Good Morning Tuesday

I woke this morning feeling not so great, looking at the days ahead of me just felt really bleak, like there was nothing but an endless repeat of the same thing, so the mood was pretty terrible.

Headed into the office and tried to get work done, but really didn't have any mood or motivation to do anything, so after barely updating the drawings, I found myself just surfing the internet and watching some videos that I really had no interest in, I needed sound because the office was so quiet, there was no one but me and that silence was deafening, it made me think about a lot of things, which made me really depress.

Didn't have too much of an appetite, so I ended up getting 2 sandwiches from the nearby foodcourt and a madeleine before I went to attend a job interview that a recruitment agency had set up for me.

The role was for an Events and Exhibition Designer, which I thought sounded like a fun job that I could tackle, because I am beginning to get tired of doing Interior Design, but as I was talking to the interviewer, who was the boss of that company, he was asking me a bunch of questions related to my software skills and I slowly started to realize I was definitely not the right person for the job.

Instead of asking about skills that I am strong at, which is SketchUp, he was asking me about Photoshop, which I know how to use, but only at the base level, then he started asking about my graphic design skills, which I have none of. The talk about how the job will be very different from what I am doing was also definitely something that made me lose interest in the role immediately, such as the expectation to churn out drawings within 2-3 days when I will usually take 1 - 2 weeks as an Interior Designer, I honestly just wanted to end the interview mid-way through because I knew right then that I was not an ideal candidate and didn't want to waste the guy's time anymore, but we sort of powered through it and by the end, he asked me if I had any questions, to which I just told him I didn't, which should be pretty clear that I am really not interested in the role anymore.

It was nice to have imagined I could have switched to a different company and be surrounded with more colleagues and command a slightly higher pay, but I think expectation definitely didn't match reality, now I really have nothing much to look forward to anymore.

Once the meeting was over, I was once again reminded of how alone I was in the office, there was no one else there, it was just me, the sound of the air-conditioner running, and construction noise from outside. I just sat there, on my desk and started feeling really empty, I really had zero motivation to do anything, so I got up and started pacing around the office and was actively just talking to myself out loud, my boss texted me at one point and ask me how I was holding up, because he knew I had visited the doctor over the weekend for anti-depressant pills, so I told him I probably needed to go take a walk because I wasn't doing too well mentally, to which he agreed and urged me to.

I stepped out of the office, and I remember it was drizzling,, I headed over to the mall nearby because I really needed to be surrounded by people, and when I headed in and heard all the sounds of life, children playing, customers chatting, people walking around, the sound of movie trailers playing from the large TV in the atrium, I just immediately felt better, it's like all that noise just started filled up and drowned out this deafening silence in my head. 

I did more walking, visited some shops to get some essential items I needed, and then got myself a drink from coffee bean and just chilled at the cafe and started people watching, all that noise just made me feel sane, I had planned to just zone out at the cafe for an hour before heading back to the office, but after about 30 minutes, I think I had enough zoning and went back, I was in a much better headspace after that.

Texted a friend and asked if he was free and would like to meet for dinner, he was down for it, so I ended up meeting him over an ION Orchard, whilst I was there, I decided to pop by the old furniture store I had worked at and I found my ex-colleague on duty today, caught up with him and kinda walked around the showroom to see how everything looked, it was pretty nice and I felt really energized after that, I will be meeting him again next week with my ex-Manager for a meal, so that's something to look forward to.

My friend arrives like 10 minutes later and we headed to get our dinner. 

Had a really good catch up over a meal at Itacho Sushi, shared with him about what has been happening with me, opened up about some things I hadn't really shared with others before and because he had similar experiences with me, it was pretty helpful, there was no judgement, it was just listening and offering advise, but not shoving those advice down my throat and I think just the fact that I was able to open up and have a conversation where I don't have to lie about certain things, it just felt freeing.

Continued chatting over Matcha at Hvala, it was pretty good.

It was a really great catch up and definitely something I had needed, catching up with people I have known for a long time and talking to them is very different from talking to ones that I have matched on a dating app, these long time ones feels more consistent because I have known them organically in real life and stayed friends throughout the years, the ones from those dating apps are not, and my mistake was putting too much reliance on the connections I had made on the dating app for my socializing needs, aka that friend that I had met 2 weekends ago to help with his home furniture layout.

He has decided to just stop replying to my messages since last Thursday when I really needed it the most, I have a feeling he has since archived my chat or something because not only are my last few messages not replied to, they have not even been read, and I have been sending some over the weekend to try and illicit a respond, all the same, not even read, meaning he didn't even bother opening the chat. Tried reaching out on Instagram by replying to some of his stories that involved him working on his home because I was the one who helped him with the furniture layout after all, also did not bother to reply to me as well.

To be fair to him, I have only really known him for a few weeks, and I was texting him a lot of  during those few weeks, like 10 messages back and forth on the daily, and they are like pretty chunky text messages of just random stuff because I really needed to keep my head distracted, and those chats did help, so for it to suddenly stop honestly does not surprise me because I have been sapping his energy to refuel myself. Do hope he hasn't decided to completely cut  me out because I really could use more friends in my life.

Depressive Sunday... not as bad as Friday

Sunday was still a relatively tough day to sit through, but it wasn't as bad as Saturday and definitely did not hit the same kind of low as Friday evening.

I had zero appetite the entire day, so I skipped my morning coffee and only had water in the morning, I didn't eat breakfast and lunch, felt lethargic the whole day and just really down in general, I would  return back to normalcy every once in a while and my mood will stabilize, so I did end up having enough appetite during that period of normalcy to eat a slice of Hershey's Chocolate Pie.  

I guess being physically sick also didn't help because of my cough, block nose and jaw ache. Saw a doctor at the private clinic near my place to get medication for it, the total bill came up to $98, which is nuts because the Polyclinic bill from Saturday's trip was only $40, and that was along with like 60 anti-depressant pills, which I am not planning to touch because the side effects of that pill isn't something I want to go through. There is a very valid reason why most people would go to the Polyclinic instead of Private Clinics, but I was honestly too lazy to take a bus over and spend an hour there, so I paid more and managed to see the doctor, get my medication and leave within 20 minutes. 

Came back home from the clinic, was in and out of that depressive state, but I think I did notice that I was able to snap out of it a lot quicker now, I don't stay too depress for too long anymore, it never did hit quite as bad as Friday evening. 

The evening was spend at a restaurant with my family to celebrate Father's day, being outside and with family definitely helped take my mind off whatever is going on internally, my baby nephew was also a great source of entertainment during that dinner period, along with my Sister's dog, although a lot of attention was definitely on the human child. 

Happy to say when I got back home, I think my mood did stabilize a lot more, it didn't hit as hard anymore and I would like to think that it is because I just really needed time to process everything. The reason why it hit so hard on Friday was because that was the day right after I confessed to that person, and that person left me on read like the inconsiderate fuck they are...

Red Flag Alert! 

... and I had way too much time to just keep thinking about it on Friday evening because I had nothing else to look forward to and think about for the weekend.

Anyways, it's Monday morning now, I will be visiting the Therapist today, I think I will be going in with a clear mind and should be able to talk to her a lot more coherently about what is going on, we might end up focusing more on my career stuff than that stupid red flag fuck who had been causing me all the emotional turmoil, because I think that red flag fuck is a trigger point, but I already had a lot of underlying issues that I had to deal with before that.

Update : After meeting the Therapist.

It was a pretty good session, I was able to talk freely to the Therapist about what I was going through and because I had really done a lot of introspection through blogging about my experience, she told me I was actually extremely self aware about everything that is happening to me.

She made an assessment based on what she noticed and told me I probably just have an Anxious Personality trait and not so much depression, a personality trait which could potentially lead to a disorder if I don't keep it in check, and she told me what I am feeling, this sadness, is normal, especially because it was the first time I was giving dating a chance and I ended up investing way too much emotion into it due to 35 years of pent up excitement from being single, which is also something I am aware of. She was telling me a lot of things that I am already aware of, so there really wasn't too much of an Eureka moment for me, but to blabber and talk about my feelings and the experience I had with the dating app, which I had a lot to say because I had to explain the parties involved, the lead up to my sadness, it was A LOT of building to have her see the full picture, and she did, and she expressed that aside from my Anxious Personality, the other party is also, really, a selfish piece of shit, well she used the word selfish, I just added in the piece of shit at the back to really drive my point across.

I had really hoped we could have extended the therapy for an hour or 2 longer to be honest, I really had so much I wanted to talk about, there was just so much background I had to build-up, but then as I was about to introduce another person into my experience, she told me I only had 5 minutes left and we couldn't stay longer because someone else had booked the room we were using, which was a bummer.

Next session is in 2 weeks, hopefully I will be in a much better space by then, appetite has returned and I am feeling quite lethargic, almost feel like crashing out because of bad sleep and the lack of proper meals over the weekend.

My boss actually gave me the day off, but I still decided to come back to the office anyway because going home and just being in my room the whole day won't help me a lot. The plan was to get some work done, but sadly, I don't have the attention span to do that now.

Depression. Legit.

I have been going through episodes of sadness over the past 2 months, and I knew I had developed a mild form of depression for a while now, but last night, I actually fell into an extremely depressive state where I was truly and completely overwhelmed with this sense of melancholia. It was sadness at a level I had never experienced before.

There has been this lingering sadness in me for a while now, one that started from after I had been socially isolating myself, and by that I mean a lack of socializing at work, because I am alone in the office half the time, and a lack of socializing on my off days because I haven't been meeting up with friends to fill up that need to socialize. I tried to fill that void by meeting new people through a dating app and it didn't really work all that well, they all came and went, the first few matches and dates, although didn't go well, didn't affect me too much, that was until I met someone that I ended up investing too much emotions into, and when nothing came to fruition between us, it send me into a downward spiral. 

This ended up worsening my already existing mild depression from the lack of socialising, and during yesterdays' episode,  I actually ended up getting very worried about what I would have done to myself. Thankfully I did mange to get out of it, but because this feeling comes and goes, I know that feeling will return again, so I decided I was going to visit a General Practitioner today to get a referral letter to actually see a Mental Health specialist. 

I had 2 options this morning, I could either go to the private clinic near my house, or I could book an appointment with the nearest Polyclinic. My initial plan was to go to the private clinic because it was within walking distance to place and I was pretty sure I could get connected to a Mental Health Specialist sooner compared to the Polyclinic route. 

I had a meeting with a client in the afternoon, so visiting the one near my place made the most sense, I could just walk over, have a quick chat with the GP, share my feelings and what I am going through and I guess they will direct me to a specialist to talk to.

I was experiencing the lows of my depression, so I really really needed to talk to the GP to at least be able to share what I am currently going through, however, when I finally reached the clinic, I see a sign that had been placed at the main door..

"No doctors in today."

... I stood outside the clinic for a while because it had just opened then, I thought maybe that was placed there to stop people from coming into the clinic before opening hours, but I was not feeling very patient and opened the door, only to be greeted by the staff who confirmed that there were indeed no doctors today. When you are depress and you finally take the steps to go seek help, being told that there was no doctor in the clinic, a clinic I had visited multiple times with the doctors always available, felt like the universe is taking a knife and just pressing it against my wrist.

I was so upset, I remembered how helpless I had felt last night and I knew I really needed to seek professional help, so I quickly went to the NUHS app and booked the earliest appointment at Bukit Batok Polyclinic. I had to rush back home, take a quick shower (literally 20 minutes after I had just taken my morning shower, because of how sweaty I was), grabbed everything I needed for my afternoon meeting with the client later and just rushed over to the Polyclinic. I had booked the 9.50am slot but I was a bit late because the stupid bus was late, I sped walk into the Polyclinic as soon as I reached the bus stop, scanned my IC and then proceeded to wait at the waiting area for my turn.

I went to get Soymilk from the Mr Bean in the Polyclinic, 2 packet of Soymilk for $3, the first packet I had ended up being a curdled mess, but the staff was very nice and ask me to get a new one from the fridge, so I did and I drank my Matcha Soy Milk while waiting for my turn to be called. I hadn't had anything to drink at that point because I had no time. 30 minutes later, my turn finally came and I headed in to the consultation room.

The doctor greeted me as I stepped into the room and I started off by I was in for a sore throat I had been having(was actually a cough but I mixed it up) , but then immediately shared with her my main reason for going down, and that was my intention to get a referral letter to see a Mental Health Specialist because I suspect I have depression. 

She was really nice and immediately started asking me how I was feeling, so I told her how I had been feeling really sad, what had been going on in my life recently and also what I think the trigger point for the episode I had last night was, I was on the verge of tearing up a few times because this was the first time I had verbalise what I was going through to someone, this emotional turmoil I have been suffering in silence since May that had gotten significantly worst, she got me to fill up a quick questionnaire and I ended up scoring a "mild depression"

She went ahead and prescribed me some lozenges for my sore throat (which is really a cough so that lozenges is redundant), and then 6 weeks worth of anti-depressant medication called Fluoxetine, she then highlighted to me that the anti-depressant medication has certain side effects, one of which is the the increase in having suicidal thoughts, but then she told me it takes the medication 6 weeks to be fully effective and that the first 2 weeks, I just have to power through it.

2 weeks? I was almost having a mental breakdown last night, and I am suppose to go through that for 2 weeks?  I went to reddit to check how other people's experience with that medication was like and it was really bad, a lot bad panic attacks for the first 2 weeks - 1 month, they became more depress, the suicidal thoughts became louder and it was all kinds of fucked up. I am already fucked up as it is, I don't want to have to endure 2 weeks of what is potentially worst before it gets better.

I'm not touching those pills for now, I have been having dark thoughts during the more severe episodes, but I never had plans to follow through with any of them, so the last thing I need are pills that will actually make me want to follow through with those thoughts.

She told me she can help me arrange for an appointment with a Mental Health Specialist, but it's going to take 6 weeks. That means if I take the medication, I might not make it before the appointment.

Anyways, after that visit, I still had some time left, so I decided to head over to my Sister's place to wait until my appointment with my client started, I didn't want to wait at the nearby mall where my client lived because that is where I had my first meet up/date with the person who is partly responsible for causing me to feel the way I am feeling right now, if I wait at that mall, it will only be triggering me even more. 

When I was at my Sister's place, I told her about my anti-depressant medications and then asked her if she could introduce her therapist to me because I really needed to talk to someone about what I am feeling. She was worried and I really didn't get into detail about why I am feeling the way I am, I just told her it was just life in general and also because of my recent attempt at trying online dating, which got me feeling really emotional, she explained to me how therapy had worked very well for her, so it made me feel better knowing that there is at least something I can do.

My stay at her place wasn't long, I really just wanted to share about my depression with her and then get her therapist contact. 

I then went for the appointment, and I was feeling relatively fine at first, I was talking to the client with my boss, my role was more active at the initial design discussion, then my boss took over during the quotation discussion. As I was sitting at the table, my mind started drifting and I started to think about where I was, and I was reminded of that person again because the place where we first met last month, IKEA Alexandra, was just across the street, and the mall where we had our first and only meal was literally a 2 minute walk away from where the client was staying at. It brought on this feeling of sadness, and as I am typing this out, I am engulfed by it again. 

I really wanted to get the meeting over and done with, and when we were finally done, I opened up to my boss and told him I had visited a Polyclinic earlier this morning and the reason why, he was quite surprise and also worried for me, so when we were in his car, I kinda just told him I had been feeling depress because of how isolated I have been feeling and then also because of some other personal stuff, and he jokingly ask me if it is because of relationship stuff, if I had broken up, I then told him we didn't even manage to get together, to which he immediately switched topic so as not to trigger me. 

He dropped me off at Orchard and I immediately thought of Laderach Chocolate, which I had gotten a few weeks back when my boss also dropped me off at Orchard after meeting that very same client, back then, I was still on contact with that person and they had been the one who introduced me to Laderach,  but I will admit, back then, communication between us was already pretty sporadic, and I was going through a period of sadness at that time as well, but it isn't as strong as the sadness now. I knew I wasn't going to Laderach to get any chocolate today that's for fucking sure. I walked around Orchard a little but it was really way too crowded for my comfort, so I left after a while.

It's currently 6.12pm as I type this sentence out, that overwhelming sense of melancholia I had felt yesterday happened around 7pm, I am not sure if that feeling is triggered by the timing, but I am definitely feeling a lot more depress right now, especially after writing out this post about how down I was feeling. Everything is triggering me right now. 

Oh, I also messaged the therapist in the middle of my meeting with the client and she was able to slot me in for Monday morning, so I will be talking to her very soon, I hope talking about all of this to someone and letting it all out will help, I will probably start crying during that chat because I already felt like it when I was sharing what I have been feeling with the Polyclinic GP, my Sister and my Boss. I hate this feeling so much! 

A charitable Saturday...

Visited a friend who had recently gotten his own place and decided to offer my expertise to assist him in his home layout. 

I was actually very happy that he was able to host me at his new place because my weekends have been extremely unfruitful for the past few months (except last week when I accompanied Yen to the tile shop), so I was really looking forward to just catching up with him.

His place is located around the Bouna Vista area, so I decided to get us some Bubble Tea from KOI Signature at Star Vista before heading over, each cup ended up costing me about $10 because I had gotten the booze option.  He told me to help him surprise him, so I had actually ordered a cup of Matcha with Baileys for myself and a cup of Rum and Raisin Earl Grey for him,  because oddly enough, the caffeine in Matcha doesn't really affect my sleep, but when I actually went to his place, instead of just passing him the Earl Grey drink, I offered him the option to choose and he chose the Matcha one, so I felt like I got fucked now because we met at 3pm and if I drink any tea or coffee after 1pm, I would usually end up staying awake until 3am.

 

So anyways, his place was originally in a bit of a mess, the renovation phase is technically done, all he needed to do was get a professional cleaning team in come in and clean up the place as well as clear some of his rubbish and the house will be completed, the only problem was the plethora of furniture he had gotten from another friend. 

He had willingly accepted taken a bunch of display cabinets, dining table and chairs without really planning how they would all be able to fit into the space, so it looked a bit daunting at first when I entered the home, the sofa was just plopped right in the middle of the living room, there was a random high table right behind the sofa, his display cabinets were placed against the wall because that was the only area that had any space.

I had been playing around with the layout the day before, so I already had some ideas in my mind of where I wanted to place everything.

We did some catching up for a while at the start, and then I shared my ideas with him, before that, I didn't have the measurements of his furniture, so my initial space planning layout was based on assumption, turns out a lot of his items were slightly bigger than what I had thought.

Initially, I had thought I would only be sharing my ideas with him and he will only start shifting the furniture once his place had been properly cleaned up, but then I was really curious how everything would actually look once they were positioned according to my layout, so I asked him if he would like to shift his furniture around to see how it would look and if the layout would make sense, he agreed to it. 

It was very exciting and extremely gratifying when the space started opening up as we shifted the furniture to the planned out location and you could just see the flow of the house started making more sense, I managed to carve out an office space, a dining space and a living space all within the confines of a 2 Room HDB Living Room with just the furniture pieces he had, and after we had shifted everything and all the items were in their rightful place according to my proposal, I just sat on the sofa and started to really appreciate the space for what it was. It really reminded of my Visual Merchandising days at the furniture store, the pushing of the large furniture, the creation of new spaces by using existing cabinets to segregate the room, it made me miss that old job of mine for a bit because it is honestly so much easier than what I have to deal with at work right now.

Needless to say, I was very happy with the layout and if this had been my own place, I would be very satisfied with it. Other Interior Designers / Stylist may have been able to come up with a better layout, but I was personally very glad with the one I had come up with, so was my friend, which was most important because it is his place. He will be living alone, so what I had planned suited his needs and it would have suited mine as well.

After all the shifting, I had originally wanted us to get dinner together at Holland Village, figured we could walk over, but then he suggested we could just order Grabfood in because he had done that the day before when another friend of his had visited to assist with some other stuff, the only difference is now, we had a proper functioning dining space in his home, so that's what we did. 

I was at his place for a good 5 hours, which was a lot longer than I thought I would have stayed, but again, it beats being at home and doing fuck all the entire day. We eventually left together at about 8pm, walked over to Bouna Vista MRT and man was I glad we didn't walk to Holland Village because just that shorter walk to Bouna Vista already made me feel extremely sticky.

Being at his new home just makes me also want to quickly get my own place soon, and I had been swaying back and forth between getting a Tengah SBF and a Clementi BTO. Right now in this present moment, getting the BTO makes more sense, it will give me more time to save up and also still allow me to do some travelling since the flat will only be ready in 2029.... if I am lucky enough to ballot for it that is. The Tengah SBF is tempting, but I really do not have much money on hand to pay for the renovation works if I do get the flat, or at least I won't have enough to do it the way I want it done, I will have to wipe out pretty much my entire savings and settle for a compromised design instead.

It was very exciting though, to have been able to play around with the space. I can't wait to be invited back to help with the Interior Styling aspect of it when the rest of his stuff finally arrives from his current family home. Doing all these as a favor for a friend just feels a lot more fun than doing it professionally. 

Saturday Stuff

Today is probably the first Saturday in a very long time that I have been out of the house to meet up with a friend and it is something I really needed because I have not had any social interaction like this for a while now.

That being said, this meeting still felt a bit like "work" because I was meeting up with Yen to look at tiles for her new place. We visited the tile shop in Kranji, which I had to take a Gojek to get to because of how inaccessible it was. Getting a Gojek/Grab to get there was easy, but getting a Gojek/Grab to get out was a pain in the ass because it was so hard to get any cars from there. It reminded me of the first time when I got assigned to the secluded Changi Airbase camp and had so much difficulty trying to call a cab home because no one really goes there, thus began my car rental journey for the remaining reservist cycles that came after that. 

The tile shop visit wasn't very fruitful because Yen couldn't find a suitable tile for her place, I was really just there as a friend so I was just offering very few inputs every now and then, the vibe that she wanted to achieve for her home wasn't one that I personally liked, so I also couldn't really offer too much assistance in that regard.

After that hour long tile shop visit, we both headed over the Orchard to have lunch, I had to try Gojek/Grab a total of 6 times to actually get a driver, we tried to look for one while we were in the tile shop and failed multiple times, so we decided to just head to the nearest bus stop to get out, the afternoon Sun was fucking intense and the single bus that serves that area had a 15 minute interval between each one, it just so happened that one had arrived while we were still quite distant away from the bus stop, so we would have had to wait for another 15 minutes in that heat. I tried to get a Grab/Gojek from the bus stop and thankfully, managed to find a driver within a minute.  

The driver was surprised for us that we managed to find a driver in that area as we boarded his car.  Had a bit of small talk at the start, he probably sensed we weren't too interested to have any small talk, so the rest of the trip after was just silent. Yen and I were both headed to Orchard, she had a hair appointment there and I wanted to just go to Orchard for the sake of it and also to get chocolate, so we decided to have lunch together, her husband joined us shortly after and honestly speaking, we didn't really have much to "catch up" on because she is now working with my boss on a project basis, so I do still see her on a weekly basis during our company meetings, and her husband is a full time employee who is working on some of my projects as a Project Manager, so I am almost always in contact with him. 

The meal didn't feel really special, she wasn't feeling particularly chatty because of how uneventful the tile visit was, and it felt like we were just colleagues having a meal together rather than friends, but I was still happy to actually be outside having a meal with friends compared to being at home and ordering the same food that I will usually get from Foodpanda.

After lunch, we split up, Yen and her husband headed to ION and I headed over to Takashimaya to get more Laderach chocolate...

... my plan was to get the Dubai chocolate because the ridiculous thing is, this Laderach chocolate slab is still cheaper than the Fix Dessert Chocolate Bar that is being sold by this reseller in Singapore.

The reseller is selling a 200g bar for $65.

Laderach is selling a 200g  for $44, and Laderach is not a cheap brand,  goes to show how ridiculous that reseller shop is selling their bars for.

I got introduced to Laderach by someone I had met on a dating app, said individual gave a lot of mixed signals during our 1 month of getting to know each other, so I do not have a good impression of them, and that, in proxy, has also kind of affected my feelings towards this particular brand. That being said, it is objectively really good chocolate, so I will still splurge on it when I feel like it. I just don't like the feelings that I have associated to the brand because of that person.

Anyways, since it was a Saturday afternoon, the mall was packed as fuck, especially the route to get from Wisma Atria to Ngee Ann City, and then back again all the way to ION Orchard to get to the MRT Station, I was just shuffling along with the crowd and taking baby steps because it was so difficult to cut through all the slow walkers, so that was an unpleasant back and forth journey. I thought of PopMart when I was in the ION Orchard area, but I didn't step into the store to get anything, which I think is something that I deserve a pat on the back for., and well, it was also crowded as fuck so I really had no desire to step in.

So that's my Saturday, it was alright and a definite improvement from the last few Saturdays I have had, I really do need to stay in touch and meet up with more friends, hopefully also make some new ones online through dating apps. I tried to find dates on there and the last few that I have been on have been terrible, online dating is definitely not the way to go for me, the last 3 individuals that I had met on the app that I thought had so much potential were all disappointment, and they really went from bad to worst.

More PopMart shit

I decided to get another set of blindbox from PopMart last Friday and it arrived today! 

This is the Chaka Candle Whisper series, the second Chaka series from PopMart. The first one is the Light Sprite series, which I also got the whole set  a few months back and managed to pull the secret from that collection, and I was super happy to have pulled that secret because I really like it. 

This new set however, I wasn't too keen on the secret because it was a double figurine, which I am personally not a huge fan of.

It's like meh.

Before opening the boxes, I was shaking them all to see if I could tell if one of them would be the secret, it looked pretty chunky so I thought I could feel the shape from shaking, I shortlisted 3 and none of them were it, they were the normal ones, and they are fucking pretty.

I thought since those 3 that I thought were the secret weren't it, then I must be safe, this whole set does not include the secret, so I started to open them and was just amazed at how pretty they all were...

... I mean the detail of this is so intricate, this is probably my favorite figurine in the entire series! 

I was so happy just seeing each figurine, that was until I started opening maybe the 6th or 7th box and noticed that the back of the card that came with each figurine looked a bit different, I flipped the card over and lo and behold, it was the fucking secret.

 

I pulled the fucking secret.

I was excited to have pulled a secret, but also disappointed because I didn't want this particular secret, pulling a secret means I am missing one of the main figurines and what's annoying about this series is that each figurine has a matching pair, this means one of my figurine is short of their significant other.

Sigh

I guess I have really good luck when it comes to getting full set from PopMart because I was really not expecting my second full set to have a secret in it as well.

First series.

I have since upgraded the display case for this Chaka series because it has the secret and it deserves to be lit, now it seems I may have to buy another one for the second Chaka series since that has a secret as well.

Random Updates for April

I went from having a shit load of projects to work on to having absolutely nothing to do at work, and it has become a regular cycle that happens all the time, which sucks because I honestly do not feel very good in both situations.

When there is too much work, it's overwhelming.

When there is little to none, the days just feel so unproductive.

My boss is currently on an overseas trip for the next 2 weeks and my accountant choosing to work from home instead of coming to the office as much as she can, so I am pretty much alone in the office either watching YouTube, TikTok or blogging because I don't really have much else to do, most of the projects that I had been working on previously have either started renovation or have been lost, so right now, the ones that are busy are the Project Manager, or the only Project Manager we have left, who also has the unfortunate task of taking on my boss's project while he is on his 2 weeks trip.

As someone who has worked as a Project Manager before, and I feel like I have said this many times before, I am so glad I don't have to deal with all that shit anymore

Sadly, I do think that our current Project Manager isn't very efficient at his job and his level of experience in this field is a constant reminder that my boss has most definitely made the wrong decision of letting Yen, the most experienced PM in our company at that time, go. It's really stupid and now everyone is paying the price for it, especially my boss because our current PM has been making mistakes after mistakes that the company is paying for, literally affecting the profit margin for a lot of the bigger projects because of unnecessary rectification works to correct his mistakes. 

He has recently made some on-site decisions on his own without consulting me or the clients, it's really frustrating because he is bringing attention to issues that do not need to be highlighted to the clients, but then not running through issues that actually need to be highlighted. 

I'm not very happy with the way he is running the projects because this isn't so much about him being overloaded with projects, I am very aware that he is, this is just him not being very efficient at this job. I really wish my boss would hire another PM with actual experience who will be able to guide the current one, take some workload off of him and also be able act as some sort of motivation for him to do better.

Update :

The Project Manager has now gotten into a full on argument with one of the clients in the group chat.

In his defense, the clients are being difficult, but for him to lose his cool and be so aggressive towards them is honestly not helping anyone, my boss had to step in to try and defuse the situation, but this back and forth between the PM and the clients is really really bad.

We are not even halfway through with the renovation and he has already begun to lose his cool.  This action of his has essentially screwed all of us over because now, the clients are going to become even more difficult to deal with in the future, my boss has recommended for him to meet the clients on site to resolve the issue, and for some reason, pulled me into this mess and ask me to go down to the site and assist if necessary. 

Anyways, on to Carousell related things.

I have managed to sell off my iPad Air 13 and Apple Pencil Pro last week on Carousell, it has been collecting dust in my storage bed ever since I reverted back to my iPad Pro. 

I had originally paid $1,238 for the iPad Air and a free Apple Pencil Pro thanks to the student discount I got from my sister, and I sold both those items at $880, which means my total damage is $358, if I were to pretend I had been renting that iPad, then it is about $45 per month, which isn't too bad I guess.

Having that $880 has caused me to develop an itch to get a new tech item, like a new iPhone for example, but when I think about it, getting a new iPhone 16 Pro wouldn't really be worth it because it will be just like my iPhone 14 Pro, with a USB C connection and a few extra buttons. I am ignoring all the technical spec bumps because it probably won't be noticeable to me base on my usage patterns. 

I could just save up the money for my renovation works in the future, but I also need to do some retail therapy every once in a while.

Aside from the iPad, I was also able to clear some my PopMart items, they were sold at losses but at least I got rid of them, which I am very happy with.

Speaking of which, I just bought myself more PopMart shit.

They recently release the new Labubu V3 and colour me surprise when I saw how many viewers were online for the TikTok Livestream drop. 

For the past few weeks, the Livestream hasn't been performing very well because the Labubu hype had slowly died down, the V1 and V2 were readily available for purchase and the white Zimomo was also in stock, so there wasn't any FOMO anymore since the ones who wanted it already got it, and the ones who may want to get it can since it is now available everywhere at retail price,, this was reflected in the viewership then and PopMart was only getting about 200 - 300 viewers on average, that's half of what they would usually get when I first started watching them.

Well, the V3 was released this Friday and when I went to tune in to the Livestream, there were 3000 viewers! 

..the new release attracted 10 times the viewers they were normally getting. 

It made snatching the V3 very exciting, so I tried and unfortunately, I failed to snag any on the stream. I did however snagged 2 from the official website, which was crashing a lot in the beginning, but since I didn't have shit to do at work, I just spend like an hour, trying to refresh the website and finally got myself 2 boxes. 

Just like that, $50 wasted on 2 Labubus.

I got my hands on the blue and purple one, I am very happy with the purple one because that was the one I had been eyeing, the blue one however is kind of meh because the ombre effect is not as prominent. Don't think I will be getting anymore Labubu from this collection, 2 is definitely more than enough.

That's all the update for this month.