26

When I was in primary school, the English teachers would have us dedicate one exercise book as our journal. Some weeks, they would assign journal writing as our homework. The topic could be something they set, or it could be free writing and we could write about anything we wanted.

I loved it when English homework was journal writing. To me, it was so much more fun than worksheets. I would eagerly fill up pages and pages of the exercise book with each journal entry, to the point where I sometimes needed to start another volume in a new exercise book after running out of space in the first one.

Of course, for primary school kids, the journal topics would be fairly simple, like "What I did over the weekend." But I would captivate my teachers' attention even with such a mundane subject, and they always wrote very positive comments on the pages of my exercise books, which made me really happy.

So I guess writing has always been a thing in my life. Then I went and made it my profession, which in some sense was a good decision because why not make money out of something I'm good at and enjoy doing... But in other ways it kind of killed the joy in it.

My job as an internal communications professional does involve some writing, but not as much as, say, being a journalist. Comms involves so much more planning and project management than they tell you in school, and the fun content creation bits are quite rare. So my writing skills are getting a little rusty. And the type of content we generate most of the time, to put it bluntly, is propaganda. It's not fun to create and it's not fun to consume. I question my purpose in life when I don't get a positive reaction from my readers. I want my writing to entertain, to amuse, to provoke thought. Otherwise I have wasted my time.

So to try to build a bulwark against this creeping issue before it becomes a bigger problem and I totally lose my writing mojo, like so many other communications professionals do when they stay too long in the field, I decided to take some time out this week, during one of my rare weeks away from work, to update this blog with some (hopefully) good content.

To hark back to my primary school journaling days, the topic will be really simple: What I did during my week off.

Enjoy!

23 October 2023: Mandai Bird Paradise

I always take a one-week vacation from work around the 21st of October, which is my birthday. For my 26th birthday this year, I decided to check out the Mandai Bird Paradise for the first time. I no longer do birthday dinners and those kinds of things that normal people do on their birthdays, since I no longer take food orally. I'm all about non-culinary experiences now. Last year I stayed two nights in the Marina Bay Sands hotel to celebrate my 25th!

This year, my actual birthday was on a Saturday, so I waited for the Monday to go to the Bird Paradise so that I wouldn't have to contend with the weekend crowd.

The park was still pretty crowded though, especially with people from India. There were not many other Singaporeans there aside from a school excursion group from Pathlight and a gaggle of senior citizens from some social welfare organisation.

In terms of layout, Bird Paradise consists of a series of ten zones which you can pass through linearly, making a loop around the perimeter of the attraction as you go. With the exception of the first two zones, Winged Sanctuary and Penguin Cove, all zones are giant aviaries: essentially they are like little clumps of standalone forests where the birds are all flying around freely, with a huge net covering the entire place so that the birds are contained inside...

... And predators are kept outside, as I discovered at the Crimson Wetlands zone. This zone is, in my opinion, the most beautiful because it is spacious and open, being less forested than the other aviaries. The birds there, like flamingos and macaws, are also bigger and much easier to see. The trouble with some of the other aviaries is that they are very well-vegetated and the birds are pretty small and flighty, so it's rather hit-or-miss if you get to see anything unless you're really patient and willing to stand there searching for a long time.

While I was at the Crimson Wetlands, there was suddenly a huge commotion as nearly the whole population of birds in the aviary, except for the biggest ones like the flamingos, started shrieking at the top of their lungs and flying rapidly in circles like a whirlwind! It was an amazing sight to behold as hundreds of birds swooped above me, twittering furiously. As I looked up at them, I spotted the reason for their mass hysteria. High above the aviary, inscribing lazy circles through the clouds, was a pair of hawks. They were probably a mating pair from the nearby Seletar reservoir hunting for food. Obviously, in the wild, some of the small birds in the Bird Paradise would be fair game for birds of prey like hawks, so it's understandable that they would panic when hawks show up in the neighbourhood. Their bird brains can't comprehend the concept that the nets keep the hawks out, after all.

Speaking of bird brains, there was a psycho bird at the Winged Sanctuary. The Winged Sanctuary is not an aviary but a series of big mesh cages housing rare birds. One of the hornbills there was behaving strangely: it kept honking loudly and rhythmically and banging its head against the metal door at the back of the cage. I think it needs an intervention.

That hornbill was, unfortunately, not the only sick bird I spotted at the park. One of the penguins at the Penguin Cove looked ill too. Its protective coat was discoloured and seemed to have eroded away. The poor little thing was shivering and it refused to swim with its friends.

I spent a long time at the Penguin Cove, visiting at the start as well as the end of my journey around the park. Its convenient location near the entrance makes it possible to do this. It is clearly the most popular zone and is always packed. This is because penguins are the superior race in all of birdkind. The air-conditioning is a big plus too.

The design of the Penguin Cove could do with a few tweaks though. Currently, there are two levels where you can observe the penguins from. The Beach level has a big glass window which looks onto the land portion of the penguins' habitat. This is the more important part of the habitat because many of the penguins are lazy and spend the whole time just standing around doing nothing. So to see them, you need to be on this level. The Underwater level, as the name suggests, shows the underwater view of the habitat. I was lucky enough to catch the penguins' morning feeding time, so I got to see the penguins diving deep to retrieve the dead capelins that the keepers dumped into the water. But otherwise, generally you don't see any penguins from this level.

For some strange reason, they decided to put a buffet restaurant on the Underwater level, with the unique proposition that you can dine while enjoying the view of penguins swimming. This clearly doesn't happen in real life because the penguins seldom go down there, so you're in effect dining while enjoying the view of empty water columns. I would get rid of this bootleg Ocean Restaurant because it is a waste of budget and space. I would relocate the merchandise shop and café from where they now are on the Beach level to the Underwater level, because the Underwater level is an entry and exit point to the building and it makes sense to catch people there and ask them to spend money. In the space freed up on the Beach level, I would build a dais, similar to the one at the manatee tank at the River Wonders. People will be able to mount the dais via ramps at the side to get an elevated view of the penguins standing on the land. This is useful because the habitat is quite big and the parts at the back are difficult for children and people in a seated position to see from the floor. Having a raised platform would afford a much better view.

Mandai Bird Paradise: A good experience

Sick birds and interior design inadequacies notwithstanding, I would recommend visiting the Bird Paradise at least once. It's a good experience overall, with each aviary separated from the next by an enclosed and air-conditioned rest area so you can seek shelter if the elements get too overwhelming. There are abundant food and beverage options at both the entrance as well as the midpoint of the park where the Crimson Wetlands is. I distinctly remember a very strong chicken rice garlic chilli smell from the food court just after it. And I enjoyed my favourite ice lemon tea from the Han's Union just outside the park. If you patronise the A&W next door, see if the menu board still contains the typo I spotted: they meant to write "irresistible" but it came out as "irrestible" instead.

The free-ranging birds make for some interesting encounters too, as the more inquisitive ones may even land on you and try to steal your stuff. Here's a bird pecking at my mother.

I'm not generally a fan of birds but I enjoyed my time at the Mandai Bird Paradise. But at $42 a ticket, I feel that the cost is quite a deterrent to repeat visits for all but avid bird enthusiasts. I will, however, willingly go back if I could pay half price for a ticket that only allows entry to the Penguin Cove.

The power of penguin cuteness will compel you to spend money. Resistance is futile.

See that pillow on my chest? It's a magic pillow. Turn it inside-out and it transforms into...

A soft toy!

24 October 2023: Dinner at Putien Raffles City with friends

I don't do a lot of social stuff. Hanging out with friends is not a simple task for me, as it involves logistics to get me to and from the hangout venue safely, and a lot of planning and coordinating of schedules with my caregivers, who are my parents. There's also not a lot of realistic options in terms of hangout activities: for instance, the typical young person would go clubbing with their friends, but that wouldn't turn out well if I tried it.

There's also a very big energy cost I have to pay when going out with friends. As an introvert, and someone who doesn't socialise much, there is a mental cost of course, but this is compounded by the physical effort required to be outside the safe environs of my home, where the furniture is comfortable and the surroundings are peaceful and quiet.

But I'm still a human being, and I need social contact to stay psychologically well. So when I have some time off from work, I make an effort to arrange meetups with friends. That way, I have enough energy to spare as I saved some by not working, and I have days free after the meetup to restore my energy.

I caught up with my friends JC and BL on Tuesday night at the Putien restaurant in Raffles City. My parents wanted to go to the Clove restaurant at the hotel next door to use up some vouchers they had, and my friends were coming from work in the city centre, so it worked out well.

JC is a friend I made at work four years ago, and in the company I work at, that's nearly a lifetime. As BL always says, JC and I have been around for very long. We've lost many friends to other companies along the way, so I'm really happy that she's still around, and similarly, she keeps teasingly warning me not to resign. When I was an intern in human resources, she was my guardian. Now, even though I'm a battle-tested regular staff in my own right, I still find comfort in the stability she brings, even though I've since established myself in the communications department and don't overlap much with her in terms of responsibilities.

BL is a new friend who joined JC's department just over a year ago. We crossed paths because my internal communications role puts me in close contact with various parts of human resources, as I help them to announce their policies and initiatives to the employees. She has since made her next career move, but we promised to keep up our friendship.

Many career advisors on Tiktok say things like "Never trust HR" and things like that, but my list of friends that I made at work is dominated by HR colleagues. My view is that you have to look at your HR colleagues with very open and honest eyes, and not be prejudiced against them just because of stereotypes or a perception that they are there to protect the company by hurting you. There are some really good ones like BL and JC who make it their mission to find win-win solutions, and they work really hard at it. And at the end of the day, HR colleagues are flesh-and-blood employees like the rest of us, trying to survive and make an honest living. I am proud of my HR friends!

Time

The get-together with JC and BL also made me reflect on the passage of time, and how we use it. BL may only have been with the company for just over a year, but she and JC grew so close that they now go on overseas holidays together. They also share a very cute dynamic, as exemplified by the following conversation at the restaurant while ordering a vegetable dish.

BL: *speaks to waitress in Mandarin*
JC: What vegetable did she say that is?
BL: Oh, this is a green vegetable.
JC: No shit bro, most vegetables are green.

Or this one where they were telling me about their recent trip to Vietnam when it flooded.

BL: *pointing at JC* She made us walk in mud!
JC: It wasn't mud, it was just rain water.
BL: Just water? You drink and show me lah!

BL also didn't have a lot of joint projects with me, but our brief interactions over the course of the year added up and made us become friends instead of just coworkers. When she resigned, a lot of people across the company, besides myself, were very sad.

Thinking about her impact, I realised that one year is a long time, but it is also a short time. We can use it for so much good, but we can also do the opposite. Broadly speaking, I can categorise new coworkers into three groups. In their first year, they can:

1. Leave a deep and positive impact on their colleagues, and have many good relationships within and beyond their department;
2. Leave a deep and negative impact on their colleagues, sowing a trail of confusion, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness in their wake; or
3. Make people wonder what they were doing during the year, because they didn't seem to have made any impact at all.

BL, needless to say, is in the first category. I can only hope I have more colleagues like that in the future.

Keep Calm and Battle On!

I was recently reminded of this blog when I made a new friend, let's call her M, at work, and showed it to her so she could get to know me better.

My last post was over a year ago. I felt I really should update it, give it some love and a fresh lick of paint.

Besides, it's been a while since I've written anything for my own enjoyment. Writing is now my job, but I want to rediscover the joys of doing it for its own sake as well.

So when inspiration struck in the form of a sudden wave of nostalgia brought about by experiencing an old childhood game in a totally new way, I decided I'd take advantage of this four-day extended weekend to pump out a new post.

Let's start from the very beginning, shall we?

The light of mana

A ball of yellow flame burst from the adventurer's hand, striking the mer-monster square in the chest.

The mer-monster, which had the tail of a fish but a hideous-looking body, staggered in pain, then retaliated, blasting the adventurer with a water spell.

The adventurer recovered and readied another ball of yellow in his hand.

"No no no, why you keep using 'Light of Mana'? This monster is weak to energy, so you should use energy spells, not light!"

A voice cuts in. A hand grabs the cursor and positions it over the "monster attributes" section of the screen, causing a popup to appear.

It displayed a dizzying array of numbers.

That was the moment I fell head-over-heels in love with computer games, especially those involving the Skinner box design philosophy of "big numbers getting bigger", with a bit of RNG thrown in for good measure.

Geeky pastime

The owner of the voice, and the hand, was my classmate.

Now, please remember that this was a long time ago. We were in Primary 3, and it was a post-exam period so we were all left to our own devices in the school's computer lab. But I'm pretty sure his name was Isaac, and back then he lived in Jalan Tiga.

He was a short, chubby boy with big, round, black-framed glasses. Exactly the sort of quiet, geeky kid who would be suffering wedgies every day at the hands of the jocks if we had been in a typical American school. Fortunately, this is the nerd capital of the world, Singapore.

We were sharing one of the school computers. He had offered to show me a computer game. I had not played computer games before that day, because I was quite deprived of life beyond academics.

"It's called BattleOn," he told me breathlessly, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

He logged into his account and showed me the basics. Click "Attack" to attack with your primary weapon, click "Spells" to choose a magical attack, click "Weapons", "Shields", "Armor", and "Pets" to change your loadout. Seemed simple enough.

I played on his account for a while, during which he taught me more about the game mechanics, such as why it's not a good strategy to spam 'Light of Mana', which was the spell he had used when demonstrating the game to me, against every monster.

Basically, most monsters conform to a certain element, which makes them weak to the opposing element. So for example, the mer-monster, whose exact name escapes me, I was fighting was a water-based creature, so its weakness was energy.

Similarly, fire creatures are weak to ice, darkness creatures are weak to light, and so on. You should tailor your attacks to exploit your opponent's weaknesses.

Eventually, Isaac popped the question.

"Do you want your own account?"

I answered yes. Less than ten minutes later, he had me all set up.

Jonathan798 was good to go.

The marijuana of computer games

I like to say that for '90s kids, BattleOn was the "gateway drug" for those of us who would eventually become hooked on computer games.

It was simple enough for our tiny, kiddy brains to handle, yet complex enough to introduce us to fundamental game mechanics and concepts such as the rock-paper-scissors approach that the combat systems of most games essentially boil down to.

And it had that potent combination of monster variety, quests and lore, and "just one more level before bed".

I've always had an addictive personality, so that "just one more level before bed" effect was very strong on me.

As I tend to do, I flung myself headlong into the game, grinding the levels day after day.

Every recess time, I would proudly report back to Isaac what level I had achieved the night before.

I think I got a bit tiresome, because one day he got a bit irritated and said: "This is not a competition."

Oops.

Rose-tinted nostalgia

I eventually graduated to bigger games like RuneScape, but I always kept Jonathan798. Every couple of years, I would revisit him and play with him again for a while.

The feeling of familiarity, of homecoming, of simpler times, never fails to bring a smile to my face.

When work stress got to me a couple of weeks ago, I took Jonathan798 out for a spin again.

I posted about it on social media. M's husband saw my post, and immediately recognised the game, declaring it a "legendary game". Damn right it is!

He said that when he was a kid, he had a Guardian account with the Blade of Awe!

WTF... Jonathan798 was about 15 years old, and level 80+, but he was not a Guardian, nor did he have the Blade of Awe.

I had wasted hours as a kid, jostling with the other free players around the world for the very limited 8,000 server places available to us.

I remember, with a tinge of disgust, repeatedly being greeted with the all-too-familiar message that the server was full, and if I really wanted to play, I should become a Guardian so I wouldn't have to queue like a poor person.

I felt like such a pleb. The situation was unacceptable. How would I remedy this?

A quick Google search later, I had my answer. A one-off payment of US$19.95 would make me a Guardian, while a one-off payment of US$24.95 would make me a Guardian with X-Boost, which is essentially a bunch of cool upgrades over the regular Guardian account type.

I thought about the fact that RuneScape is costing me just under a hundred bucks a year on a recurring membership. BattleOn's Guardianship is a permanent unlock for a single payment, and the price is very low by today's industry standards.

My mind was made up. "Go big or go home," I said to myself as I bought the higher tier. "Look who's back, to buy the thing he couldn't afford as a kid."

Breathing new life into an old hobby

First order of business: acquire the Blade of Awe. It's essentially a very powerful weapon only available to Guardians.

To get it, you have to collect five pieces of the weapon. These will spawn in rare treasure chests which randomly appear as you play.

Once you have all five weapon components, bring them to Valencia, a rare item hunter in the main city, who will assemble them for you into the complete sword.

I was expecting a long, RNG-based grind to find and collect all five pieces, but when I spoke to Valencia, she immediately said I had everything I needed and she promptly made and presented me with the Blade of Awe!

Apparently, free players are able to find the weapon pieces, just that they can't put them together, and at some point over the last 15 years, I had successfully collected all five of them.

Presenting... the Blade of Awe!

It's a very pog weapon. For me, regular attacks hit in the high two-digits or low three-digits, and it has random special attacks which can hit in the high three-digits. It also grows stronger with the player's level, and I've seen veteran players hitting thousands of damage with it!

Of course, the Blade of Awe is not the only thing Guardianship has to offer. There are lots of new classes of combat to train in, and I can also go further in depth into the older classes that were available in free-to-play on a restricted basis, now that I'm no longer subject to those limitations.

My X-Boost also netted me extra Z-Tokens, the game's premium MTX currency. So I bought a cottage.

Apparently the cottage comes with several plots of real estate for me to build stuff on for resource gathering. I'm still figuring out this part.

And of course, I now have unfettered access to every single item, quest, and location in the entire game.

Jonathan798, my trusty BattleOn account that Isaac helped me create when I was nine years old, is reborn.

A new adventure is just beginning!

A new chapter

 On 5 April 2021, I will begin the next, and quite possibly the last, phase of my life.

I will be joining GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, as an associate in the communications department.

This job opportunity arose because I did well during my internship there in 2019, and the company offered me a full-time conversion after I had graduated.

It's a good place to work, the pay is fair, and there are nice employee benefits. Overall, I feel extremely fortunate to have landed such a plum posting. Many other people, especially those who have similarly severe medical problems as I do, aren't so lucky.

So barring any major catastrophes, such as company upheaval or if they decide to can me for some reason, I intend to stay in this position for as long as my body can hold up to the rigors of a 9-5 (technically 8:30-6) workday.

I'm under no illusions and I want to make it very clear: this is in all likelihood going to be my first and last job. I'm probably going to die in it.

With every year that passes, I get sicker and weaker. It's a classic "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" situation. Mentally and personality-wise, I've made so much progress over the past five years. It's just a shame that physically, I'm going in the opposite direction.

But while I'm still in decent working order, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be the consummate professional. I'll get the work assigned to me done to a high standard and in a timely manner. People will come to know me as the reliable one, the go-to guy if you need something to get done. That's always been my strength and what I enjoy: getting shit done.

Here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to go all-out in climbing the corporate ladder. I'm not going to be one of those types who does everything possible to stand out and be noticed so that they have better promotion prospects. I'm not going to burn myself out trying to please everybody and be all things to all men. I have boundaries, and I will guard them. I'm done pandering to others. It's time to live for myself.

As they say, I'm here for a good time, not for a long time. Living on borrowed time as I have been for the past 21 years has a way of putting into perspective what's really important in life: personal relationships, satisfaction with your daily life, and doing fun stuff while you still have the ability to do so.

There's no point cutting out the time you spend with people who make you happy, turning your life into a grind, and sucking every last bit of joy out of your existence, just to get a better-sounding title and an extra couple of hundred dollars.

My plan is simple. Do my job, and do my very best at it. No less, but no more either.

That way, they can't fire me, because I'm doing my job well. But I also protect myself, and can live out the rest of my days happily.

Note: Every time I write something brutally candid like this, I feel the need to clarify in case someone panics and starts calling IMH on me. No, I don't intend to off myself. I'm just stating the facts: I feel terrible in terms of my health these days and very likely won't survive long enough for things like career-building to matter. Let me put it this way: when the inevitable medical catastrophe happens to me, I'm not going to be one of those people who fights for their life. I'll just give in and let whatever happens happen. In my case, living a long life is literally the worst thing that could happen to me, because it would condemn me to many more years of watching myself slowly die until I become nothing more than a slightly intelligent vegetable. Besides, my parents are getting old and me being around when they're really elderly or worse, dead, will be an utter disaster for all of us. No thanks, I'd rather quit while I'm ahead and go out with the remains of my dignity intact, and have my parents still hale and hearty enough to make sure my wishes are properly seen to and then they can go off and do fun stuff for the remainder of their lives. But while I'm still here, though, my number one priority is safeguarding my own happiness. That's all there is to it. And nobody is going to take that from me.