Endless illness woes + 2nd biggest purchase of my life

“Don’t be afraid to start over again. This time, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from experience.”

It has been a busy past few months. As if my own medical issues isn’t enough, my mum has been seriously ill, to the point that she was not able to leave the house for the past 3 mths. I lost count of how many times I have brought her to see many different doctors. Finally, she got slightly better recently and I could at least wheelchair her out. And it has become a weekly activity which me and my mum look forward to.

With the need to bring my mum out every weekend now, there is a strong reason for me to finally decide to buy a car. With the wheelchair and my baby stroller, it is really difficult not to drive when we go out. A small car, but big enough to load the wheelchair and stroller, with all of us in it. Eventually gotten one which wifey really likes. A 2021 Honda FIT, in metallic white.

Our 1st weekend outing @ East Coast Park

Actually bought this some months back to give my parents next year for their 70th birthday. Due to my mum’s illness, decided to give it to her early.

After much consideration, ‘Little Whitey’ is finally born. Never though I would get a car

Another one of my funky purchase. Never felt I’m too old to get alittle crazy with my life.

4 years (and a half) and counting

“Don’t reach for normal, reach for better”

Received a courier recently, and it was an award to me for working in my present company for 4 years. This is not the longest I have stayed in a company (longest was 7 years), but this is probably the most intense, stressful, fast pace environment I’ve worked in. It is also the place when I gain the most exposure and experience in the shortest amount of time. 4 years is definitely quite an achievement for me.

I always read myself to sleep, literately every single night. The past few weeks, I’ve been glued to this manga “Grand Blue'“. It’s been a long while since I found something this nice. Can’t remember if I ever laugh this hard reading something.

Grand Blue manga

Bought this coaster for myself, which somehow made me really happy. #happyforthelittlethingsinlife

"I can't hear you"

“Don’t take role model as a template, use it as a reference”

It’s been more than 2 months since my last post. Lots of things happened and I have been really occupied. I went through some of the very difficult times in my life. Perhaps one fo the serious events that happened, was that i found out I lost a significant part of my hearing on my left ear. As of this blog post, I have went through many rounds of medical test, and have still not found the cause for the lost of hearing. Apparently, there is a good chance my hearing may not recover… At my current age, I felt I’m alittle too young to lost the hearing on my ear, and definitely not ready to accept this shocking news.

Report of my hearing test. The bottom line represents the hearing on my left ear.

Knowing I’ve the hearing problem, my colleague, Tracy, sending me this hamper to cheer me up.

Recently, I was asked where is the place would I consider as my ‘safe place’; a place which will put me at ease, relax and feel protected. I thought for awhile and the jetty at Labrador park popped into my mind. That was the place which I only went once before many years ago, at a time when I was really stressed up at work, and in my memory it was a very zen and quiet place. I intentionally went back to the place again last week and saw that the place is now crowded with people fishing, very different from when I was there before. Looks like I need to start looking for an alternative candidate for my safe place now.

Jetty @ Labrador Park

Undergoing my 3rd surgery - Gall Stones

I had an ultra sound scan after my 3 months of body transformation and to my surprise, I was told I no longer have fatty liver in me. This is likely one of the benefits of me cutting down my weight. Unfortunately, there has been no improvement to my gall bladder stones situation. From the scan, it was concluded that there were multiple stones, measuring up to 0.67cm big, which was too big to be flushed out. Being bothered by gall bladder attacks for probably more than 10 years now, and I have tried different methods to flush out the stones so as to avoid undergoing the surgery. All of which, apparently were unsuccessful. This year, I have been getting the attacks more and more frequently. Thus, knowing now that the stones were too huge to be flushed, my family and I finally made the decision to go for the surgery.

The procedure was a key hole surgery, and it took about 2 hours, with me discharging the next day. The first 4 days of the surgery was really quite terrible with me suffering alot of post-ops pain. Today is the 11th day from the day of my surgery and I am still feeling some pain from the wound. One of the most obvious difference I feel now, is that I find it more difficult to digest food. Apparently, this should improve as time goes by, which I really hope it does. For now, I just have to be really, really careful on what, and how much I eat.

Gall stones extracted from me

Tonic from my brother and my buddy, Au Yeong

Bought 2 shirts to up my spirit

Conclusion of my sabbatical

“A bend in the road is never fatal, unless you never turn”

So, in a blink of an eye, my 3 months sabbatical leave from work is coming to an end and I will be starting work later in the morning. I could probably expect a ton of work and tough projects waiting for me at work.

I looked back at my earlier blogs at the start of my sabbatical 3 months ago and realized what I had in mind and planned at that time turned out pretty accurate. The biggest miss was the development of covid19 which resulted in Singapore declaring ‘Circuiting Breaker’ and disrupted all my travel plans, in addition to not being able to continue my training at UP. I was actually really upset of the CB news, which lasted throughout most of my sabbatical.

As mentioned in the 1st blog at the start of my sabbatical, if there’s only one thing I want to do, it was to get back on my health. And that was what I did. With the CB situation, I, unfortunately, was not able to do any checkup. But I can still continue the UP routine to reduce my weight and body fat. I had initially set a target and thought I would be very happy to lose 8 kg during these 3 months. When I realized 8 kg is within reached, I upgraded my target to 10 kg and told myself if I can achieve that, I would make a video to document my journey. As of today, I lost a total of 12.3kg and as promised to myself, published a youtube video 2 days ago. The youtube video surprisingly took a really long time to plan for and make. But I was more surprised to receive an overwhelming number of wishes and congrats from my friends when I shared it on FB. It was really encouraging.

In addition to the goal of getting my health back and making the youtube video, I actually secretly had a 3rd optional target, which is to take a training and pass an advanced certification at work. I was clear from the beginning that I will only explore this if I was able to complete the first 2. I managed to squeeze in some time to take the 3 days training, and although failed the exam on first try, was able to pass the exam earlier this week. So, I am officially VMware Certified Advanced Professional now.

At the end of the day, I have to say that I am happy to have achieved the 3 goals I set for myself. The CB and covid19 situation, fortunately or unfortunately, may have helped this. Of course, there were many other stuffs which I did as well, like grassroot volunteering, redecorated some parts of my house, re-evaluated my finances and insurance, etc. I even spend a good amount of time looking at cars. But most importantly, spending lots of quality time with my family. To sum it up, these had been one of the most fruitful, enjoyable, and memorable 3 months I had. In my opinion, would say it was worth the 3 months of no-pay sabbatical leave taken.

Drama fever

“Building your network and relationship is like withdrawing from ATM. You need to deposit $ in first, so you can withdraw in future”

I’m really late joining the Netflix party.. Despite hearing so many good things about it, I only sign up about 3 months ago. With the Covid19 situation, I have lots of time on my hand and been watching quite a number of dramas. The problem with watching such dramas is, once you start watching, you can’t stop. Only exception is “The Last Dance” which I’m happily watching during my bath time with my iPad in the waterproof cover.

“Crash Landing on You'“

“Sex Education”

“The King”

“The Last Dance”

May 2020, CB continues

“Find a hole. Fill it.” (Find and do something that would help everyone)

Entering into the month of May, Singapore has announced another month of extension for Circuit Breaker period, until 1st June, as the number of infected shot up from the clusters in dorms. This extension means another month of staying at home for everyone. No McDonald’s, haircut, etc, etc. For me, I’ve pretty much gotten used to and enjoying staying at home. Especially as I can still go out for running/cycling exercise, so long I exercise precaution. Other than that, the only time I’m going out is to buy my meals and doing volunteer work.

On the topic of my weight lost, as of today, 9th May, I have successfully lost a total of 10.3kg over the past 2 months. It has been alot of hard work, constantly managing the food I eat, planning for my exercise, quickly recovering my soreness and muscle ache from exercise etc. I have to say, I’m pretty happy with the results. To remember this important milestone in my life, I’ll a simple video as well. It’s about 3 more weeks before I go back to work and I was planning to push really hard before my holiday ends. Sadly, I pushed a little too hard and stain my calf muscle today. Not sure how long I’ll be out, but I’m hoping it will not be too long.

Lost of 10 kg over last 2 mths!

Don’t know how long will I be out of action

Celebrating my nephew’s birthday via Zoom, due to CB period

Bumming into my primary school friend during one of my runs

Safe Distancing Ambassador patrolling at Pinnacle Duxton 50th floor

Circuit Breaker

It has been 1 week since Singapore declared nationwide one month of ‘Circuit Breaker’ which mandate closure of all schools and shutdown of none essential businesses. Everyone is to stay at home. This means the activities I can do now is alot more limited. Most importantly, I will not be able to continue my training at the gym now. This adds to the list of disruption to my plans I have made for my sabbatical and was quite a blow to me when the news was released. I have to immediately come out with a plan B.

Plan B. From the circuit breaker rules, I am limited to 2 exercises which I can do outdoor now; running and cycling. And I intend to hit extremely hard on these 2 exercises. Every day if I could, if not just a day of break in between. In the mean time, I will continue with the strict diet.

Cleaning my home and re-renovating my home is something I have been delaying way too long. Not have ceiling fans installed in my room is something that I had always regret. I managed to have it installed in my rooms literately 1 day before the circuit breaker starts.

With the Covid 19 and circuit breaker situation now, huge number of volunteers are needed. Doing more volunteering work to help people is something that I had always wanted to do. As a grassroots leader, I am exposed to more opportunities to such volunteering work. A good way to spend my time.

With these, I ended up fully occupying myself again. Tentatively, the Circuit Breaker period ends on 4 May, but it is not known if things will change or if there will be any extension. Currently, the Covid 19 situation in Singapore is getting very bad, with 449 new cases today.

Well, I am on the 7th week of my sabbatical now, and having completed 11 session of training with UP fitness. As of today, I have lost 6.8kg. Quite happy with the progress so far, but I am also aware that I cannot relax now. Ideally, I hope to lose I really hope that I can lose more than 10 kg by the time I go back to work. To reach my ideal BMI, I need to lose a total of 15kg actually…

One of my night cycling trip. Special lighting @ MBS. #SGUNITED

Probably my 1st time painting the house. Touching up after the ceiling fan installation

Strictly no dinning in at all restaurants during Circuit Breaker period.

Me volunteering for face mask distribution

Occasional gaming: The newly released Animal Cross

UP fitness: Week 3

So, it’s been about 3 weeks since I started UP fitness. I have somewhat adapted to the change in this training lifestyle. Now, I am more conscious of the carbo, fats and protein in the food which I eat, as well as their portion (weight). With the change in diet, my expense on food increased substantially as well… Something which I need to change my expectation when I budget for my food expenses moving forward. Managing my body ache becomes an everyday thing, as I try to recover as much as possible before my next training. My reduction in weight started to slow down abit, probably due to me taking a 1 week break from the training as I went for a medical procedure. Total weight lost till date: 4kg.

Taking weight of each portion of my food I eat

Was introduced to MCO by a relative last month. I was never into crypto currency and knew very little about it. But MCO is really interesting and decided to give it a try. Staked 300 units to get the Indigo card which comes with quite alot of interesting benefits. For those reading and are interested, you can use my referral code: ‘b8fq8xq29a’ and we both get USD50.

Opted for the MCO Indigo card

New shaver. Retiring my previous shaver, which I have used for probably 10 years now. First time trying a ‘wet shave’.

The Day I sell all my shares

“Like a book, life is told in chapters. you can’t embrace the next chapter until you close the current one” - Casey Neistat

As the Covid 19 situation worsen in many parts of the world, together with Saudi Arabia and Russia going crazy in the oil market, this is probably the worse week I’ve seen in the stock market over the past 10 years. Feeling the panic, I felt it’s best to exit the market for now. So, with the exception of my company shares, I sold all the other shares which I hold. Some shares, i.e. Mapletree, I have been holding for about 10 years and have grown to have a special feeling to it. When the situation settled down, will definitely be looking at buying it again.

For now, I’ll be monitoring the market situation and maybe pick up some shares at low prices. I’m not an expert in shares and I’m not pretending to be one here. But some of the shares which I felt have potential and are under my radar are:

• Mapletree Inustrial

• Keppel DC REIT

• Mapletree North Asia

• NetLink NBN

• Lendlease Gobal

• BP

Sabbatical: Week 1

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

It’s been slightly more than a week since my sabbatical and adapting to UP fitness routine has kept me busy most of the time. With the extreme change, I see my weight quickly dropped by 2kg in a week. From week 2 and 3, I will unfortunately need to suspense the training as I need to undergo a procedure and perspiring during this period will cause complications. But seeing immediate results, I can’t wait to continue the training.

As part of my getting back to health routine, I’ve also been visiting TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). My gallstone situation has been getting really bad over the past few months and I’ve been recommended by doctors to go for operations. TCM is my final try to salvage this. If this doesn’t work, operations is my only option.

Removing all carbo from my diet, I get hungry easily. Turning to nuts for some fats input to fill my hunger

No pain, no gain

“Sometimes, the wrong train takes u to the right station” - Saajan, The Lunchbox

So, one of the things I want to do to get my health back in sharp is to reduce my body weight. Although I do not consider myself as a super heavy weight person, I’m fair from where I was and where I want to be. My weight has directly/indirectly caused some of my health problems like fatty liver, gallstones, etc. This has consistently been a yearly resolution of mine to reduce weight; and consistently every year, i failed to achieve this goal. No excuse this time and I’m going all out to achieve this. I also know that I’m heavily lack knowledge of how to achieve my goals in this area and needed help. From a colleague’s recommendation, I’ve sign up with UP fitness which apparently is one of the best in the market. What they preach is not just a gym routine, but a total complete change of life style. Totally changed/corrected my perception of what a healthy life should be about.

This is the first week of my sabbatical and I’m fortunate enough to be able to start the training. Below are the extremely strict rule imposed by UP fitness.

• Strict diet: No carb! And no sugar, no fried food, limit intake (Only 1375g Calories per day) etc

• Gym: 3 times a week

• Cardio: 4 times a week (Highly doubt I can achieve this though)

• Daily record of food nutrition intake, weight lost, steps taken etc

• Supplements

• 8 hrs sleep every night (Studies shown that sufficient sleep helps burn fats faster)

• Drink at least 3 litres of water (For detox)

Sabbatical

“Sabbatical - a period away from work, agreed with your employer. The word is sometimes used interchangeably with 'career break' or 'adult gap year', but the specific feature about a sabbatical is that you will come back to the same job..”

So, for the very first time in my 16 years of working experience, I am taking a few months of sabbatical leave. I’ve been planning this for a while now and there are just too many things I needed time to sort out. Really glad to have the support from my family and my boss at work. I have been pretty thrifty during my normal days. Thus, although I will not be paid during these few months, I figured I’ll be ok. The last thing I want is to waste these few months away, not doing things I want to do due to budget constraints. Of course, I do not have an unlimited pool of wealth at my expense. So, although I do not plan on cutting my spending on ‘investing on myself’, I still will need to be careful of expenses.

Long story short, during these few months, I will be laser focus on getting my health back in sharp, and to come back stronger both physically and mentally. Anything else, needs to be on a lower priority. Knowing myself, I have always been a person wanting to do too many things at once. Thus this is something I need to constantly reminding myself. As of now, I have only briefly planned out the high level of what I am going to do. Life is half random, and I’m looking forward to the random part during the next few months.

Buying myself some present to celebrate my sabbatical

Covid 19

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good -- Romans 12:9”

Since the end of Jan, Singapore has been on a high alert on Covid 19. And on 7 Feb, Singapore raised teh DORSCON level to ‘Orange’. I can’t remember Singapore has ever experience this kind of scare in the community before. People rushed to the supermarket to stock up on food and toilet papers, Companies activating their BCP plans, long Qs to take temperature before allowed to enter commercial buildings etc. Business in almost all areas were affected as most people would just stay at home. As of today, the number of infected around the world has passed 102k people, with close to 3500 dead.

Monitoring the situation over the past month, I have read cases where specific races, occupations and nationalities being discriminated due to this virus outbreak. I have always been strongly against discrimination of any kind and is always frustrating reading such news. Despite this, the news of our nurses, volunteers and other people working at the front line is always heart warming and inspiring. People sacrificing their person and family time for the sake of others.

Personally, when the DORSCON level upgraded to ‘Orange’, i immediately felt a sense of excitement. This feeling did not last long at all (less than 1 day), as it very quickly became apparent that our daily life are immediately affected in many ways. I had flu during that period and everyone, including myself, feared that it could be the Covid 19 virus. Hopefully, the situation will improve very soon.

Panic buy of food and daily necessities in supermarkets

Long Qs of people waiting to take their temperature before entering into the building

Always love a badman joke

Thank you, Kobe

“When we are saying this cannot be accomplished, this cannot be done, then we are short-changing ourselves. My brain, it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I have to sit there and face myself and tell myself ‘you are a failure’, I think that is almost worse than dying.” - Kobe Bryant (1978 - 2020)

Basketball is my favorite sport, which I enjoyed both playing and watching. I probably got exposed to basketball during my secondary school days, at the age of 13. Yesterday, the world was shocked by the news of Kobe passing away in a helicopter crash. Kobe is one of my favorite players of all time and his jersey was the first basketball jersey I ever bought. Definitely a player who I will remember for the rest of my life.

Dinner & Dance 2020

Throughout my career, I’ve missed company D&D more than I’ve attended. I don’t drink, don’t dance and don’t party. This year, there were a number of my colleagues asked me to join, and I had a changed my mind at the very last min to join in the fun. Lucky that I did and it was probably one of the best party I had.

Goodbye 2019, hello 2020

“If I cannot do great things, I will do small things in great ways”

This year passes by in a flash and before I know it, I am at the last hour of 2019. Summarising my 2019 in one word, it would be ‘eventfully’, and my 2nd word would be ‘tired’. This has been a year of ups and downs. Among many things that happened, I accompanied the final few weeks of a childhood friend before he passed away in April. On the other hand, I welcomed the arrival of my 1st child in Aug.

A recap of my 2019:

1. I got promoted and became a dad!

2. Achieved 4 professional certifications! vExpert 2019, Prosci Change Management, and P3O. and VCP DC (literally passing this on 31st Dec)

3. Received an ‘EPIC2 Award’ for ‘Best Support Functions’ at work

Status of my goals set for 2019:

1. Continue the plan to set up my business/long term plan - No progress

2. Pass at least 2 IT professional certification - Over achieved as I attained 4

3. Reducing my weight to less than 80kg (No more excuses!) - Another year of excuses…

4. I need to sleep earlier - Being a dad now, this is a totally unrealistic goal

5. Continue with my personal and professional website - Another failed as I prioritised ‘dad duties’.

Generally opposite from my year in 2018, this has been a year full of activities to keep me busy, and tired. Baby grows extremely fast when they are little and there’s so much to experience and learn as parents. I can easily imagine that this is going to be a long journey of continuous learning and challenges for many years down the road.

Apparently, 2020 will be a good year for me, who is born in the year of Goat, although I am not been someone superstitious about this kind of things. Moving into 2020, I am going to focus mainly on BAU stuffs. Maintaining and be better at what I am doing.

My goals for 2020:

1. Settle down and be better at ‘dad duties’

2. Pass at least 2 IT professional certification, or 1 advance IT certification

3. Reducing my weight to less than 80kg (I really hope there will not be any more excuses this year)

4. Continue with my personal and professional website

hello world

This year, I have a really special promotion, welcoming my baby daughter into my life. It has been a really busy, and chaotic past few months (Which explains my hiatsu in my blog post). As a new parent, taking care of a new born has been overwhelming. My life style changed completely and there are times when there are hardly much time for sleep. It’s just the beginning and I am still trying to learn along the way.

Lock up in my room

Was locked up in my bed room yesterday. Not by anyone else, but the lock just decided to fail on me. The ‘plunder’ cracked and broke into pieces, and stuck on the door itself. And I was locked in my room, without my phone, without internet, without water for more than an hour. Luckily, my dad was a locksmith and we stay in the same building came to my rescue. I was told it is my 2nd time locked alone in a room and my first time was when I was at a tender age of 2 or 3 years old.

May 2019

“God gives the hardest battles to the strongest soldiers”

Been a busy month and lots of things going on in my life. Have to start preparing for new changes in my life and I re-decorated my home, threw away many stuffs, and now, I’m taking 2 days of leave to have my home repainted.

Got the chance to meet up some friends over the weekend and gotten advise on how to improve my timing. from my friend David, who is a Rubik’s cube expert. My timing is currently at 80sec per solve, and I hope to first bring it within 60 sec.

I’ve also been working on my basketball shots. Since the start of 2019, not only have i not lost weight, i’ve gained 2kg! Desperately turning to my favorite sport (basketball), to cut some weight. I noticed it takes 4 days for me to recover from body aching after each game. Thus, as much as I can, spacing my exercise routine every 4 days.