Revamp of my personal space

Since last December, much has changed in my room (& work life). After a complete change of (almost) all the furniture in my room, I have been enjoying the personal space a lot more... not just for play but as an office too!

• Desktop (CPU) - Aftershock Hypergate (S$2100.00) 
• Monitor - Prism+ X240 (S$298.95)
• Speakers - Creative Pebble V3 (S$57.00)
• Table - Omnidesk Kenshi Eco Collection (S$671.90)
• Chair - Ergotune Supreme (S$569.00)
• Bedframe - Zinus 12" Wood Platform Bed (S$398.05)
• Mattress - Origin Hybrid Pro Mattress [Super Single] (S$1139.05)

That brings the total revamp costs to S$5233.95, over the span of 10 months. 😱

Among these, the biggest sacrifice would be the storage space (drawer and the shelf below the tabletop) of the old table. The only storage space I have now, is my tabletop... and most of the stuff had to be stuffed into the cupboard, but hey, hello leg space! I can now push my chair all the way in, and it looks so much more airy. 

BEFORE

AFTER

There are still improvements to be made with the clutter of items [e.g. the blue storage box is not supposed to be there, but as it houses my personal stash of kitchen-related items, it cant go into the cupboard], BOO. Still trying to figure this out, but hey... doesn't the space look more airy? 😆

Had a really good round of spring-cleaning and probably have to sit down and clear a second round, but for now,  I think this will be it, for at least the next couple of years. 💖

Christmas 2020

It's the last week of December... もう12月の最後の週。。。

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! メリークリスマス～！🎄

Last Wednesday, my friends and I took a break from work and went on an 'excursion' to River Safari. At that gathering, we did our Conspiracy Santa gift exchange but the gift for me wasn't ready yet. Turns out, they got me a snack box from Munchees!

先週の水曜日、友達と一緒に休みを取ってリバー・サファリへ行った。その時、友達とクリスマスプレゼントを交換した。スナックの箱もらった！😋

Have always wanted one of these... hahhaa

ずっとからこの箱を注文したかった。。😂

In the spirit of Christmas, I attempted making 'Potato Dauphinoise' today, and I'm glad it turned out well. 😍

今日はクリスマスのでポテトの料理を作った。。。美味しかったよかった。。。👏

[Life Updates] Circuit Breaker in SG, ... etc

Day 9 of Circuit Breaker in Singapore

Its been a crazy crazy time with the Covid-19 situation in Singapore. I've been caught up with life and mostly maplestorym (a.k.a msm) the past months, -that I pretty much threw my blog under the carpet-, and the endless backlog of my blog posts just keeps accumulating (LOL to all my backdated posts).

So, its day 9 since Singapore went into Circuit Breaker, which is a measure to minimize the community spread of the Covid-19 (first known as the wuhan virus). The whole situation is pretty crazy, there's legit no other words that best describe the whole thing. This is, hands down, the most disruptive virus in the century, since I was born, even more so than SARS.

Being in an essential services line of work, the past weeks have been pretty usual for me, with the exception of split teams which did bring some level of inconvenience to work in general. Currently, the workplace is ever-changing in their employee arrangements as the government introduces more  and increasingly strict measures to fight against the Covid-19.

That aside, I really wanted to document how productive my long extended weekend was, hence, though very reluctant, I'm about to break my streak of Travel Logs for this.

I took the past 2 days off work in extension to the good Friday weekend and it was the best long weekend I have had in a while as I got so many things done, including getting back into posting my travel logs which are now exactly a year overdue LOL.

But before that, just to document what went on before Circuit Breaker happened, as our community progressively introduced safe distancing measures:

At some point badminton courts looked like this - empty:

And lifts are limited to 4 people, in the respective corners:

Haha. So, back to my very productive weekend. I finally got rid of one of these wooden shelves and made some space for my chair to roll about -it has always been very cramp 😑, been wanting to throw that out for quite a while now, so I'm really glad I finally did just that-. I spent pretty much the whole day thrashing and moving things about from the shelves, and the storage under my table. Even then, I can hardly say that its done because I still have a pile of blank notebooks which I have no idea where to stash them. My brain is telling me to thrash them out because I'll probably never use them but, my heart is saying no. *internal struggles so lets just leave that hanging for now, LOL*.

I managed to squeeze that hanger to clip on the side of the shelf which now houses the ukelele and I really like the feel of it (will I finally pick it up and practice again 😂). 

Who would have expected, my first ever shake shack (from SG branch) would be through delivery?!

(FoodPanda has them though limited deliverable areas)

Also, after weeks of procrastination, I finally shipped this out.

(Yes, CircleDNA, I had been going back and forth on this for quite a couple of months before my curiosity took over when I saw it in the stores of Watson's (CircleDNA x Watsons collaboration). I bought it online during the International Women Day sales which costs SGD 680.99 for their premium kit. Its a hefty price to pay for curiosity but if its for a lifetime then.. why not. lolol. Product review to come soon once everything is done). 

And the random moments, 

Prawn Mee take out for brekkie, yesterday!  

AND, I baked. Jole forwarded me an Insta-story a couple of days ago by @taytay_xx which showcased her Crispy Ribbon Roasted Potatoes recipe. 

I wasn't gonna end the perfect long weekend without trying these. I love LOVED the potatoes. Rosemary with salted butter and garlic is da bomb and I think this sauce might go well with button mushrooms too (because rosemary x button mushrooms is a thing)!  

And that's all the updates, signing off to a new week of uncertainty in the office, 

Its mid-week! Stay safe, Mask up, may Covid-19 end soon. 

Peace out. 😎

A moment of epicness... and all about Maplestory

SO MUCH BACKLOG. I have 2 trips worth of backlog and I'm still getting those sorted. #procrastination 

Today's Epicness: I landed in Jurong East (from Bugis) today because I was so engrossed in chatting on whatsapp. Took me a whole additional hour just to get home after that. LOL. 

How... in the world did I not realise (that I was travelling in the wrong direction). 12 stops of completely selective hearing. 

When I heard the announcement for passengers switching to the circle line, I just naturally assumed I was at Paya Lebar (apparently I was at BUONA VISTA) - kinda make sense now cause I had a moment of "oh so long already only at Paya Lebar ah". 

If only I could record my own moment of shock when I heard the train announced Jurong East. LOL. 

*** ***

MaplestorySEA's 14th Anniversary

Held at JCUBE this year, it was one long ride just to get to the event - ALONE. 

This is the 3rd consecutive year that I took part in their anniversary event. Looking back, 13th Anniversary was the most eventful one (for me) as I participated in a few games with friends and acquaintances (they helped me with getting my three maple plushies, still very thankful for them). 

On the 14th Anniversary, I didn't buy anything from the offline store (the queue was back to being fcfs, and it was too long, plus I am hardly active on pc maple now, lolol). But, the Orange Mushroom Cushion was so very enticing. I tried my luck on the throw-a-hoop game after several rounds of walking past it (cause I was being mindful and embarrassed for being alone) and failed terribly. Tried my luck on the darts & claw machine as well, but got a bunch of slime hats. 

CM Venshi was doing his rounds greeting maplers and giving out in-game coupons, and I was surprised he remembered me. Came over to talk a bit and pass me those coupons. haha. (I actually bumped into him & his gf (i think) after my haircut the other day. LOLOL) 

With the event ground at JCUBE this year, I didn't manage to go during the week that they were displaying the Giant Maple Balloons (PB, Mushroom, Pepe) that they flew over from the event in Korea. - partially because I was dealing with acid reflux problems back then too.

Imagine my surprise when my friends told me they were on display at Bugis:

It turns out... this was for MapleM's 1st Anniversary event!! 

*** ***

MapleM's 1st Anniversary 

I felt like there wasn't much advertisement on this? haha. Either way, I found out that they had an event ground at Bugis+ (the exact same spot that MaplestorySEA did their 13th Anniversary at). 

Today, the very last day of the event, I went down to take a look - ALONE again. 

In all honesty, being alone makes me feel very embarrassed for some reason. I was all ready to give up and walk away, but I saw an uncle holding the plush. "If not now... when? Am I gonna go home and dwell on why I didn't participate?" That thought told me to go for it. So I went back and evaluated the games and requirements to get the plush and it was really very easy. 

4 stamps (1 stamp per game station) to exchange for either an Orange Mushroom or a Slime plush. 

- Take a picture with MapleM background 

- Punchbag Machine

- Hit-with-a-hammer Machine

- Claw Machine (p.s. expert at this already thanks to MaplestorySEA)

Hoho... My loots of the day!

*** ***

Plus something: In my despair that I couldn't win the Orange Mushroom Cushion from MaplestorySEA's event ground this year... I made an impulse purchase:

HELLO PINK BEAN FROM THE MAPLE STORE. 💖

[p.s. I think I went crazy but hey... its pink bean. I finally got my pink bean related merchandise 🙌]

MaplestorySEA - Level 200 Zen, 等々(etc)...

Tera Burning Character - ZEN 

So we get to Tera Burn a character which levels 1+2 (in other words, 3 levels per level) from 10 all the way to 199~! What better time to level a character that you don't really like playing (but yet worth doing) than NOW.

I've always had a somewhat-hate relationship with ZEN, but hey... hello level 200 ZEN. 

*still self-applauding my determination to get it from 175 to 200 in half a day* 

(special thanks to UnKn0wN for supporting)

*** Life Updates ***

3-13 November: Japan Trip (Upcoming Travel Log!!!)

15 - 26 November: Covering duties at work

25 Nov - 1 Dec: Studying for JLPT N4

2 December: JLPT N4 Examination

That was pretty much what I had been busy with all of last month. Can't wait to start on my Travel Log posts for Japan~! 😘

Skincare Routine 2018

Friends who know me... know that I'm a very lazy person. Make-up, dressing up - they simply take up too much time & effort. Maybe I haven't found a reason to be caring much about those anyway. #foreveralone 😏

But, if there's one thing I'm really diligent about... it has to be:

✩- SKINCARE -✩

In the past.. way back as a kid up to my early teenage years, I never really bothered. I used to be able to do absolutely nothing and still be perfectly fine with my life. This, though, changed when I was wrapping up secondary and got into tertiary education. My nightmare started... this thing called ACNE 😈 ruined it for me. 

For years and years... it bugged me. I tried many remedies, including the dermatologist, and I absolutely hated it when people commented on the state of my face. There was a period of time I was so self-conscious I couldn't leave my house without having my BB cream/concealer on. 

I have lost count of the number of products I have tried till date and the no of times my skincare routine had changed... but I think my current routine is settling pretty well and its quite fixed now. 

Here's my 2018 skincare routine product list:

Eucerin's DermoPurifyer Cleanser

First up, Cleanser! - Eucerin has a pretty good range of products for acne-prone skin. I use their cleanser once a day in the evening (I just cleanse my face with water in the mornings) because I read somewhere that cleansers takes moisture away from your skin so I don't want to over do it.

Sidenote: I used to use their day & night moisturiser which are really decent and good as well. 

After cleansing, its always good to prep the skin with a toner. 

Skin Inc's Pure Serum-Mist

Okay.. this isn't exactly a toner. Yes, its a mist. I read about how their CEO used this right after cleansing so I kinda just decided to follow that. 

Following that, serums!

Skin Inc's My Daily Dose Serum

I swear by this, this is the one product that got me into this brand -Skin Inc. It prides itself in its customisable serums because everyone is different and have different concerns that they want to fix, and this is exactly what they market towards.

(p.s. I can never thank bubzbeauty enough for letting me find this brand 😘)

The blue bottle is My Daily Dose which contains 3 different types of active ingredients, which I use for the entire face: 

Note: colour of bottles are chosen by me... 

- Licorice Serum (calms irritated skin & pimples)

- Ceramide Serum (for sensitive skin)

- Hyaluronic Acid (for long-lasting hydration)

The right bottle just contains their Vitamin B3+ Serum which tackles sudden breakouts and I use them only on targeted areas prone to zits. 

Following that, sealing all the goodness with a moisturiser!

In the Mornings:

Skin Inc's Pure Recovery Dew

& At Night:

Skin Inc's Deepsea Hydrating Mask

I don't think I can ever go back to cream-based moisturisers, these.. are so light on the skin and that just feels so good.

Last but not least, my go-to pimple treatment: 

Benzac Spots Treatment Gel

It worked miracles for the persistent acne on my forehead which really gave me hope that one day... my acne would go away. They must have recently changed their packaging because I couldn't find it and was googling away on what happened to the product, only to realise that it was actually right in front of me. 

For more information on the products & how much they cost:

Eucerin: official site | watsons 

Skin Inc: official site | sephora

Benzac Spots Treatment Gel: watsons

*** ***

I was doing spring cleaning on my skincare & makeup products today and it seems I had forgotten all about them: 

Wild Fern's Manuka Honey Eye Serum

Damn.. I hope its still usable. 😅 *gonna try using it*

Lipstick... that has a flower in it

People used to be raving about these lipsticks... I got this from my sister who bought them online. It looks transparent but I think on contact, it turns slightly pink. I don't even remember when I got it, wonder if it's still usable too. 😕

Strangers... Friend or Foe? & お土産

"不要跟陌生人说话! (Don't speak to strangers!)"

That's one sentence you often hear from parents, teachers, or adults in general as a kid. After all kinds of horror/scam stories, its difficult not to have a social barrier in place as a countermeasure.

As an over-thinker, I have probably come up with tens of scenarios and sub-scenarios, so much so, I can probably write a lengthy drama series similar to that of a Taiwanese family drama. (Its so tiring because my brain is constantly going "what if... the consequences will be...etc, etc...")

Why the sudden thought on strangers you might wonder.

Well, because I just gave my number to two strangers that I'd met on the train 2 hours ago for barely 5 mins 🙈. This is what happened:

I was headed home from my morning class and was plugging in my earphones for my ride home and there were two people standing in front of me. Eventually they waved at me to look up at them so I did, unplugged my ear piece and was expecting them to ask me for directions. Unexpectedly, they had questions regarding my earphone (where I got them, how much it was, ...). The topic progressed rather quickly to where I was going, where they were going, what I was working as, where I was working at and they wanted to exchange phone numbers.

Here's the thing, it is uncommon in Singapore to exchange phone numbers with people you just met.. unless it is work-related or absolutely necessary.

I personally, have a huge problem rejecting people. I'm an introvert, quite a lone-ranger, I enjoy being in my own world most of the time. When situations like this happen, my mind goes blank and I find it hard to react. Often, things happen first then I start thinking about what I should have done or could have better handled the situation, but by then, its already a done deal.

Would you choose to believe that humans are naturally good or naturally evil? Would you have given your contact details in the same situation spelt out above? 😟

*** ***

同級生にお土産をもらった!
Also today, in class... :D ありがとうね for sharing Japanese 食べ物 with us!

omiyage from Japanese classmate! (photo credits: sensei!)

おいしそう！！！