Health and reading

I booked a health screening this morning, scheduled in a few weeks’ time. The customer service officer and I both have heavily accented English, and we had a hard time understanding each other. I don’t think my accent is that heavy, but I guess any accent can be quite different if you’re not used to it. But it was a bit ridiculous at times: eg I had to spell my first name to her, as she was obviously not used to common English names. I start with the first letter “K”. She goes “J – for Japan?”. Wth?! 😂 I had to come up with a country for each and every letter in my name. That was actually quite challenging! 😂

Anyway, the health screening is basically a comprehensive health check up. Apparently it’s going to take half a day for them to do all the tests! That’s going to be fun 😳 But the funnest bit of all is that I have to give urine and stool samples omggg I seriously don’t know how I’m going to do that! 😆

I’m just a bit more concerned with my health these days, now that I’m getting older. Not that I’m really doing anything to warrant the concern, I’m just a bit of a worry wart. So I’d like to do this more for my own piece of mind than anything else. I did feel very anxious that day when I went to get my eyes checked and that was just my eyes. This is a whole body checkup! My blood pressure is going to go through the roof!

I finished Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women. There’s actually seven stories in the book, not six, as I originally thought. The last four stories were more in line with what I would expect from this author: weird, what-in-the-world-was-that-about stories that just give you a different view of the people in this world. I did enjoy the book overall, in a slightly odd, Haruki Murakami way 😆

So one book down and another one picked up: I’ve now started book 3 of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, Rich People Problems. I actually did start reading this a few months back, but stopped reading it for whatever reason. I decided to just start again from the beginning, as it’s been so long since I started reading this book that I’m sure a re-read would probably be a better idea than trying to pick up from where I left off from last time. But it’s been good so far. Hopefully I won’t stop reading again this time around! I think it was only because I had read books 1 and 2 in quick succession that I felt like I needed a bit of a break before reading book 3. So I should be ok second time around 😊

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Derailed plans

I was having a conversation by text (in Chinese) with our Chinese teacher yesterday, trying to arrange the start of our next lesson, which was supposed to be today. He said that he was going to send through an email to organise payment, and we left it at that.

So this morning, we got ready to go to Chinese class, even though we hadn’t yet paid for it as I hadn’t yet received his email. So as we were walking to class, ten minutes before it started, I texted our teacher asking if class was starting today, as I hadn’t yet received his email. Apparently I had misunderstood everything: there was no class today, and we’re starting back up in two weeks’ time. Argh! I should’ve just had the conversation in English and not be practising my Chinese 😂

Anyhow, so that meant that we now had the morning to ourselves. We started wandering around a nearby mall, but that soon got boring, so we sat down somewhere and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of our suddenly empty morning. N then came up with the idea of watching Crazy Rich Asians. I checked to see when the next available screening was, and to see if there were any decent seats left. The first screening for the day at the closest cinema was at 10:45am – and the cinema was not even half full! So we got a very decent seat 👏

I actually enjoyed the movie much more than I expected to. If I had done that FB challenge after having seen this movie, then this one might have made my top ten. Comedy, drama and romance all featured. It was light and whimsical, and I really liked the soundtrack. They filmed most of the movie in SG, so I spent pretty much the entire movie trying to place where they filmed any given scene 😂 Overall it was a good, light-hearted movie, and followed the main plot of the book quite well. I think there will be movie #2 and #3 eventually, in line with the books as well, so that’s something to look forward to in the coming years.

And then we had our first Latin lesson later in the afternoon, our first lesson in weeeks, followed by Latin practice afterwards. We worked on Paso Doble in our lesson, so that routine isn’t quite in our memories yet; but the other four Latin dances didn’t fall apart too badly when we were practising afterwards. I was pleasantly surprised, given how long it’s been since we’d stepped onto a dance floor. So we’re inching ever closer to our five dances for Latin, and ten dances overall… Very exciting!

We finished practising quite late, so I suggested that we eat at one of the local hawker centres, as I was getting awfully close to the end of my 12-hour eating window, and I would definitely be well into my 12-hour fasting window if we went home and made dinner instead. Eating at the local gawker centre wasn’t going to be as healthy as cooking something ourselves at home, but my primary goal at the moment is to try to stick to this 12:12 plan (12-hour fasting / 12-hour eating windows), so that took precedence. I finished eating and drinking 10 minutes after my eating window had closed, which isn’t too bad 😊 I don’t have any plans tomorrow, so nothing should derail 12:12… Fingers crossed! 🤞

Kitty, books and travel

The vet gave Kitty a blood test this morning. I completely forgot that the whole process was a bit traumatic for her! They lay her down on her side, and they draw blood from the inside of one of her hind legs – which meant having to hold her down in order to do so! So of course she was totally unimpressed, hissing, biting and scratching everyone in sight. But they got what they needed, thankfully, with everyone relatively unscathed 😂 And results were unchanged from last time, phewww 😅

For day 1, I actually stuck to my 12:12 plan of intermittent fasting! I was so proud of myself 😊 I had my coffee just after 9am, and I finished dinner just before 9pm – woohoo! Now let’s see if I can maintain this for a little while, before ratcheting it up to 14:10…

I finished story #5 in Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women. Bizarrrre story, more like what I was expecting from him 😆 Let’s see what the sixth and final story has in store for us readers… I’m hoping he has left the best for last 😊

I have now also borrowed book #3 of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. With the movie just recently released, I figured this was as good a time as any to finish off the trilogy 😊 I was hoping to watch the movie this weekend, but the cinemas near us are all packed, and the only available seats are either right up in the front row or just single seats randomly plonked around. And this is despite being screened virtually every five seconds! So I think I’ll wait a few weeks before watching it. Well, I HAVE to wait a few weeks to watch it: N is in Hong Kong again for work for the next two weeks. All this travelling to HK reminds me of when we were going to and from Sydney and Melbourne. Only this time it’s HK-SG 😂

Photos and healthy food

It was a public holiday in SG today, so we had the day to ourselves. I wanted to go see a photo exhibition in Joo Chiat, so I thought that was a good enough reason as any to go and have lunch there 😊

We went and had brunch with some friends at this place called Thunder Tea Rice. They serve Hakka food, which I’d never tried before, and apparently this place does good Hakka food, so I thought it was a good place to go and try it. However you’d think I was torturing everyone by choosing to go here 😂 No one else seemed to like the food here, but our friends were kind enough to entertain me by agreeing to join us, even though they’d been there already. I actually liked their food, I just wasn’t a fan of the green veg broth that accompanied the rice. I would order the thunder tea rice again, but just skip the green veg broth. We went for lunch part 2 because the others weren’t quite satisfied with part 1 😂

We parted ways after lunch, and N and I headed over to the photo exhibition. They had hired a room in this co-working space building. I was reading the blurbs of the photographers, and a lot of them had mentioned God and/or had quotes from the bible. I figured these photographers were quite religious, and thought nothing more of it. After I finished waking around, that was when I realised the meaning of the name of the exhibition: “Through His Eyes”, H in capital letters. So I’m guessing the photographers belonged to some church group. Their photos weren’t at all religious, so I think their church group was what bound them together and brought this exhibition to fruition.

I think the woman on the left in this photo was one of the photographers featured in this exhibition. Her photos just happened to be my favourite shots in the exhibition, which made this photo all the more meaningful for me.

After that, we just went home and N took a nap while I read more of my book The Diabetes Code. I am now even more freaked out about sugar – and eating in general! 😧 I’m probably catastrophising, as I always do, since I generally do eat in moderation, and I like to think that we do have a well rounded diet. But still, I know I can eat better. And I’m probably even more motivated now to do so, after having read this book. I’ve almost finished it, so I’m wondering if I can finish it either tonight or tomorrow.

A good day, despite the vomit

For the past week, Kitty has been throwing up about once every second day 😔 She threw up this morning at around 6am and woke up N in the process. And on the living room rug too, which is quite plush and therefore quite hard to clean 😔 I mentioned it to her doctor today, and he said this is quite common for cats with kidney problems, and I can give her more of her anti-vomit medicine if need be. I gave her some this morning, and I’ll monitor her over the next few days, so hopefully she can get better on her own without extra dosage 🤞

Despite not having started the day in the best of ways, I still ended up having a good trading day, and I also wrote another post for my new blog project, which I am still yet to launch… 😳 Soon, very soon…

But my motivation from yesterday to collate my FY18 tax papers didn’t spill over in to today, unfortunately. So FY18 is still looming over my head…

And then the evening was gym and Masterchef Australia. I’m starting to wonder just how long it’s been since we’ve danced! Excluding the dance basics that I’ve been doing on the treadmill, I have not done any dancing in weeks. I can’t even remember the last time I stepped foot in a dance studio 😳 Gawd, what is our dancing going to be like when we return… 😒 But I do feel stronger, at least, since I have been doing more weights at the gym, which I wouldn’t have been doing if we were dancing as per usual. Gain one thing at the expense of another… Always the way… Hopefully it will still indirectly assist with my dancing somehow…! 😬

I’m more than halfway through that Men Without Women book my Haruki Murakami. It comprises six short stories and I’m now into the fourth story. The first three were relatively normal stories, I thought, very tame for Mr Murakami. They were still good, but pretty “normal” for this author, I thought. But now story #4 shows the reason why I like this author: it is just so damn weird! I’m pulling faces as I read, because the story is just so odd 🤪 But that’s what I love, being able to pull faces at the weirdness of it all 😆 Maybe he left the el weirdo stories for the second half of the book 😊

So overall, it was a surprisingly good day, despite being woken up early this morning by the sound of Kitty throwing up 🤮

Free

We had today to ourselves 👏 No Chinese class, no dancing, no comps. It’s always nice to have these days, it feels so freeeee 😂

N went to go pick up our F1 tickets from the post office. The Singapore Grand Prix is next month, and we bought these tickets months ago. We were supposed to go with our friends, but after we’d all bought our tickets, our friends’ life plans changed, and soon after buying the tickets, they moved back to Oz, and had to sell their F1 tickets. We’re still going to go, of course, but obviously it won’t be the same without them there 😔

I read more of that Diabetes Code book, and got up to the section with all the sobering statistics about the disease. It started freaking me out! I don’t want to eat anything now! 😆 I’d like to think we eat relatively healthily already, but we can definitely do better. And the stats are making me want to try even harder on this front.

We went and had lunch in Little India, and then walked around there for a little while, before heading home and just relaxing for the rest of the evening. We went to the gym for a little while, but we didn’t really do much – I didn’t even do my dance basics on the treadmill. But at least we went and did something, even if it wasn’t as much as what we would normally do.

And then I just watched a few episodes of Downton Abbey. I’m up to the sixth and final season, and it feels like the British aristocracy era is on its way out this season. I’m getting a bit sad that I too am getting to the end. I’ve grown quite attached to all the characters. Maybe I’ll return to watching some Chinese dramas, they’ve been good to help me improve my listening skills. Let’s see 😊

A new book added

I started reading The Diabetes Code by Dr Jason Fung, adding to the bajillion other books that I’m already reading. There seems to be a paradigm shift that’s happening around how to prevent and manage type 2 diabetes, and I am really interested in it. Also now that I’m older, I’m more concerned about developing it too, so the more I can learn about how to prevent it, the better. The two main points that I’ve gotten so far: 1) eat less sugar; and 2) burn the remaining sugar, through exercise but more through fasting. Interesting stuff. I’ve been trying to eat less carbs as a result, particularly the more refined carbs like white rice and white bread. But it’s so damn hard! I don’t think I can eliminate carbs in its entirety, nor do I think I should, as the body still needs it to function, I just have to be more selective with my choice of carbs. The author was on this podcast, if you’re interested.

But apart from this new book, everything else about my day was pretty stock standard: trading seminar, trading, gym, and house stuff, rounded out with an episode of Masterchef Australia. Prince Charles and Camilla were on the episode that I watched tonight! 😲 They’re not going to be able to top that in future seasons! 😂