Seal the deal

Whoopee, will no longer have to worry about baby car. Finally gotten a firm buyer. After all that effort of putting up a website (with purty pictures and stuff. even had to endure a not so nice remark from darling saying it sounded so gimmicky. *huff*), placing a classified ad, making appointments for test drives and other stuff, it's almost over. Just need to finish the paperwork, tidy up the maintenance records to pass over to the next owner :) The car was sold at a pretty nice discount for the buyer but I was glad that I at least got the asking price I wanted.

One and half weeks more of classes and I will probably not be in school for at least another 5 years.

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The Friday Ritual

Recently, we've started this ritual of going to Wegman's on Friday evening for dinner. They have some really great wings at the food court and reasonably priced + yummy-licious sushi. There's also a new favorite of mine seabreeze salad which consists of fresh seaweed drizzled with sesame seed oil. For 15 dollars and some change, we enjoyed a really great meal.

After dinner, we would head to Barnes and Nobles and browse through books/magazines/manga for the next 2 hours. This is usually around 9 by which time the store would be closing. So we walk next door to Tops and buy the week's groceries.

It's almost like a date and I really like it. I guess we never really "dated" much since we moved in together and see each other every day. But days like these are fun and I kinda regret that our time here is coming to an end. On the other hand, I'm kinda excited to go back too. I think I shall deem Friday nights our date nights from now on :)
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Liquidation

We're one step closer to selling our car. One prospective buyer has asked us to go for a buyer's check and I take it that she'll take it if all goes well. Hopefully that is the case and I will no longer have to worry about finding a good owner for my darling car. Yes, we treat the car like it's a little rombunctious baby. Well, more like a baby pet really. I think I will miss having him around.

The car currently consists of a significant portion of our monthly expenses but given the fun we've had with him, I think it was well worth it. I probably can't say the same for a car in Singapore. We've been relatively sedentary and our longest driving trip is the one to New York City. The car is more like a glorified shopping cart but without it, we wouldn't have access to cheaper groceries so that sort of covers a little of the cost of ownership.

Anyway, I've been trying to sell off some of the items we've accumulated so far. I'm practically giving them away (which I will do when I really have to leave). I've already pledged my PC to charity, on my way to selling the car, got rid of a few unused household appliances, sent off the few books with resale value... but there's still so much junk. Personal belongings like pillows and comforters that I still have to discard.

I feel somewhat guilty for creating so much trash. I think disposal of solid waste is going to be a really big problem and we should play our part in reducing the amount of junk we create. Next time I buy something, I will try and ask myself: "Is this something you will use until it break?" Somehow milking everything out of my purchases seems to give me as evident when my jeans literally fell apart
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An un-nervous phone call

I don't know if I have mentioned this before. I have a phobia of talking to people I don't know. This especially applies to phone calls to businesses where I almost never know who I'm talking to. The making conversation part is fine. It's the period between me grabbing the phone and waiting for someone to pick up that is really unnerving.

About a month ago, I picked up someone's cellphone. Being the kind soul that I was, I decided to give his (it turned out) mum a call. It was the only person on his speed dial whom I knew would immediately identify who he is. I was afraid. What if she thought I was some crook or telemarketer? On hindsight, that's pretty irrational, nobody thinks of anybody that calls as a telemarketer... When I did call her, I got her answering machine. She called back later and I missed it coz I'm such a cellphone noob that I almost never hear/ feel cellphone ring/vibrate. So I finally talked to her and gave her my phone number for her son to contact me. I was quite happy with myself for challenging this mental hurdle. Of course subsequently, I made darling pick up the phone when the son called.

But anyway, I just called up the local papars to place a car ad to sell our baby car. To my surprise, I was relatively nonchalent about it. Just pick up the phone and get along with the business. Granted, I had broken out in a light nervous sweat when I was done but I think my phobia days might just be over.
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The Pain of GUI

One of the class projects I'm working on has a big emphasis on GUIs (Graphical User Interface). The division of work in our team consists of darling working on coding the simulation while I work on the interface.

After pouring hours into some relatively simple user forms with graphs etc, I've finally realized the pain of all user interface designers the world over. The problem with interfaces is that if it's good, nobody will ever realize it. People only ever think about the interface when it's not good enough (Why can't I just drag and drop this? Should add this feature and that feature...)

I'm sure there are other examples where we take things for granted. Maybe like how we expect all cars to come with power windows and air-conditioning. Can you imagine that in the older days those were actually luxury items? Or another example may be air conditioned buses. Any more that you can think of?
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Test Result: Normal

Whee! The results of my urine culture came back to confirm that it is normal. I had deduced (and probably deluded myself) that it was so by virtue of the fact that I didn't get a call etc telling me it wasn't. That's great news. So I'm finally free of this pesky infection.

I was somewhat surprised by the really low cost I had to pay for the antibiotics though. For 10 Cipro pills, the pharmacy bill came to $2.53. I could have sworn it cost me more than $15 the last time round. Maybe it has something to do with the shortage of the said pill the last time with the whole Antrax fiasco. Well, I'm not complaining.

It would be nice of course if the test results came back a little earlier. Instead of 3 weeks later. I wonder how much of it is paperwork. If the campus healthcare system is representative of the US systems, they need to do much better than that. While I was sitting in the waiting room for my prescription, there must have been at least 6 people who walked in the door bearing some test results. Given the cost of human labor, they need a more efficient way than walking up the stairs every time a document needs to be transferred.
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Torn

4 weeks more of classes. Torn between being relived that school will be over soon and the fact that working life will begin. Of course the grey area between will be very much welcomed.

The last weeks of classes is also the busy periods where projects get completed. My masters project has been on track but somehow the work never stops coming. Right now, I'm performing some sensitivity analysis. The runs take a while so meanwhile, I surf the web and blog etc. It's kinda nice to feel productive while doing other things. I'm really hoping that I will at least enjoy my work. I'm not even sure which department I will be posted in yet. I might request to go back to network planning. The group there is pretty young and I've had a fruitful time there.

Recently, I've had the feeling that I have too many things I want to do but too little time. It's not that my schedule is packed. To the contrary, my class schedule is relatively blank. However, many of my tasks require indefinite number of hours with no immediate urgency. I know that I have to get my projects and reading done by the end of the semester but I can't quite get myself to commit a fixed number of hours each week working on them. Me thinks I need more discipline. Sometimes I get confused between how I should tradeoff my wish to relax and desire to succeed. Is the delayed gratification really worth the sacrifice of enjoyment now?

Sometimes I actually worry that I work myself so hard that I'm missing out on enjoying my youthful days. Conversely it could also be true that I'm just kidding myself and I should really be doing more than I am now.
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The Middle Path

Trendy. One of those things that will never be. To begin with, I hate following trends. For me, most things that come with a boat load of hype attached actually has their utility discounted. Movies definitely fall into this category. I remember in my first year of junior college, The Ring was the movie to watch. Everyone was talking about it. I wouldn't go near it with a 10-foot pole. (Granted, I was biased in the first place: Coz I hate horror movies. Coz I'm always scared after I watch it. Coz I think it's insane to pay to get scared shitless.)

I'm a late adopter of technology and trends in general. I'd never be caught dead with the latest gadget. I'm woefully uninformed about the new "in" thing. If I were in an American high school, I would be one of those bookish, uncool kids who get picked on all time. I don't see any real value in fitting in.

I'm a non-conformist yet I have also adopted the penchant of hiding behind the mask of mediocrity. There's a Chinese saying that promotes the middle path. I am guessing it was prudent advice for an era in ancient china when the prominent tend to get into trouble with authorities and the poor suffered badly(?).

I find it difficult to do things I think none of my peers or immediate friends are even thinking about. I instinctively tried to hide from someone I know in the finance class that I'm sitting in. On hindsight, there was nothing really wrong with me just sitting in. It's really not something to be ashamed of.

I also feel silly looking up facts about insurance, housing and investment products. I should be proud of myself for trying to be more financially savvy. Well I am somewhat proud but it still doesn't ease that weirdo feeling I have when my darling asks me about what I was reading.

I'm just not comfortable standing out from the crowd I'm in. Even if the crowd is of size two.In that particular case, the fact that his opinions matter more than most is important. I guess it's related to my inability to speak up in class often. When you speak in public or do something different, you subject yourself to the scrutiny. And I'm not up to it. Yet. I guess having thought this out and identified it here, it will be easier for me to overcome it in the future.
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An ode to my mum

The women in my family are savers. Well, maybe by "the" women I only mean my mum and me, and also my aunt. My sister doesn't seem to fall in this category but that may have been a result of that period when our household was just eking by.

I've been very close to my mum ever since I was a wee kid. Being close to somebody inevitably means that you pick up a lot of their habits and philosophies. I would have turned out very differently if I had a working mum who comes home too tired to care. Not to disparage the efforts of all working women, I can't deny that there are definitely potential advantages to having a stay at home mum. Working mums just don't have the luxury of time.

Anyway, in our household, my mum is the chief finance officer. She determines how much to spend on which item. Usually, her own needs are the last in line. At home, I rarely even see the leftovers; my mum eats them for lunch. She works like the Google founders who are working for $1 except without the lucrative stock options. Mums have it really tough.

All that aside, I think I've picked up her frugal habits. I grew up in the generation of consumers yet I find myself reluctant to consume. While most people are cashing out on their future with the use of credit cards, here I am thinking of how to save my measly first wage even before I start working. I don't mean I will be a penny pincher but somehow the idea of budgeting and accomodating all my needs have become more of an intellectual exercise. After all that's what operations research is about, looking for balances between tradeoffs and getting an optimal allocation.

Sometimes, I get on a high just from learning new things. My sponge of grey matter is surprisingly thirsty, even after all these years of sometimes boring formal education.

I hope my mum is as happy as I am about how I've turned out. My gradual independece forged a big part of my philosophy but it was built on the foundation of good sense that she helped mould. One of my goals in achieving financial freedom is to provide her with a well deserved retirement and provide for her future as she did mine.
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Moving Out. Again

So there was my annual dose of sickliness. It's like a whole years worth of sickness bundled into one. I guess it could be a sign of healthiness. If you're healthy, normal illnesses glance off you like
pebbles on a bullet-proof vest. So if something manages to penetrate it, it should logically be more powerful than your average sickness.

I'm now back to typing normal posts instead of those dumb cryptic one liners that I came up with while I was suffering from insomnia.

With only 5 more weeks of classes and less than 2 months before I depart for home, I'm occupied with the more mundane things like projects and packing up. I *think* I have relatively little to bring
home. I mean, besides a half dozen books, I only have my 1 1/2 wardrobe of clothes to get home. (1 and 1/2 because my clothes has spilled over and taken over half of my darling's territory) So I'll
ship the books home and the clothes should fit nicely into my two suitcases. Easy-peasy.

On the other hand, I have noticed a propensity for underestimating the sheer volume of things I possess. So we'll see how my optimistic estimation turn out this June. Trying my best to liquidate my other stuff before I leave as well.

You'd think that after all these years leading the nomadic life, I should be a pro in this whole moving around business. Well, I'm not. The whole logistics of moving home and then out again to Singapore is actually a fair bit of pain.

Johnny and I are thinking of moving out together. For one thing, his place is too far away from work. Of course we would also love to be able to have the privacy our own place would afford us. Even if it is rented. After so many years of living together, we can't really contemplate staying apart like normal boyfriend and girlfriends. It would mean I can't cook homely meals for him anymore. No more hugs and kisses as and when we like. We would probably have to meet outside fairly often instead of chilling on the couch. So economically and time-wise, we are probably better off renting a place. The pressure of staying with in-laws is too much for me to handle.

All this means that we have to find a reasonably priced flat or apartment to rent before we can afford our own place. I wonder if the company would actually provide me with a housing allowance. I have a sneky suspicion that won't be the case. I'd be lucky if I can get reimbursement for relocation expenses.

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Insomnia is a horrible disease.

I officially caught a cold. Wonder if it was the light fever that kept me up the whole night worrying about everything under the sky.
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Why do we hide and wait for a special someone to find us?
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