I try my best, everyday.

You know, I didn't really expect to write back again so soon but it just really feels like... I'm awaiting the results of an exam or something, even though it's nothing really all that serious.

It's not all that fatal but for me in my head right now it's REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT AND I JUST DON'T KNOW WHY.

Maybe in like a sea of things that I feel hasn't really been going right, something big like this wear I pour so much of my life and soul into it... even though it's not exactly something that can't be fixed without fatal outcome is just... I don't know, it's just so important to me and my mental state of things right now.

Like yeah, I'm just in a god damn mood where I need things to start working and going in my favour without fucking up ever fucking 5 centimeters along the path you know?

It's a different kind of stress. I am stressed. I want things to work out the way I... well envision them to and when they don't as much as I try not to, they really fucking hit hard on me.

As terrible as it sounds, this kind of also reminds me of how it was with my ex. I really wanted everything to work out, I envisioned everything, and when it didn't, I really REALLY took it hard on the chin, I'm not even sure if I fully recovered from it a decade and a bit on from when we last said our goodbyes.

I kinda feel like this is also one of the root reasons as to why I burn out so easily. Whether I choose to admit to it or not, I sometimes put a lot of stake into the things that I do to make me happy and when it doesn't turn out, I just get epically downed by it... in a way a little bit of a glass cannon if you will you know? I set things up to the best of my ability for like success and everything but when it doesn't turn out and I mean life is just like that sometimes, I just... get ultra bummed over it.

Like ok, even if Wilson doesn't get the visa by tomorrow, it really isn't the end of the world. He MIGHT get it maybe monday or tuesday, in which it's still possible for him to fly on down to Melbourne and while he may not be able to attend GCAP, he may still be able to be around for like Parallels and Pax Aus you know? it still is fine, salvage what's left as Chad said.

It's just that whole... not working according to the plan that I had in my head that really fucks with me.

This whole thing that is happening now is just like a little bit of intervention with myself and you know... psychiatry to just...check in with myself every now and again.

ARGH, but even right now, right now even as I tell myself it doesn't matter, I can feel it in my heart, in my head, in my chest man, the trepidation. THE UNCERTAINTY. The just... hint of despair even though I know LOGICALLY IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER.

It's REALLY JUST THAT I NEED SOMETHING RIGHT TO HAPPEN RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THAT'S JUST IT OKAY.

Not that my life is like a massive shithole or anything, I have a LOT GOING FOR ME AND I'M A FUCKING BLESSED GUY BUT I DON'T KNOW OK. MAYBE I JUST PUT MYSELF ON THIS KIND OF PEDESTAL OF ACHIEVEMENT. THAT I HAVE TO GET THINGS RIGHT OR ELSE KIND OF THING, PEOPLE WILL SUFFER PEOPLE ARE DEPENDING ON ME ETC ETC AH.

Yeah It's probably a lot of that. I put a lot of pressure and responsibility on myself, even though I know that it's really unwarranted. I'm harder on myself harder than anyone else out there ever will be.

I just have to tell myself that it's okay. The same thing that I tell my wife and daughter, I have to be okay with myself (hard to do). I have to be okay with failure. A single failure rarely means a catastrophic ending (I've written in about this before). Just because it isn't perfect or how I envisioned it to go down doesn't mean that it's going to flop hard, doesn't mean that it's absolutely balls, doesn't mean that I'm worthless and am doing the wrong thing.

I am doing the best that I can in the ways that I know how.
I am trying to be the best friend that I can be,
I am trying to be the best husband that I can be,
I am trying to be the best father that I can be,
I am trying to be the best son that I can be,

I am trying to be the best sibling that I can be,

I am trying to be the best boss that I can be,

All while trying to retain my own sanity and try and take care of myself, my mind, my interests, my hearts....

And I can tell you... it ain't easy.

Why can't I get a bit of a break?

I'll make it a short session today. I originally wanted to write upstairs from the 17th floor, but turns out someone was in the PC room.

Not sure if it was dad, kinda has to be, no one else would sleep there but yeah, means I'm not using the room to do any writing is all.

Anyway, I think I've been wanting to write on my blog for a while now. It's been a REALLY hectic past few days to say the least, with a lot of things going on that absolutely begged for my attention.

I had to deal with a lot of administration issues with the company to start off with. I say issues but I think it's basically just pretty standard stuff, just stuff that I'm not used to and does very well at throwing me into a bit of that uncomfortable territory.

Then there was the loan of the new house we were supposed to buy and all the trials and tribulations that come with it. Honestly, I'm not against the idea at all, but to say that my mind was absolutely cluttered with too much other stuff that I am unable to give it much thought or attention no matter how much it begged for it is a bit of an understatement..

The elephant in the room is the lack of clients we've been having since the middle of the year. It's the start of October now and that honestly hasn't really changed all that much. granted, I have more than enough leeway built over the previous years to clear us for the year, but it still makes me just that tad bit more uncomfortable as no matter what, it would be ending the year in a little bit of that red.

It doesn't exactly help that our family trip to Japan wasn't what I'd call peaceful. The theme within the last couple of months have just been.... things requiring my attention, left and right. Little things but they pile up and burden me nonetheless. It doesn't help that the flight was delayed 5 hours or that the days leading up to the trip were fraught with just little clashes here and there whether it's with my parents and my sister, Rei and Eloise or me with Christine, my parents or whatever else... Honestly past few months have felt like this massive long form test of me.

I served as the driver for the Japan trip, and while I don't normally mind, it would at least be a little bit nice if that were acknowledged a little bit more in giving me a bit more time to chill and rest, or at least listen to what I want to while in the car. I mean it wasn't all that terrible inside, but combine that, driving in a foreign country, driving a huge alphard into said country that is normally dominated by "kei" cars, and roads being pretty much 1.2x the width of malaysian roads but expecting to fit two cars in a two way fashion, the gps just sending me to really obscure and tiny roads... man it has been stressful.

And when I'm not driving it has also been stressful watching my sister and parents just have little tiffs and arguments with each other, proceed to drag me into it... really not great.

Then the esim that I got for Christine wasn't working with her phone in Japan, so I had to spend my early days just chatting with customer service to run for a refund on that, then get a new esim and hope to hell that it worked (it did) then near the end of our trip realising that the Sim cards that I GOT for the rest of us was about 5-6GB short of what was advertised before the throttling kicked in, then needing to contact the seller, him being a bitch about it saying he would totally win a dispute against me, then me having to contact shopee on multiple occasions, have all the outcomes be basically just misunderstood and not something that was helpful, do that 4-5 times, end up having to call their customer support (I have platinum luckily) to explain the whole thing to them before reaching an outcome I can accept, reaching back to Malaysia gathering said sim cards and returning all of them for a full refund

Then I had to deal with submitting the insurance claims for our AirAsia flight and it doesn't help that people were just delaying what I needed non stop except that this time it has mostly been just family (sis)

Then just as I let up just a little bit in preparation for my perhaps true holiday which is Australia and Bangkok, I run into issues with Wilson's Visa just not passing through the application even though I submitted exactly the same documents in (I suspect that my frequency of travel to Australia has something to do with my ease of application) and then realising that we can't apply for a new ETA Visa until 7 days from letter of rejection, then visiting the embassy only to get turned away (that's 12 ringgit in parking we won't get back), then needing to international call Australia like 4-5 times (thank god my phone bill is now covered by the company, I refuse to look at how much that's going to cost) because in at least 2 occasions the agent just hung up on me midway (always the first call that I make after something happens, what's up with that), then needing to apply for a new visa that I SINCERELY HOPES WORKS OUT...

Dude, just writing this out gives me so much stress I'm not even kidding. My jaw actually hurts from tensing; it's sore.

I know a lot of what I'm writing here probably won't even make a lot of sense, I'm just writing whatever comes to my mind as I go. I'm just SEMI hoping that tomorrow morning Wilson will get the email that the visa has been approved without the need for us to call in to the home affairs ministry to ask for it to be expedited. I sincerely hope so but something tells me it's not going to be that easy.

Like I get why the visa was rejected initially right. What works for me doesn't work for him, Ok fine, at least give me an opportunity to upload more supporting documents instead of straight up turning down my application with no chance of appeal and put me on a 7 day cooldown period. Seriously, not cool (pun unintended).

In the end I managed to get a personal letter specifically mentioning he's coming in to attend GCAP by the CEO of GCAP, and I myself wrote up a fucking company letter with all the details stating that he's coming with me to attend said 3 conference, and after that we're leaving for another conference in Bangkok, you don't have to worry about us overstaying, I'm going to make absolute sure of that, just FUCKING APPROVE OF THE GOD DAMN VISAS, I JUST WANT SOMEHING TO GO SMOOTHLY FOR ONCE IN THESE PAST FEW MONTHS.

Oh my god my jaw hurts from clenching my teeth. It's seriously sore as hell. What initially was supposed to be this tiny little rant about the situation as it is now has just ballooned into this massive rant/ thought dump. I mean good thing it's going up on my blog and not just Socmed I guess.

Still, it really just shows me how something like my blog is really just so irreplaceable as an outlet to talk to. It really is helpful. Better than rant dumping on friends I suppose.

Also my mental state hasn't been the greatest to work in fact I haven't really done any development work for almost a year, so that's pretty royally fucked as well.

Side Note: Today I changed the cooling interface on my laptop out from the stock liquid metal to a phase change material, PTM 7950 of course. Ok, technically I topped up the liquid metal once, but the pump out effect was WAY too pronounced for me to keep using liquid metal on this laptop. The LM would just squeeze out of the hottest spots of the chip (boiling?) and the temperatures would skyrocket from not doing anything much. Heck, there's even like a freaking black/darkish mark on the chip and Heat sink where the pump out effect happened and the chip ran it's hottest.

In the end something like LM works well for chips that don't run too hot IMHO. IF you can somehow work below that pump out/ boiling temperature, then that works best, but for something like my 13700HX, switching to something a little bit more traditional really works best.

P.S. I still want to fix the old illegear laptop.