A mental health day

I took the day off to give myself a bit of a break from trading. A mental health day, as we called them, back in my previous industry. I’d like to get my mental health back in order before returning to the trading screen on Monday. I hope other industries are embracing the importance of these days as well.

I wanted to have a local breakfast this morning, but all the kopitiams (coffee shops) near our place were packed as, with locals having their daily breakfast, I suppose. So that left me no choice but to have a western breakfast.

The cafe where I ended up was having cash register issues, so when I went to go pay, things were going awry. So the staff member exclaims “Alamak! The receipt won’t print!” And continues to say alamak a few more times until they finally get a receipt printed for me. That’s the first time I’ve heard alamak said in real life! It was used a number of times in that book I read recently, Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan, a Singaporean author. And I’ve seen it mentioned in Singlish related stuff. So from these, I knew how it was used, but up until today, it’s just been an academic word for me. So it was rather exciting to actually hear it in real life – and with so much frustration from the speaker as well, it just really brought the expression to life! 😆

After breakfast / brunch, I went to Gardens by the Bay, like I said I would. It was the first day of Tulipmania in the Flower Dome, and I was very excited to go see it today 🌷🌷

Until I actually got there. The display was a bit too artistic for me, it just went over my head. I just didn’t quite get it 😐

Are they meant to represent certain people? The Dutch people, perhaps? The eyelids actually opened and closed on some of them, which was also a little freaky. I don’t get it… I just don’t get it…

Despite the odd display, the flowers were very pretty, as they always are, so wandering through both the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest raised my spirits.

I then did a bit of wandering around the shops on Orchard Road, before heading home and relaxing for the rest of the evening. We were supposed to practice tonight, but N is still not feeling all that great, his cold is still lingering around 😔

We have a comp tomorrow, but we’ve barely practiced in the past few weeks, with me first having the cold, and now him. If we hadn’t already registered and paid, I’d pull out of this comp, to be honest. Our dancing probably won’t reflect what we can actually do, and it’ll just make me feel disappointed if we don’t dance to the best of our abilities. It’s not about the results – like I’ve said before, we always rank poorly against the specialists anyway, so we’re used to not placing well. But it’s when we don’t – or can’t – give our all that will be more disappointing. Sigh. Oh well, it can’t be helped. We just have to make the most of tomorrow. Who knows, maybe the lack of practice will let us ease up and just enjoy the performance tomorrow, rather than get all bogged down in the technical detail, like we usually do😆