many on his plate, it will fall on my boss's shoulders. My boss needs to find a new Project Manager soon so Dave won't be able to return once his notice period is up, because he is clearly taking the kindness of my boss for granted.

I really cannot trust Dave to run any of my future projects because the one he is working on right now is actually extremely straightforward, the fact that he can mess it up is really a testament to his capabilities as a Project Manager.

Anyways, as I was saying, I did a site visit over the weekend with my boss and we had  no choice but to meet on a weekend because the client is currently on reservist and is only available to meet on that very Saturday. We had previously met on a Saturday before on site as well and the reason why I am bringing this up is because after the meeting, I did the very same thing I did after our previous Saturday meeting, I headed over to Orchard and got a bottle of perfume. 

Previously, I had visited Escentials at ION to get the Gentle Fluidity Silver, they had a discount going on then so I managed to save around $40, but this time, I wanted to actually get the perfume from the brand's flagship store, so I dropped by Maison Francis Kurkdjian at Ngee Ann City instead, which is a walking distance from ION.

It was so fucking crowded. The walk from ION to Ngee Ann City through Wisma Atria took so fucking long because the human traffic was insane. I was actually really annoyed at how crowded it was, but I did eventually make it to the shop, passing by Le Labo, Byredo, Jo Malone and a few other niche fragrance store along the way. I hadn't noticed all these brands were at Ngee Ann City until I started getting into fragrances, and it is such a pity because I used to work so close to all this shops and could have visited them so easily.

The flagship store is a lot smaller than Escentials, but understandably so because Escentials carried other brands of fragrances as well. When I headed in, I already knew what I wanted to get, a bottle of Gentle Fluidity Gold. I had originally planned to get the 70ml bottle, which was what I tried to get online but failed because of customs issue from France side. I thought I could also get it for $300 at the retail store since it was the flagship store, but when the sales person informed me that it was going for $340 instead, I had to take a step back and reconsider, then I just thought fuck it, I will just get the 35ml bottle instead because I didn't want to pay that additional $40. 

The smaller one  was $209, which is the same price point as Escentials, they didn't have any ongoing promotions, but they did give me a free sample of my choosing, I requested for the Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait, but it was unavailable, so in the end, I settled for Amyris Homme. 

Honestly not a great deal, if I had known the price was the same, I would have just saved myself the walking and got it from Escentials at ION instead.

I also did an unboxing video for it for Tik Tok, just to document my questionable financial decisions.

It looks good in my perfume collection though.

This 2 bottle alone cost almost $400, add in the Mod Vanilla, that is $500 worth of perfume in this photo.

And this is the collection of my full bottled perfumes, which amounts to about $700 in total. Mainly Ariana Grande perfumes because they are actually really nice, I did try the Billie Eilish releases as well but they were not my style.

I also recently added another Ariana Grande fragrance to my collection 2 weeks ago, thank u next 2.0 the heart shaped one on the bottom left.  That was a blind buy because none of the shops online sold any decants of it and the reason is because it is a limited edition.

I got it for the sake of getting it really, I was hoping I wouldn't like it because it would probably be impossible for find another bottle in the future since it is a limited edition release, but of course it had to smell fucking good. It's strawberries and apple, and the strawberries scent has a tartness to it, which is what really makes it so good to me. I can't really wear this out as my main scent because it is a bit too juvenile and feminine, it's the type of perfume popular pretty girls in school will wear, girls that are nice in front of the teacher but an absolute bitch when no one is looking, so I will usually only spray it on the back of my hands before I go out, just so I can take a whiff of it when I want whilst I am at work or just outside in general. My signature scent is still the Gentle Fluidity series.

I would usually spritz a total of 5 sprays of Gentle Fluidity on myself, mix and match maybe 3 spritz of gold and and 2 spritz of silver depending on my mood, 1ml equates of 15 sprays, which means each sprtiz is about 20 cents based on my calculations, that totals to me going out with a dollar worth of perfume on myself everyday. It's so fucking expensive, but it smells so good. 

If I manage to finish the 2 bottles within a few months, then I will definitely be buying the bigger bottle in the future, but if I don't and end up switching to something else, then that will be good news for my wallet, unless the new perfume I end up wearing is from another niche brand like Parfums De Marley or Aventus, because those are also expensive shit.

I really need to go take my IPPT soon, get the $200 incentive to make up for this MFK purchase, but who am I kidding, I will probably use that incentive to get another bottle because I am out of control.

Digivice and Perfume Stuff again..

Got a cake from Awfully Chocolate earlier this afternoon with the intention of having it for supper later this evening, which is now as I am writing this post, and it has, for some reason mysteriously disappeared from the fridge.

No one knows what happened to it, and I was actually doubting myself for a while thinking I may have moved it and left it somewhere because no one at home admitted they touched it. It's upsetting because I was really looking forward to eating it, but it's even more frustrating because someone had clearly tossed it out but cannot remember doing it, so it will remain a mystery forever and that's what's bugging me. No closure for the dessert that could've been.

I recently got my hands on a new toy...

Digivice 20th Anniversary Edition.

 ... literally a toy that I used to play during my childhood. The original Digimon device, but re-released for the 20th Anniversary. 

This was $35 on Shopee, a bit pricey for what it offers, but for the nostalgia, I guess it's worth it. When I compare how much this cost compared to the perfume decants I have been getting, and then being surprised at how expensive $35 is for a toy, it just made me realize how fucking expensive those decants have actually been in comparison. 

This Digivice cost almost as much as a 5ml Tom Ford perfume decant.

 I am not earning enough to be spending that much on perfumes.

Speaking of spending too much on perfumes. 

I might be getting a refund from that insane $300 MFK purchase that I had made last week . I had been tracking the status on the shipping company website the past few days, and I noticed that the latest status from DHL about my parcel was that it had been "Returned to Shipper"

This is a $300 perfume, I was anxious what was going on, so I send MFK an email and ask them about the situation, and this is their reply....

... I am a bit sad that I can't get my perfume, but I am also kinda happy that I will be getting my $300 back because I did get an immediate buyer's remorse after I confirmed the order. I was trying to see if I could cancel the order on the day I placed the order, but they didn't allow me to do that once I had confirmed the order on their site, so in the end, I guess everything did kinda worked out for me.

As per the email, MFK will still need to confirm with their logistics about my refund, so there might be a chance they may reattempt to ship my order out again if it was just some clerical error, which I would still be happy to wait for and receive because it is a really nice fragrance, they actually also include a lot of free samples when customers get from their website, but if it doesn't go through and I still desperately want to get the perfume, I can always go back to the perfume store at ION to get a smaller $200 bottle, and also maybe be a bit more thick skinned and ask for some samples to be added into my purchase.

 

Earlier this week, I also got $500 NS Home Credits from the SAF for my NS Milestone, so I went and got myself another Ariana Grande perfume on Shopee. 

Cloud by Ariana Grande

It's very odd that I am getting this fragrance from her lineup because when I spray this, I get dentist vibes, it literally smells like medical latex gloves to me, but I would keep spraying it in the air and on my skin to smell it just because that rubber smell has that "perfume" quality to it, it's like rubber glove perfume in a good way if that makes sense.

I did go look at the notes online and I think that the rubber smell that I am getting is actually the coconut note. If I were to really close my eyes and concentrate on that rubber smell, it does give me coconut vibes.

I don't get the "sweetness" that so many people online claim the perfume gives, but I have started to appreciate the perfume for how it smells to my nose more and more. Also, according to "GirlMath", it is technically free because I paid for it with NS Home Credits. I was so tempted to use those credits to get a huge bottle of MFK perfume on Escentials but they don't accept PayNow, so Ariana Grande Cloud perfume it is.

Also. 

Update on work life.

Not much to report to be honest, work is work, I have been really busy lately and the rose coloured glasses that I have been viewing my new job through has slowly started to wear off. I mean it happens with every job, the honeymoon period will eventually be over and everyone will eventually start noticing issues with their company or their colleagues.

That being said, I am definitely still much happier here than I was at the furniture store, and I was much happier at the furniture store than I was at ID4, so with every job I have found, they have always been better than the last, so I am very lucky to have that experience. The perfect job doesn't exist, so I am just trying to grateful for what I have right now.

Update 1.11.23

- MFK has just refunded me the money, but it's short $15. I did read online that they will charge some sort of packing fee for returned items, so should've seen that coming, although I don't think it's very fair that the consumer has to bear that cost when the consumer had no intentions of returning the item in the first place.

But I don't think I am going to write in to complaint about it, I doubt they will entertain me. 

Since I can't get the perfume from their online store, I guess I will have to go to Takashimaya one day and get the small 35ml bottle. Turns out they have a MFK store in Takashimaya that only sells MFK, should've gotten my Gentle Fluidity Silver from there, might be cheaper since I am getting it directly from the brand and not through a retailer.

The chair and even more perfumes...

It has been a few weeks since my Capsico Chair arrived.

Dog not included.

It's alright. Is it worth $700? Nope, I don't think it is and I do regret making the purchase. It's nice in that it is smaller compared to my Secret Lab, but it is definitely something I could have done without.

Speaking of things I can live without, my spending is getting a little out of hand because I got more things that I can definitely live without. 

A bottle of Mod Vanilla by Ariana Grande. I got a 5ml decant of it 2 months ago and I really really liked the scent because the smell is exactly what I am looking for in a Vanilla scented perfume, to me, this scent is Vanilla Extract in perfume form, and as a someone who used to bake a lot in the past, it is right up my alley.

The only seller on Shopee who sold this scent in a decant was on a vacation for about a month, so her Shopee store was closed and that seller also happened to be the only person who sold it in a full sized bottle, I tried looking for other local sellers but no one else had it, so when the only seller who sold this came back from her vacation and reopened her store, I pretty much made the order immediately, and it also happened to be the very last bottle she had, so it all worked out in the end for me. 

I still have a bit left from the 5ml decant, I was really trying not to use it because of how hard it is to get, but now that I have the full bottle, I will definitely be using it more liberally now.

Getting Mod Vanilla was already quite a big purchase for me, considering the fact that I had just gotten the Capsico chair not too long ago,  so when I say my spending is getting out of control, I really mean it is getting out of control because I just got myself another bottle of perfume from Maison Francis Kurkdjian. 

Gentle Fluidity Gold.

I got the 5ml decant a few weeks ago to see how it would fare when I layer it with my Gentle Fluidity Silver and use it on a daily basis. I tried it in the store previously, I thought it was too sweet, but when I actually take the time to appreciate the smell in the comforts of my home, that was when I started to really appreciate it.

Initially I was still very much in favor of Silver, but the more I smelled Gold, the more I actually started to favor the sweetness of Gold, it just smells so fucking good. At the rate I am using Gold, I predict the decant only has a week of juice left before it's empty, so I bit the bullet and decided to buy a medium sized bottle from the official MFK website, it is double the size of the Silver that I had gotten from Esecentials.

... and it's $300.

Escentials sells it for about $350, so it was a no brainer to get it directly from MFK, plus MFK also gives out 2 free mini samples for every order, and since my order was above a certain amount, they also threw in another 3 samples, so I will be getting 5 free samples on top of the Gentle Fluidity Gold.

It will be a huge fucking problem if I end up also liking the scent of the samples because I cannot afford to be spending hundreds of dollars on perfumes every month, even though I have been doing that the past 2 to 3 months. The good thing is I have stopped getting more decants because I am very satisfied with the Gentle Fluidity series.

Mod Vanilla is great and I am glad that I have it in my collection, but the Gentle Fluidity collection is just next level for me.

The current collection of perfumes that I have, at least $500 worth, once my new Gentle Fluidity comes in, that will bring it to $800 worth.

I really need to stop.

Saturday Work and Perfume stuff....

Had to attend to a site visit earlier this morning and this is the first time I had to work on a Saturday since I joining my current company.

The clients had shared with my boss and I that they could get their property agent to allow us a viewing the home and the main goal was really for my boss to visit the site to take measurements, my attendance was optional, so attending this site meeting was what I wanted because getting the chance to meet the homeowners in person as much as possible is always easier than conversing through Whatsapp, this is speaking from my own personal experience as an Interior Designer/Project Manager from my last stint at ID4. Working today was also a chance for me to return the hours I had owed the company on Thursday when I had taken the morning off to assist at my friend's wedding. 

I had booked a Grab in advance yesterday evening and at about 10pm last night, the Grab driver who accepted my advance booking actually dropped me a text to inform me that he will be picking me up at 10.00am and asked me not to cancel the booking, I thought that was unnecessary. I mean I won't book a Grab in advance for fun and cancel for fun, I have better things to do than waste someone's time like that, but if my plans change last minute, I won't have any choice but to cancel the booking, so I didn't appreciate the message, but I did reply and simply told the driver I will see him tomorrow. The driver is a nice old man, but because he had send me the text last night, my overall impression of him was ultimately still not very good. I recently also took a Grab home from work a few days ago because I had OT and that driver was also left me a not so great impression, very nonchalant attitude, and when he was dropping me off at my condo, instead of rolling down his window to tell the security guard he was dropping me off like how all the other drivers will and should do, he drives his car a bit further up and rolls the back passenger window down instead, which is where I was seated and just expects me to tell the guard my Unit Number, I mean I get it's easier for the resident to tell the Security Guard the information, but he should have just told me very quickly before he rolled down the window...

"Help me talk to your the Security Guard"

.... so I can know what to expect, but nope, he just rolls down my window and I just felt like it was such a  rude gesture, prior to that, during the drive, he was also busy fiddling with something and not paying attention to the road whilst we were on the Expressway as well, I think he was using a nail cutter to cut the loose skin on his finger, it was fucking dangerous. I regret leaving him 4 stars, if I had the chance to re-rate him, I would have given him only 1 or 2 stars because now when I am reliving that experience in my head, he does not even deserve a passing grade. 

Anyways I digress....

On the way over to the site at about 10.05pm, the customer drops a message in the group chat asking where my boss and I were, I replied very confidently that I was in the Grab and will reach at 10.30am, thinking I am going to be on time, it was when my boss replied and said he was looking for a carpark did I realize something was off, so I checked the past messages and realized I had fucked up the timing. The meeting was suppose to be at 10.00am, not 10.30am.

During the drive over, my stomach also started acting up and as I was about 10 minutes away from the site, the need to take a dump started to kick in, and it was bad, every time we hit a red light, it felt like the longest red light of my life, every time there was a small jam, I would be cursing at whatever was causing the jam quietly in my head. 

When we finally reached the location, I immediately tried to look for a public toilet in the Condominium complex, it is quite a small condo, there wasn't any security guard so the client had to open the gate remotely for me to enter the vicinity, which immediately got me worried because if they didn't have a Security Guard stationed there, that means there probably isn't a need for a public toilet. I noticed there was a swimming pool on the second storey, and usually at most condos, if there is a swimming pool area, there are usually public bathrooms as well, well, they didn't, at this point, I knew if I tried to take a fart, it won't just be gas that comes out, so I headed straight to the apartment, apologized for being late and then immediately requested to use their toilet.

The reason why I didn't want to use their toilet initially is because I can feel it's going to be the explosive type if I just let it ripped, I am worried about the smell, I am worried about the ricochet and most importantly, I am worried about the sound that it will make, but I had no choice, the condo didn't have any public toilet and I was definitely not going to be able to hold it in for the next hour of the meeting.

I asked the person whom I thought was the homeowner if I could use her toilet to do a No.2 and she graciously told me it was alright, I later find out that the person is in fact not the owner but the property agent, the owner had actually stepped out of the house so as not to get in our way. 

It was not a good shitting experience, I really wanted to just let it loose, but because the clients were outside with the property agent, and about 2 minutes after I entered the toilet, the client's parents also arrived, the last thing I want them to hear is the sound of whatever that needs to be emptied from my bowel hitting water at a rapid pace.  I had to throw toilet paper into the toilet bowl to try and dampen the sound, but the homeowner barely had enough, so I had to make sure I also had enough left to wipe,  after I was done, I had to tell everyone not to step into the toilet for a while, which was a bit difficult because my boss needed to go in to take measurements. The whole experience was an ordeal.

But everything after that was smooth sailing, we took the measurements we needed to take and I had a good talk with the clients about the design aspect of things, so hopefully, I can settle all the design drawings soon because work has been super busy since I came back from my Reservist. 

Decided to visit ION again after the site visit was over because there is a direct bus to Orchard, the goal for the ION Orchard trip was to visit Sephora again and confirm which perfume was the one I was drawn to because previously, I sprayed all this and they all have similar names...

...I knew it was either Soleil Neige or Soleil Blanc, they are both really nice fresh scent for the local weather, but I was definitely more attracted to one than the other. 

I had actually gotten decants for both scents on Shopee just to make sure, but they are not expected to arrive until next week, that's why I decided to head to ION today to confirm since I was already going to be outside. 

And I did confirm the one that I am more drawn to is...

Tom Ford Soleil Neige.

... this was the one that I really liked, the dry down is really nice. I had a feeling it was this based on the notes online, I was drawn to the very lemon floral dry down, but it's better to just go double confirm. 

The point of me getting the scent is really just to collect it in it's original bottle, so I really wanted to get it in that column looking bottle design. I was only going to commit to the $240 30ml bottle because the 50ml is $450, which is a bit too expensive for me. They also have a 10ml version but it comes in this packaging..

... which to me just seemed a bit pointless from a collector point of view, because whilst it is a nice fancy bottle, the shape is so generic, I might as well get the 10ml decant from Shopee at less than half the price 

Unfortunately, Sephora didn't have the Soleil Neige in 30ml available, the salesperson told me to get the 50ml instead and I told her it was way too big and way too expensive, so I ended up leaving the store empty handed. I knew there was another perfume store on level 3 called Esencial , they didn't carry Tom Ford, but they do carry Maison Francis Kurkdjian (MFK) and I had recently gotten 2 more decants from MFK on Shopee, the Grand Soir and Gentle Fluidity Silver. If I were to get an MFK that I know I will like, it will be Gentle Fluidity Silver, I was literally wearing that scent on me, so I headed to level 3 and started smelling all their MFK range. 

Gentle Fluidity comes in 2 version, one in Gold and one in Silver. I got the Silver decant so I know how it smells, but I didn't have the Gold one, so I was curious to see how different they would fare against each other. 

The Gold one smells as good as the Silver one, it was sweeter and warmer, the dry down literally smells like honey on my skin, it was really nice, but because of how sweet it was, it just didn't feel very suitable for the Singapore weather. It would smell amazing on like a cold rainy day or at night, but if I were to be smelling that sweet honey scent on myself on a scorching afternoon, I would just feel really sticky.

I also smelled the rest of the collection and I think because I am in a physical store, I can't really take my time to slowly appreciate the notes as much as I would like to, even though no one was really pressuring me to leave the store or to quickly get one, so they were all quite meh. I might have to get decants of the rest so I can properly appreciate them at the comforts of my own home.

I did leave the store with a bottle though...

Gentle Fluidity Silver

My very first full bottle of MFK, it's quite exciting, the original price for the 35ml bottle that I got was $209, but they were having a 20% discount, so I was able to snag it for $169, according the the salesperson, they only had 2 bottles of it left as well.

It is fucking expensive, but I am happy with the purchase. That being said, I really do need to start controlling my spending because I had also recently purchased the Hag Capisco last week, so that's already a total of almost $900 that I have spend within the span of 2 weeks, throw in all the decants that I had also purchased recently, I think I might have spend at least $1000 on all those items.

I also decided to drop by the old furniture store I used to worked at after I bought the perfume just to catch up with my ex-colleague because it was literally just one level above the perfume store and it was nice to see how the store has changed, it's not much but there are visible differences, it does feels a lot more spacious. I also met the new Manager who seemed to be quite a friendly guy, and as I was catching up with my colleague, my friend's husband (the one I chauffeured for during the wedding), to my surprise, was also at ION and he spotted me as he was heading to the toilet, he came into the store and told me he was having lunch with my friend and her family at the restaurant a few units down, when he left and headed back to the restaurant, I could see my friend running over to the store.

We had a bit of catch up as well and I will say, it was a very pleasant visit.

I also managed to get Cinnabon from B4,  it was baked on site but because I didn't eat it right away, the final product still ended up being quite similar to the one I had in Bangkok. It was alright, I am also glad that there wasn't a massive queue, I was able to get it within 15 minutes of queuing, that being said, there were only 4 or 5 people in front of me, so I guess it was slow because the store was slow.

My day as a Wedding Chauffeur

When my friend had asked me a few months ago if I could be her chauffer for her wedding, I was not very keen to offer my services, not because I didn't want to help her, but because I am not very confident on the road, I hardly ever drive nowadays unless I have to attend my reservist, so my driving skills are quite rusty.

I didn't outright turn her down, but instead told her to put me as her second option should she really have trouble finding someone else. She tried to look around but she couldn't find anyone, so she asked me again during the period when I was doing Reservist if I could be her chauffer, since I had was actively driving again when she asked me, I decided to help her out and agreed to be her driver for her big day.

For the 3 weeks that I had been driving, my road confidence definitely went up, I even started to do parallel parking, which I was never confident doing even when I was actively driving my Mum's car years ago. That being said, my parallel parking was quite shit because the car is still sticking out by quite a bit, but still, being able to shimmy my car parallel between two vehicle is a win for me.

My reservist ended about a week ago and it has been a full week since I actually drove, so the night leading up to today morning was one that had honestly been filled with quite a bit of anxiety. It is a huge responsibility because my friend was clearly more confident of my driving skills than I was and all I could think about the night before was all the "what if" scenarios that could happen...  

What if I missed a turn and the bride and groom ends up being late for their wedding?

What if I got into an accident on the Expressway because it's during morning peak hour?

What if I got into an accident and the bride and groom got injured?

... the last one was the worst scenario that could happen and I am very happy to report that none of them came to fruition and my part of the wedding was a success.

The day started with the Groom driving the car to my house at about 9.00am,  he swapped places with me and I drove back to my friend's place (the Bride), that drive also allowed me to get used to the car. It was a Honda Fit and it is not as good of a drive as the Mazda 2 I had loaned for my reservist, so it took me a while to properly get used to the car, and that honestly made me miss the Mazda 2 so much. The Honda Fit also brings up memories of the time I rented a Honda Fit for my reservist but ended up barely using it because I got Covid. 

The drive over to the Bride's place was relatively smooth, the Groom was able to properly guide me on which lane I should stay on so it alleviated a lot of my anxiety about missing turns. After I dropped the Groom off, I had to send the best man and bridesmaid over to the hotel for them to prepare the venue, I was expecting heavy traffic and had estimated the travelling time to be about 45 minutes, it was a gross overestimate because it ended up only taking me half that time and when I got back, I was informed by my friend (Bride) that tea ceremony is taking a bit longer than expected, so the original plan to have them leave the place by 11am and head for the hotel got delayed. 

I was back at 10.45am, the original schedule was for us to head to the hotel at 11am, we ended up only leaving at 11.30am. I had waited in the car for a total of 45 minutes, the only thought that came to my mind was the lunch hour traffic at Orchard Road, which is where the hotel is located. 

The traffic was heavy on the Expressway towards the Hotel, thankfully there wasn't any jam, there was just a lot of car and because the Bride and Groom were already late, I was very anxious and wanted to get there as soon as possible for them, the Groom was getting calls from his guest asking where he was, that everyone was already arriving, the Bride was also anxiously looking at the time and just exclaiming that she was late, but neither of them were actually rushing me, in fact, they were asking me to not feel pressured and take my time because I had told the Bride before I accepted her request that I am not someone who drives regularly.

I knew which turns to take and which lanes to stick to because I had already driven the Best man and Bridesmaid earlier, plus I had been studying the route on Google Map/ Google Earth religiously for the past week to make sure I don't end up missing any turns, and we managed to reach the hotel a little before 12noon. 

Both the Bride and Groom dropped off, the Groom took a while because he was moving a lot of things from the car trunk to the passenger seat for easier access when they have to do their outfit changes during the ceremony, so I was just parked at the drop off point for a little too long, and the drop off point was just congested with vehicles, by the time the Groom was, I was actually stuck in the drop off point for a good 2 to 3 minutes because there was a Grab right in front of mine that was waiting for his passenger who didn't seem to arrive, on the right were just  taxis and private hires dropping people off and picking people up, it was really quite bad, but I did eventually manage to squeeze my way out whilst quietly cursing  this one car who didn't want to give way to let me filter out of my drop off lane, fucker.

I had to drive around the block because the entry of the hotel carpark is located right before the drop off point and that stretch of road I had to drive was just packed due to lunch hour traffic, I was also on the wrong lane when I turned out, so had to do a bit of lane filtering again.

When I got to the carpark, it was tight, if my friend had actually rented a Mercedes for her wedding like she had intended, I would have been fucked because there was no way I would have been able to maneuver a Mercedes S-Class through that hamster opening of a car park lane without scratching the car. Thankfully I wasn't aware of how tight the carpark was until the day itself because it would have been something I would have been overthinking about the night before.

Once the car had been parked, that was when I could finally relax because my role was officially over. I grabbed all my belongings, locked the car and went to pass the car keys to the Groom. He gave me a red packet, which I was very grateful for and that was it, I saw the Bride but didn't want to disturb her since she was busy entertaining her guest, so I left after I said my goodbyes to the Groom and his Best man.

Headed to over ION Orchard right after to visit Sephora, the goal was to smell as much Tom Ford perfume as I could, sprayed a few on a few tester strips and then headed to the office for work. I did find this one particular scent that I really liked, unfortunately, because I was trying out so many, I didn't know which one was which on the tester strip. Well likely be dropping by again soon to confirm and see if I want to commit to the purchase of my first ever high end fragrance.

Got a $700 chair...

Just made payment for a brand new HAG Capisco chair and I am getting a bit of buyer's remorse, the retail price of the chair is $909.00 on Shopee and during the month of August, there was a big  discount, which brought the price down to $669.00.

I was interested in the chair, but forking out $700 just sounded a bit nuts, so I didn't really think too much about the discount, I had assumed that discount was permanent, like what ErgoTune does with their Supreme series, so I just ignored it and figured once I was ready to get it, the discount will still be there and I can get it at $699. 

Well,  it wasn't permanent.

.... the price went back to $909.00 a month later and after that, it just become out of reach because I am not going to be paying close to 4 digits for an office chair. It's an interesting chair and I would like to replace my Secret Lab with that, but I would much rather spend $900 on a gadget.

Fast forward to today, I was on Shopee and that chair appeared on my Shopee Homepage, so I just clicked on it to see and the price didn't change, it was still way too expensive for me to consider. I went to look at the reviews and they were all mainly positive ones, but then I came across one particular review and it was criticizing a local furniture store called W.Atelier for the poor delivery. I didn't realize W.Atelier was the brand that was representing the HAG Capisco, so out of curiosity, I went to the website to take a look at it and lo and behold...

... 43% off. The retail price does not tally with the Shopee one, so it had clearly been marked up on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a discount.

So what did I do?

I went to make the purchase within 2 minutes of looking at that discount like the idiot that I am. I am splitting the invoice for that chair into 3 payments, so $230 will be deducted from my bank account every month to pay for it, which makes it less painful for my bank account, rather than a critical hit, it's damage over time,  I am about to be done paying for my Aftershock laptop that I had gotten in July for my current job, so to have another debt come replace that is really great timing. 

Here is hopping the chair is worth it's $700 price tag. This purchase is definitely going to make me control my perfume buys for a while because I have been spending even more money getting more decants. I recently just forked out another $100 getting 5 more 5ml decants from Tom Ford and Parfum De Marley, those 2 brands are fucking expensive, the Tom Ford's Fucking Fabulous cost me a whopping $35 for a 5ml decant and I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE IT! The opening smells like the floral notes of mala xiang guo peppers, and I hate mala, so that association ruined the fragrance for me, I could have saved that money if I had just gone to Sephora to test them out first.

Returning the Car and Cohesion 2.0

 Today is the first day of work since my ICT and I decided to go to work abit earlier today since I was going to take some time off in the late morning to return my car. 

I drove out at about 7.45pm and it was peak hour traffic, but because I have been driving for the past 3 weeks, the peak hour traffic didn't feel very daunting to me anymore, then at about 8.00pm, my boss suddenly drops me a text and ask if we could meet at Junction 8 at 10am to visit a completed jobsite with a few of my colleagues who had just arrived in Singapore to actually visit us. My 2 colleagues are also designers like myself, but they are based in other countries, so this was really their first time visiting a completed jobsite. I figured since I still had the car, it would be good to fully utilize it, so I headed to the office first to drop off my laptop which I had brought home before my reservist thinking I might need to do some work, I didn't actually have to, and slowly settled everything before leaving the office again at about 9.45am.

Oh, I was also able to parallel park the car successfully when I reach the office, and it is so fucking upsetting because just when I have finally gotten comfortable driving on the road again and can even confidently attempt parallel parking, I have to return the car.

Anyways, I headed out to the nearby petrol station to fully pump the car's gas tank and then headed over to the job site. The total amount I have spend pumping gas for this reservist cycle, including today's top up, is $250, that's pretty good for a 3 week long reservist, I only had to top up the tank 3 times over the course of 3 weeks, the fuel efficiency for the Mazda 2 is so much better than the Picanto, I think I had to pump the Picanto 4 times over a period of 2 weeks for my previous reservist. 

I was a bit late, we were suppose to meet at 10.15am, I only got there at 10.20am, but then it turns out my boss and my colleagues were even letter than me, they arrived 5 minutes after me, we all greeted each other and my boss welcomed me back from Reservist, after which we headed up to take a look at the home. I didn't have any part with this project, so I didn't really feel anything towards it, my colleagues on the other hand were more enamored by it because it's their project and it's their first time seeing the fruition of their own project in person. I was there for  maybe 15 minutes before I told my boss I will go return the car to the workshop first because I honestly didn't really care all that much about  the house after the first 5 minutes of looking, my boss was really nice and suggested he will pick me up from the workshop once I had returned the car and then will drive all of us back to the office together.

The drive to the workshop was quite smooth, I returned the car with no issue, got my deposit back and my boss arrived a few minutes later to pick me up and we all headed back to the office together. I also got a call from NS Hotline about my pay discrepancy, prior to that, my company's Accountant had also resubmitted the documents, and that is also what the person on the phone told me to do, so hopefully there is no issue and I can actually get my intended make up pay amount.

After that, my boss brought everyone out for lunch at a nearby restaurant and that was followed by bowling and a karaoke session. I didn't do any work today, my boss had literally planned for the whole day to be an outing session for everyone in honor of my 2 colleagues visit to Singapore. It feels like compensation for the not so happening Cohesion yesterday, my fingers are definitely going to be sore from the bowling tomorrow but the day was quite fun and it's honestly such a nice way to return back to work. 

10th Cycle - Last Day Cohesion Stuff.

Today is the official last day of my very last ICT cycle and I was pleasantly surprised by it because for the very first time (and last time for me), we were all required to meet at a SAFRA located in the West side, more specifically, at Choa Chu Kang. 

In the past, all the Cohesion I have attended after our ICT  would usually be held at locations like Tampines because my airbase is located in the East, so it makes sense, which in turn always makes it very inconvenient for me, but this time, they actually decided to do it in the West and the journey to get there from my place only took a mere 10 - 15 minutes drive, majority of the other ICTs were protesting but they were to no avail, I personally am not used to having to attend any sort of SAF related events that requires less than 15 minutes travel time, so my convenience at their expense was like a nice goodbye gift.

We were asked to meet at a LAN Shop within Choa Chu Kang SAFRA, and initially, I had assumed maybe we would meet at the LAN Shop first and then go to the bowling alley on that same level since that's usually what we always end up doing, bowling, but as I entered the LAN Shop, I noticed there were Pool tables there as well, so naturally, I thought we were going to play pool.

Well, after being in the LAN shop for about 15 minutes-ish,  we were still not given any sort of instruction whatsoever about what we were suppose to do there, so people just started helping themselves to the plethora of PCs in the LAN Shop, I would say about 60% of us were playing Computer Games while the rest were playing Pool. It was so weird because PC Gaming was the last thing I would have expected would be the plan for our cohesion, but there's always a first time for everything, and honestly, I think there was just no planning done at all. 

 

I attempted to play a few games on the computer, I tried Resident Evil 7, Crazy Taxi, Overwatch and Doom, I didn't find any of them particularly entertaining, then my Reservist Buddy decided he wanted to grab a bite at Burger King on the first floor because he was also not interested in any of the pre-installed games on the PC, it would have been better if the LAN Shop also had controllers because I would have really enjoyed playing Elden Ring with a controller, but anyways, I followed him, we had a quick breakfast there, then returned back to the LAN Shop and I barely played another round of Overwatch, before we were all instructed to go to the 5th floor for our lunch that had been catered for us, I pretty much just quit mid-game, so that will probably affect my matchmaking if I ever go back to playing that game again.

Since my Reservist Buddy and I just had Burger King, we were also too full to eat, so we just waited until it was time to return our Base Pass and Vehicle Label, which happened at about 12.30pm and then we were released

And that's how the very last Cohesion for my very last ICT Cycle went, aside from the location being of great convenience for me, the rest of the cohesion was very meh, the next time I get called up for anything Army related, I hope it will be for my MR Ceremony which will likely be either in March or April next year, it had better not be another 3 weeks high key.

I have to admit, I am feeling a bit sad because I have gotten a bit attached to the car, and also this will also be the last time I will have a legitimate reason to rent a car for an extended period of time. 3 weeks of driving has made me comfortable with the roads again and it's really such a pity that I will need to return the car tomorrow afternoon, 

I also have to return to work tomorrow, so that means I will need to drive the car to work, drop by laptop back in the office, do a bit of work, drive the car to top up the petrol and then return it to the workshop before taking a bus back to the office in the afternoon.

10th Cycle - Last Duty forever

I have officially completed my very last Guard Duty that I will have to do ever this morning and I am finally free from having to do six hour long duties! 

I will start off by saying this cycle was such a huge improvement over the last cycle, 

1. Our manpower was healthy. So everyone had on average 60 hours of Guard Duty that they had to do in total for the entire cycle, I had about 54 hours and my friend, who was super lucky, only had 48 hours because of the way the schedule had been planned, that had indirectly been in our favor. The Sergeant who planned it didn't specifically plan them according to each individual, he had simply planned 8 different schedules and those 8 different schedules were then assigned to the 8 of us randomly.

2. Our Commanders were competent and were able to negotiate for better duty arrangements for us. Each of us had originally been required to do another 6-12 hours worth of duties each, so I am very thankful that the last Commanders from my last cycle didn't come back for this cycle because they were too soft and ended up becoming completely useless.

3. The duty schedule was amazing, I pretty much had a full day off every 2 days and my duty timings were always either in the Morning or Afternoon, majority of it was in the morning, which meant that my body clock didn't get fucked from having to stay wake at odd hours in the night and morning.

I have mainly just been getting up at 3.45am and going to sleep at like 8.30pm a lot the past 2-3 weeks, but I appreciate the consistency and it's so much better than being given the graveyard shift.

The graveyard shift is great on paper because the weather is generally cooler at night and the camp is also pretty much dead during that timing, so we will usually have more freedom to openly do things that we usually can't do, like using our phones or eating at the emplacement, but the main problem I had when I had to do the graveyard shift in the earlier cycles was the struggle to get any sort of shut eye in the day time to prepare myself for it, I would usually end up not getting any sort of shut eye because the harder I try to get myself to fall asleep, the harder it actually is to fall asleep, and it gets worst when I am constantly looking at the time and telling myself I need to fall asleep because I only have "X" amount of hours left before I need to get up, so I am very grateful I didn't get any midnight shift this time around.

4. The new non air-conditioned Sentry emplacement has got to be one of the best changes during this whole cycle, it was such a welcomed change and it is such a pity this was only introduced during my very last cycle. because I could have really used it during my last cycle when all my Guard Duty was in the non-airconditioned Sentry emplacement!

I didn't have to worry about potentially being paired with some weirdo active soldier, I didn't have to be on alert, which meant getting up from my seat and holding my gun, whenever a car was driving into the airbase, I could use my phone much more comfortably, so I was just watching Netflix and YouTube when I am not reading my Kindle, in broad daylight, when all the army personnel were booking in and the base was at it's most busy. I was also able to pee without having to call for a toilet replacement, it wasn't ideal to pee in a dirty bottle, but this was not something I could have done previously.

The Mazda 2 I ended up renting was also another huge improvement this cycle, it's such a far cry from the Picanto I used to drive, so driving has been a breeze and I will miss that car when I return it to the workshop on Thursday. I always get so tempted to want to get a car of my own at the end of my Reservist, I miss having a car to drive because the family car was gifted to my brother after he moved out and I stopped having the chance to be able to brush up on my driving every once in a while when I wanted to.

Overall, this has been a fantastic last cycle, my only complaint right now is that I have yet to receive my Make-Up pay, only my service pay has shown up in my bank account. I have called the NS Hotline to ask and they think my company's accountant might have messed up, my accountant did tell me it was her first time submitting the NS Make Up Pay Claim, so I can't say I am surprised with this potential screw up. She actually told me SAF will look at our CPF contributions and pay us based on that after she did a bit of research on how to submit the claims, so she technically didn't submit anything and I am hoping it's just a matter of time before the amount comes in.

Also! The temptation to get a Pink iPhone 15 has fallen over me, I blogged about how it's not a good financial decision and how it's a pointless change to go from the iPhone 14 Pro to the iPhone 15 Pro, but I just have the itch to get a new tech and I think it's also because I had been waiting for the iPhone 15 Pro to come out for months now, I mean that's the whole reason why I didn't get a new case for my current iPhone 14 Pro sooner, because I kept telling myself it was pointless to get one if I was going to change to the iPhone 15 Pro soon. There really is nothing appealing about the new iPhone except for the USB-C port, and only the iPhone 15 Pro has USB-C 3.0, the iPhone 15 only has USB-C 2.0, which I don't understand why Apple didn't just introduced USB-C 3.0 to all the models, well I do, because Money.  Also, if I were to go from the iPhone 14 Pro to the pink iPhone, it will be the regular iPhone 15, not the Pro, which will be a bit of a downgrade because I will be losing the 120hz refresh rate screen and I guess 1 back camera. I really don't need to get the new iPhone, I should just wait for the Pixel 8 and see how that goes.

Speaking of phone case, I really like the new leather case I had just gotten for my iPhone 14 Pro, I really wanted to get a leather case ever since I saw my friend using one for his iPhone, it just feels so soft and supple, so I got one, the leather smell is also quite nice, it's not an official Apple one because the available color they had were ugly, it's also a pity Apple has also decided to discontinue the leather case for the iPhone 15, but huge win for the bulls I guess. The one I got is from a brand called Nomad on Shopee, it's like $70, and I also found out that there is another brand called Bellroy that also does leather cases, which I can consider if I switch to the Pixel 8 next month or the Samsung S24 Ultra next year.

I also just spend more money on Perfume Decants. I think it's only going to be matter of time before I start shelling out $300 - $400 on a full bottle of perfume from one of those high end perfume brands like Tom Ford or Parfum De Marley, I am just waiting to find that scent that will really captivate me enough and make me bite that bullet. Right now, the scent I want to get is Vanilla Mod by Ariana Grande, it's not a niche fragrance, but it's really nice, I'm just waiting for the only Shopee Seller who sells the full bottle to come back from her vacation so I can actually buy it because non of the physical stores in Singapore sells it.

Song(s) of the Moment - 

New Dance - XG

I wasn't specifically playing this song on purpose, it just kept playing on the radio and I think it will be one that will trigger memories of this10th and final Reservist Cycle when I listen to it again months or even years down the road.

10th Cycle - Small Updates and iPhone stuff.

09.04.2023

I was very tempted to upgrade my iPhone 14 Pro to the latest iPhone 15 Pro that was introduced earlier today by Apple. 

With how much leaks that had been happening even before the official announcement, I kinda already knew what to expect, which was mainly the introduction of the USB-C port, but then with everything else being pretty much identical, it is really not worth the "upgrade"? Maybe, if I had still been using my Android, this iPhone 15 buy would make sense, but as of right now, paying $1,600 for a phone that is almost identical to my current one, but with the additional USB-C port, is not a very smart financial decision to make. Sure there are internal spec bumps and it's now made of titanium, but the only thing that I am interested in is the USB-C port, the rest of the upgrades are negligible to me because my current iPhone is already way more powerful than what I need it to be for my day to day use.

I will say I am maybe about knee deep into the Apple ecosystem right now, owning the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, but thankfully, because I am not actually a Mac user, getting myself out of the ecosystem is still going to be easy for me, and after seeing what Apple has to offer, I will be steering clear from MacOS so I don't actually end up fully submerged in their ecosystem. I will be saving my money and just get a new leather case for my iPhone 14 Pro instead.

 

Reservist Cycle wise, there's nothing much to update, I have completed reading the Hunger Games prequel today during my duty, actually completed it during the first 90 minutes, and then I couldn't use my phone because there were a few Military Police who came into the camp today to vehicle spot check with our unit, which was really random, but they were only there till 8.45am, so after that, I was able to go back to using my phone again, which I used to watch Netflix and completed the One Piece Live Action series, it was surprisingly good, I don't follow the manga or anime, and I am not about to start because there are wayyyyy too many episodes (20 seasons totaling 1000 episodes) and chapters (also 1000 chapters) to keep up, but it was a fun series to watch.

Right now, I will need another book to keep me occupied for my remaining 3 duties.

15.9.2023

Third last duty today in camp, the active who was doing the duty with me was an active Sergeant, so that was surprising, but I didn't really have any conversation with him during our 6 hour stint together. I could tell he was really bored, but I really couldn't find any topic to start a conversation for us to kill time together.

I spend majority of the time scrolling Tik-Tok and reading a sample of a novel I might get called The Witching Hour on Kindle, it's quite a big sample, according to Kindle, it will take me 3 hours and 30 minutes to complete it, so we shall see how good that book is and whether I will commit to getting the entire novel, because it is actually part of a Trilogy, so that will be many many hours of reading which will definitely extend beyond my Reservist cycle. 

There are only 2 more rounds of Guard Duty left for me and I will be done with it forever! Hopefully I will feel sentimental about it and then the duties will "feel too short" to be over. 

I have also just Pre-Ordered the iPhone 15 Pro Max in 512GB....

... for potential scalping purposes, 

I thought the stocks will be low because....

1.  The official Apple Pre-Order website was not working at 8.00pm when the Pre-Order was suppose to open, I thought it was due to super high traffic.

2. The official Apple Reseller store on Shopee was accepting the Pre-Order at 8.00pm sharp, but by the time I tried to look at what they had that was available, after my attempts at trying to access the official Apple Pre-Order website site failed, most of the stocks had been wiped out.

....so everything looked like it was pointing towards a low stock count.

Which is why when I could finally access the official apple store, I made my order really quickly without thinking too much and right now, got the iPhone 15 Pro Max, 512GB in Natural Titanium, which I would assume is their flagship color, got to the confirmation page, confirmed the order and I got my delivery date.

When that was done, I went back to the Pre-Order page to see how everything was like, to check if the anything had gone out of stock within that minute that I had spend just speed ordering the iPhone.

No changes.

30 minutes later, I  went back to check and still no difference. it seems like the stock is still quite healthy.

The stocks isn't low. I can't scalp the phone if the stocks ain't low, so I will probably just end up cancelling my Pre-Order tomorrow. The phone is $2,319!I can get a 24" iMac with that money,  plus I have just gotten a new leather case for my iPhone 14 Pro along with another Lighting Cable, so I'm not going to be keeping the new iPhone 15 Pro.

Update : 16.09.2023

Just cancelled the iPhone 15 Pro Max order this morning. I had went to look at the stock on Apple's website for the model and it seems like they do have the quantity required to meet the demand, it's just a matter of how late the consumers will get their phone.

When I had placed my pre-order at 8.30pm last night, which is like maybe a few minutes after their Pre-Order page finally went live, I was given a delivery date between 27th Sept - 2nd Oct, but when I do a pre-order now with the exact specifications, it will only be delivered between 7th Nov - 15th Nov, which is an additional month, it's not really good for scalping if the waiting period is that short compared to what I was expecting, I was hoping it would be like PS5 level of low stock count, whereby the console cannot be bought by regular consumers for years because the scalpers were constantly buying them in bulk, and those scalpers were then selling it for double the price and people were actually paying those ridiculous price just to own one. The PS5 was released in late 2020 and it only got readily available early this year, it took Sony almost 2 years before they could meet the quantity demands of the consumers, but Apple doesn't seem to be having that problem.

I am guessing a lot of people probably aren't actually keen to get the new iPhone 15 as well, that's why the stock count is still relatively healthy, because it is very similar to the iPhone 14 and most of the major updates are pretty incremental changes, design wise, there is also not much changes, it still looks like the iPhone 14, which looked like the iPhone 13, which looked like the iPhone 12, which is really just a rehash of the original iPhone 4.

Apple didn't just lose Steve Jobs, they also lost Jony Ives.

A part of me was also contemplating to just buy it and then keep it, leave it unopened so I could potentially sell it for a lot of money years down the road, but who am I kidding, the moment I get it, I will most likely open it within a few weeks and start using it. The main factor that really pulled me back on the idea of just have my Pre-Order be processed was the fact that I had already gotten a $70 leather case for my current iPhone from Shopee, along with the purchase of an additional lighting cable, if I hadn't gotten those items, I might have gotten myself the iPhone 15 Pro.

Well, good news is I have saved myself from shelling out $2,319.00 for something I do not need at all, so I have decided to go buy another perfume decant from Shopee. I thought my Perfume obsession is slowly dying down, but the fact that I just went to pay $20 to get another 5ml decant of a niche perfume brand called Parfums De Marly is prove that it hasn't. 

Next item I buy will be a full size bottle of one of the niche perfumes, or maybe the Vanilla Mod fragrance by Ariana Grande. I tried the Billie Eilish fragrance as well because it is a Vanilla perfume as well, but  Mod Vanilla is still superior. Eilish 1.0 smells like Vanilla Ice Cream whereas Mod Vanilla really smells like Vanilla bean.