Why Would I Write

Category: Thoughts

  • High Rise Living

    The best part about living on the eighth floor of a building – you get a breeze all the time, no matter how hot it is outside. Just leave the windows open and fresh air trickles in. It’s nice. Sometimes when I don’t feel like using my fan, it’s a great way to save some electricity.

    However, leaving your windows open can suck occasionally – bugs and dust get into your room. The other day, a little beetle flew into my room and kept hitting against my window, creating an annoying sound that distracted me from sleep. Eventually it found its way into my mosquito trap. Not sure what happened to it.

    Why do I have a mosquito trap? Even after cleaning out my room last year, mosquitoes decided to stick around, which bothered me. I bought myself a mosquito lamp trap – a contraption that shines a UV light and generates carbon dioxide to attract the bugs, and has a fan that stops them from flying out once they get in – a useful device. But even that wasn’t enough, I got myself a mosquito repellent mat heater and a couple of Ridsect cans to cover all bases. Yeah, I hate mosquitoes that much. If only they hated me enough to avoid me.

    Another great thing about living in an apartment – you get a massive garage, a pool (that I don’t use), security, and a cafe to eat at when I don’t feel like going out of the building. On the other hand, it sucks walking to your car and realizing you left something at home – you have to decide if it’s worth delaying your journey by a few minutes because you need to go back up to get whatever you forgot. Vice versa, but I guess you’re not really rushing if you’re home. When you need to take an urgent shit or piss, the ride up the elevator can be excruciating.

    It’s good we have guards to keep our parcels for us, but there’s also the fear of somebody else accidentally or intentionally taking our packages. I haven’t experienced this yet, but I’m sure it’s happened before. Also, the guards aren’t that vigilant – I have stuff stolen from my bicycle that was parked downstairs. One of these days I’ll confront the kid who did it. I might as well hunt for my flip flop thief while I’m at it.

    What I’m trying to say is, living in a high-rise is neutral. Like everything else in life, you assign a value to it.

  • Evading the Commute, Falling Behind

    If there’s one thing I never thought I’d say, it’s I kinda miss being behind the wheel. No, hear me out – I don’t miss traffic jams but I do miss listening to podcasts while driving. But wait, George, don’t you listen to podcasts because you’re trying to pass time in the car?

    Yes, it’s true. However, during the past few months spent at home, I realized that I’ve fallen behind on my podcast queue. It’s starting to look like my Steam library. Because I don’t drive, I don’t listen to podcasts. So, why don’t I listen to podcasts when I’m not driving?

    When I’m not driving, I’m usually doing something which requires my attention (not that I don’t pay attention while driving). In this case, it’s working from home, or watching a show, or playing a game. When I’m doing those things, I can’t have a podcast running in the background – I’ll either get distracted by what I’m listening to, or I’ll miss whatever the hosts are saying. There’s no in-between – or at least, I haven’t trained myself to be capable of doing such things.

    I have limited time and attention span. I’m not sure if it’s a flaw, but I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one. Which is why I only listen to music while working. If I hear someone else talking at the same time, I end up losing my train of thought while writing. I definitely can’t watch a show at the same time. And with games, I end up not paying attention at all, which beats the whole point of listening.

    What about listening before bed then? I used to do that but I end up falling asleep before finishing an episode and when I wake up the following day, I have to relisten to it to catch what I missed. Not a great use of time if I use it to consume the same content twice.

    Is there a solution to this? Of course, but that would mean deprioritizing other things I enjoy so that I could squeeze podcast listening into my day. However, that’s something I’m not willing to do at the moment. I guess podcasts aren’t that important to me. If I was desperate to listen to them, I wouldn’t have this problem. Why the rant then?

    Good point. Maybe I just wanted to write about working from home.

    Working from home means you get to be more productive right out of bed. Just wash up, make your breakfast and sit yourself down in front of your computer, start working. I’m not complaining about working from home though. I think it is a good thing.

    I also believe that this lockdown has a lot of companies rethinking their positions on letting employees work from anywhere (at least I hope so). As long as they get the work done, right? People save petrol and commute time. Nobody has to get stressed over traffic or risk getting into a vehicle-related accident. After all, the internet was invented for a reason.

  • Online Profile Privacy; Evening Drama Rebooted Plug

    Back in the day, sharing your online contact details was a simple process.
    You had your IM username (in ICQ’s case, it was your UIN) for people you want to chat with, and your email address for everything else. Most people would share either one without a second thought (assuming you were interested in speaking to the person requesting that information).

    Now, with the number of different social networks available, it’s a bit more complex. Different online profiles have different amounts of information that you would like people to have access to, they all have different weights.

    This thought crossed my mind earlier today when I was asked to request to join a Facebook group and to inform the person in charge of that group over Whatsapp instead of Facebook. In my mind, I was thinking, why? Why not keep everything on Facebook, since the platform facilitates both groups and messaging. Then I thought, maybe that person didn’t want to share their personal Facebook profile.

    But that person gave me their phone number (which was on the signature of the email) – something I have always rated as more personal than a Facebook profile. On the other hand, this person might have given me a business number to reach out via Whatsapp instead. Then I thought some more – why didn’t that person just make a business Facebook profile for such situations in the first place?

    And then I concluded that maybe I’m just overthinking things.

    For reference, this is what my social media privacy levels are:
    Phone number, email: for friends, family, and work.
    Facebook: for my friends and acquaintances.
    Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, Soundcloud, YouTube, this blog: for the public.
    LinkedIn: for future employers and friends? I’m not sure yet. I only created an account (earlier this year) to apply for jobs, and I have less than 10 people in my network. I don’t even log on to it unless I get an email alert.

    Pretty much everything is available to the public, and the only reason my phone number and email address aren’t is to avoid spam. If I could put it all up there without such problems, I’d probably do it. After all, the internet is around to make you easily contactable.

    I don’t have multiple accounts and only use my various accounts for different purposes – but if anyone from the other circles find their way to my other accounts, I’m not bothered by it. I believe that anything online is pretty much public, so I don’t post anything online that I don’t want people to see.

    While writing this piece, I got carried away with work and when I returned, I lost my original train of thought. I think it was about how different people treat their details differently, and most people are probably a lot more concerned about their online privacy than I am. Maybe I’ll return to this topic in the future. Possible Evening Drama Rebooted topic?

    Also, if you haven’t been following, I’ve been hosting a weekly live show called Evening Drama Rebooted on Twitch for the past few weeks. We’ve managed to keep the show going for eight episodes despite not having consistent times – quite an achievement, in my opinion. It’s about me, Seng Yip, and Christin shooting the shit over random topics. The show was born at the start of the MCO and should go on at least until it ends. No idea about our future plans yet. And yes, the name is a throwback to a group blog we used to write for. Check out our past episodes on YouTube.