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.