Reaching Out

So I'm using a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, which uses Android v5.1.1. I'm still trying to get the hang of it and I have to look up how to organize folders and stuff. The phone is a bit too wide for my liking, alas, at 2.99inches. Still getting used to the touchscreen, which I'm not crazy about. I have a longer post coming about shopping for smartphones versus shopping for phones brewing in me, because I have many shopping-for-phone feels. Still, it should allow me to roam around in the States without having to switch my SIM card... I'm hoping this will still hold when I change my plan from a GoPhone account to something else which will allow me data usage.

I have totally progressed in Pokemon Go! Around Level 10 I did the Lucky Egg + Mass Evolution combo and went up to Level 13.

When I went to Singapore last weekend, I was expressly forbidden to play by my dad but I used mall wifi here and there. A friend also generously let me hop onto his hotspot (he has more data per month than he could ever use) at some point, and I felt bad when Pokemon starting spawning on my phone and not his. Good haul, though. I added a lot more to my Pokedex, and yesterday when I went to the Marina Bay Sands Shoppes, I finally caught a Pikachu. There was one more Pokemon which I wanted to add to the Pokedex but I was already late for lunch with my hostess so I skedaddled home instead.

It was a really marvelous weekend! My hostess is a friend and former worker of my dad's, and her daughter just got back from Australia doing an English degree, so we had lots to talk about. They're very churchy people tho so we didn't spend much time together. (Also their apartment was right between two Pokestops, so I spent a lot of time harvesting.)

On Saturday I went to have brunch with jolantru, and two others came to join us, Christopher Hwang and SEAsteampunk contributor Timothy Dimacali!! Chris had to leave us after lunch, but Timothy joined us at the fish spa :D

I went back to my hostess' place at Red Hill for a rest, and then went to have dinner with delfinuum (she is so smol!), and we played Pokemon Go in Raffles City for a while until I ran out of Wifi usage time. So we went to the Singapore Night Fest since it was nearby and ended up marveling at Nyonya embroidery and beadwork in the Peranakan Museum.

Yesterday I woke early and had breakfast with my hostess, and they were going to be at church until noon which left me two hours on my lonesome. I was feeling kinda tired so I only left at 11am and wandered to Marina Bay Sands to find out how to get to the Observation Deck. Took some pictures (oh, I have an Instagram now, because of the smartphone; I aim to be one of those insufferable selfie-takers) and went to the shopping mall side where I proceeded to catch Pokemon, just because I could.

The GPS is really wonky in Singapore, though. I wandered further than I actually was unless I was on the move. Kinda interesting, and I don't really want to complain too much because it means my 10km egg hatched earlier than expected (Electabuzz!).

I have to say that highway Pokestops are very interesting and fruitful places! I caught a Clefable on the way home :D Also it's fascinating what random things Ingress agents have decided should be portals... most of them don't actually take pictures of the stops themselves but random crap around it like... water towers. My bus was also caught in a traffic jam and I figured opening up Pokemon Go would make the jam go quicker.

This morning I decided to see how Map My Walk would interact with Pokemon Go! Because I wanted to hatch a buncha eggs all at once. (Three!) Turns out it doesn't work well... I think the GPS is suspended a little whenever catching a pokemon, and it doesn't register on the Walk app. So I had a few straight lines where there shouldn't have been because of the pause in GPS data. And if I'm not flicking between the two regularly the route doesn't quite register on the Walk app. I'm gonna try to experiment a bit more with this though, because I would really like to record my Pokemon hunts.

My dad's traveling until tomorrow night and I really want to go Poketrawling with him at least someplace further than the nearby lake or shops once before I leave for the States, so hopefully this will be a thing.

- I went shopping at 99 Ranch yesterday morning, followed by lunch with YL and Eric. Then I got home and passed out. Didn't get much work done, boo. I did get some stitching done though! All my patches have been sewn on successfully.

- Went to Kmart this morning. Meant to get new sheets, because mine are boring and grody, and two new pillows, and some other odds and ends. The bedsheet selection was awful, but I ended up buying... lot of clothes. Lots of tights, because I'd like to start wearing skirts more. And a lot of stuff from the Nicki Minaj line.

- Sorted out my wardrobe--gonna take a LOT of things to this year's WisCon clothing swap! I also pulled out the box of winter stuff, swapped it out for the summer stuff.

- Started a new embroidery project, a little firebird. I've got some really hard red material so it's hard to think of something that'll stand out on it. I'm not even sure I picked the right starting colour, and I'm sewing it onto the outline on paper right now, so we'll see. When it's done I can make it into a little coin purse. I wanted to do a frangipani but the fabric is so red, I wanted to do something bolder. I should think of something to write for the other side, though, but all I can think of right now is something pithy like "misandry 4 lyfe".

- I tried doing a bit of the "Deck of Cards Challenge" tonight. (Mine's Spades for Squarts, Clubs for Push-ups, Hearts for Russian Twists, and Diamonds for Crunches.) I'm no good with it, and only got through maybe 20 cards. I also figured out how to do squats without feeling that popping in my knee (it's only the right knee; it doesn't hurt, but it does feel and sound alarming). Then I played Solitaire :D

OK so around 11.30 I went to the exercise room. 25mins on the treadmill (just walking) (very fast) then 12 mins on the stepmaster, and then another 20mins on the treadmill. It felt pretty good. Gonna try to do this every other day at least. I get a lot of reading done on the treadmill too, which is cool. Too bad this is the quarter where most of my reading is actually other kinds of media!

Lunch was a grilled cheese sandwich with fava beans and hummus. Amazing of course.

Afrofuturism class went AWESOME! There's someone else on Tumblr there!! We talked about how disembodiment as a result of the Internet hasn't led to a deracialization that is part of the promise of posthumanism but rather instead serves as another platform of minstrelsy. It was so terrific.

I also am presenting / facilitating discussion next week. We're reading Parable of the Sower! One of my favourite books ^_____________^ I'm going to link it to the film we saw in class, The Last Angel In History which was about techno Afrofuturist music and was totally awesome. I've never heard of half these days and never knew these bands. It's interesting... I guess because my favourite genre has tended to be high fantasy, so the music I gravitate towards would be symphonic metal as a result? If we're linking music to SF genres anyway.

Tomorrow is the first lecture for the class I TA for, and I have to go earlier to meet with the prof. It should be no fuss. I think I'll set my office hours for Monday and Wednesday mornings.

I gotta figure out my food situation. I really want to have a much more varied diet but I feel I'm falling back on juk and spam. (Not that there's anything wrong with juk and spam.) I've cut down on the amount of rice I cook for myself per meal (1/3cup to 1/4 cup). Also coconut milk rice does not keep well. But then my stomach doesn't do well with leftover rice. Bah bah and double-bah.

Allergies:

So I do indeed have allergies and my shrink was like GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR and I now have to wait for a referral to an allergist so yeah. In the meantime, the nasal spray has been helping mightily!

I also changed my sheets and washed my pillows, while vacuuming. It was a good weekend. And thanks for the tip on fluffing pillows using the dryer, Kate! :O All those dollars wasted on getting new pillows because I didn't know how to get them back into shape...

Exercise:

To help with the allergies, I've gotten back into exercising. Since it's no longer ridiculously cold out, AND I have more time, it's been easy to pop to the exercise room to get in some cardio. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill. But I never run, I just kind of do this fast walking. I notice if I go in during the late morning, afternoon, someone will be on the stairmaster, and that's where my best sweating happens. At some point I'll also start swimming again. Of course, one can't read while swimming the way one can on the treadmill.

I would really like to make it a habit of hiking in the Botanic Gardens but it feels really far, especially since the sun is coming up so fast nowadays. I think I'll give it another go this weekend though, and see.

Blending!

I got myself a blender! Two actually; one for personal use and one which has a dispenser for parties and I do intend to have parties. So far I've been making stuff with apples and oranges since I still have stuff left over, but tonight I also made stuff with grapes, carrots and celery. (Well, not in plural, I added ONE carrot stick and ONE celery stick). Still, I am eating greens! :O Kinda. I've also put in Yakult but next time I'll try for some actual yogurt... it's hard to find plain yogurt though.

This is the blender I bought. The idea is that you can blend and then take the thing with you, but the travel lid is, imo, kinda flimsy so I don't really trust carrying it on my backpack. I'll have to find another way of carrying my blends with me. I seem to take FOREVER to finish one 400ml cup but it's pretty filling, so this might be a good thing for me to bring to my afternoon class which always happens around lunchtime so I get really hungry about halfway thru.

I'm very excited about the possibilities! :D On Munira's suggestion, I've put some fruit in the freezer instead of using ice, for tomorrow's smoothie. I don't really like ice much in my drinks, so freezing the fruit makes a lot of sense. I'm adding banana and grapes to the thing too, and vanilla ice-cream really helps, even just a couple of teaspoon scoops.

Sleep:

I think I am oversleeping? I got a good 8 hours of sleep last night (after a full day of not sleeping), but today, after class, going to the bank and doing a bit of work in the cafe, I came home and zonked out for about two hours. And it's barely 11 and I'm getting sleepy again. It's also not good for producing any output. I can't seem to put my finger on it. The shrink and doctor say it's due to allergies, which OK, but STILL.

This means more strategies for getting more energy! I guess I'll take my doc's advice and get some Zyrtec-D to help with the allergies. It really does seem my most active is in the morning though.

This means, no Tumblr in the morning?!?! It's gotten to the point where I have to actually shut down the computer in order to not be distracted. Of course this doesn't help when I have work to do that requires a computer. Still, it's been nice having the computer off. Welp.

OK, I stuck to it - 1 lap walking, 2 laps jogging. 6 sets total:
1: 5.43
2: 5.26
3: 5.20
4: 5.24
5: 5.20
6: 5.16

For some reason, it was really difficult today! I didn't feel as motivated and my body just felt, well, BLAH. Maybe I should go back to 4 laps...

Had a long chat with a student from last semester which was nice, but now I'm totally behind.

Gotta get to work.

So, in the summer of '08 I was working on a costume of Agatha's Signal dress and it went swimmingly. Kinda. As in, I got together the major pieces. I used pieces of spandex and chiffon, and bought chain with Tristan helping.

UNFORTUNATELY, over the last two years since I started on the costume, I put on weight. As in, substantial amounts of weight. This was noticeable when I went with Tristan to the Bead Pod and he had to help me into the costume, where it was demonstrated just how much weight I had put on. He said I definitely looked more boobtastic than ever before.

If it had just been the boobtasticness, that would have been FINE, except I've also added waist size.

I don't have enough material to let out the dress, because it wasn't material folded in so much as it is carefully measure straps.

And since I'm also getting tight in my everyday clothes, I guess it's time to hit the gym. And by gum I will lose inches off me even if I have to cut down on eating (well, I should anyway... it's literally comfort food at this point).

I'm having trouble concentrating on ANYTHING, hence the crafting. I've patched the heels of two pairs of socks, and converted a pair of gloves into fingerless gloves. I've ALSO sewn back on some buttons and sealed some holes on my sweaters. I took pictures of my socks! I shall post them in a bit. I'm really happy with how they turned out. I couldn't darn them because they're synthetic and I didn't have the appropriate thread, so instead I gave up some of the more damaged socks.

So. I'm just pissed in general at my size.

Also, I'm pissed at my futon too. I need a new bed. I'm tired of waking up with shoulder aches.

And I'm just generally been in a bad mood.

FTW.

Actually, not really, I stopped running around Norwood (that would be the 3km bit there) and walked the rest of the way home. It's not entirely accurate, but it's close. I had to stop a lot of times for the stupid traffic lights, and I hate stopping. Also, I bounced down South St because it's a really steep incline (think almost 45 degrees) and then walked up and proceeded to jog again.

My feet hurt. =(

I like it because the steepness of South St is challenging, but I don't like having to stop for the traffic lights. I shall have to find a way to circumnavigate them.

It takes me an average of five and a half minutes to get through a stretch of road available to me.

That's about twenty minutes worth of solid running (except for the couple of seconds I took to kick a dandelion).

My knees are achy. And my face is itchy O_o; *goes to wash face*

*comes back*

I tried doing some sit-ups. And they hurt. Because the small of my back keeps bumping on the floor. It's annoying. There's gotta be some other abdominal exercises I can do that don't hurt my back.

Haligonians are probably aware of the place where I live: Oxford and Allan St. Both are pretty long streets: Oxford reaches from North St. all the way to South St, which is several blocks. Allan St. is at least three blocks long.

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