16 secondhand items sold

  1. an old HDB mailbox lock
  2. ancient Crumpler backpack
  3. Uniqlo Heattech pants
  4. Hello Kitty Police plushie
  5. Muji sling bag
  6. Crumpler sling bag
  7. Macbook Air 2017 A1466 with a broken display (sold to someone who was trying to fix his church friend’s laptop - he was buying this for the logic board)
  8. Glossier You rollerball
  9. Grey Hudson River Trading t-shirt (not sure why someone bought this, but they paid SGD15 for it)
  10. Apple Thunderbolt to Ethernet Adaper
  11. Macbook Screwdriver set - Pentalobe and Torx
  12. Tension rod clothes rack (had an extra set)
  13. Reading Law in Singapore by Tang Hang Wu and Michael Hor (sold to a student presumably thinking about studying law)
  14. A Luxury We Must Afford - An Anthology of Singaporean Poetry (sold to someone who turned out to be an alumnus from my university dorm)
  15. 7-11 Black Automatic Umbrella
  16. Fenty Highlighter (mini), ILIA multi-stick (travel-size), Peripera lipstick

Moral of the story: You never know what the market wants. I’m glad that all these things have a new life being useful for someone else now, and that I got over my usual overthinking of “will anyone even want this stuff?” by just listing them on Carousell.

6-ish items repaired

  1. speaker replacement - for my macbook pro 2015
  2. another speaker replacement for my friend who has the same Macbook Pro 2015
  3. battery replacement for my Macbook Pro 2020 (Intel) A2278
  4. hose clamp replacement for my friend’s countertop dishwasher that was mysteriously leaking, but somehow still capable of running (PCB didn’t get fried by all the water. Honestly pretty well-designed.)
  5. cleaned battery contacts for a Sylvanian Families Outdoor Light
  6. re-soldered wires to the battery contact + contact cleaning for a Sylvanian Families light-up fireplace (part of the Victorian Living Room set)

Assisted on more repairs with Repair Kopitiam, but these are the ones I worked on myself. I got my first soldering iron from a fellow volunteer at Repair Kopitiam, which lets me work on more repairs at home (as opposed to having to wait for our monthly repair event where I’ll have access to tools).

I’m especially happy with repairs (5) and (6) as they involved childhood toys. After fixing them, I put them up on Carousell. I would’ve otherwise been sad, but I’m just happy (and a bit sentimental!) that I got to have so much fun with them as a kid. Hope some new kid gets to enjoy these too.

4 movies watched

  • Last Shadow At First Light - Mihaya Shirata does an alarmingly good Singaporean Chinese accent
  • Didi - Lady Bird, but for Chinese boys growing up in the Bay Area
  • Goodbye, Lenin - The extended Spreewald gherkin bit pays off really well. I also realised that Daniel Brühl was the same age as I am when he filmed this.
  • Pulp Fiction - Everyone gets given grace, not everybody manages to recognise it. Pulp Fiction was screening as it was its 30th anniversary =)

All of these were caught at The Projector .

4 years with my phone and laptop

  • I got them in 2020. I use an iPhone 11 Pro and a 2020 Intel Macbook Pro (13-inch A2278). Did a battery replacement for both of them with varying success.
  • Phone battery was replaced at some phone shop at Sim Lim Square and it’s started to go binary after 6 months (it’s either at 100% or 1%). Now my phone spends hours at 1%, and I’m never quite sure of when it’s actually going to shut down. My laptop, however, is going alright. I replaced the battery myself after following a guide from iFixit.
  • I sometimes wonder what it would be like when I finally change my devices. I told myself to hold out and that I could maybe get an M2 or something to experience Apple Silicon, but we’re on M4 now and I’m still on the same laptop. Perhaps it will feel like entering a whole new world. For now, I’m just happy that my devices are still working and I hope we’ll make it through 2025.

3 albums i listened all the way through

  • brat by Charli XCX
  • Desire, I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition by Caroline Polachek
  • Asakusa Light by Soichi Terada

Listening to playlists is kind of whatever, but having an album that I listen all the way through is a somewhat noteworthy event. This year, it happened thrice.

2 rolls of film shot

  • I took the entire year to finish one roll on my Konica TZ635, then took a few months to finish one on the Fuji Zoom Cardia Super 115 MR. I’d like to shoot more in the new year.

1 Polish embassy event attended

In the spirit of “you really can just do things”, I went to look up the Polish embassy in Singapore in the hopes of learning more about the culture since I have a Polish friend. It turned out that the Embassy had a gingerbread workshop and also a Christmas dinner sharing / tasting, and you could attend by just filling in a Google form.

I spent a while worrying about whether my registration would get rejected until my friend told me about the custom of leaving an extra seat at the table and that it would be very un-Polish to turn away people who have already filled in the Google Form.

This event was the first time I got to tryS pierogi ruskie and barszcz — there aren’t any Polish restaurants in Singapore. Lots of interesting new flavours as there was also ryba po grecku (Greek-style fish, but it is not Greek in origin), seared sous-vide duck with apple sauce and some croquettes (Polish croquettes resemble spring rolls more than the Japanese potato croquettes I’m used to). Loved kompot. Ambivalent about mulled beer.