Weeknote 26

With this I have finally caught up with my weeknote backlog. I aspire to be like Nika who (1) has a very snazzy layout for weeknotes that’s styled like a calendar and (2) is very consistent. Fingers crossed that I actually do sit down on Sunday nights from now on.

Accompanied someone who was serving as a witness to court (anticlimactic as the fella actually being prosecuted didn’t show up and somehow got hospitalised the night before trial). Woke up early enough to go for a walk and see a bunch of shrooms I couldn’t ID.

Went for a friend’s wedding - this is the first I’ve gone for as an adult. Despite my general cynicism, I love witnessing and celebrating other people’s love. What a joy : ) Chinese wedding culture really confuses me though. There are even websites to tell you what the prevailing ang bao rate is for a banquet dinner based on a wedding venue¹. Rice Media has a piece titled “To Hell With Ang Bao Market Rates”. The wedding I went for was at a church with lunch afterwards, so I haven’t actually encountered a banquet dinner yet. I haven’t really figured out what I’d say if I can’t go for someone’s wedding because I can’t afford it.

Worked on fixing a dizzying number of fans this week. Each month I try to make it for my neighbourhood’s Repair Kopitiam, which is kind of like a repair meetup where people can bring their faulty appliances and you fix them together. This week involved a lot of thermal fuse replacements and opening up the fan’s innards to clean and lubricate.

The funny thing is that opening up a fan to expose the motor’s copper coil typically leads to the shaft being slightly misaligned when you secure the covers back on, so we had to whack the shaft (with a screwdriver) until it aligned and started spinning smoothly again…it’s always funny when smacking something fixes it.

We encountered 2 portable blenders that seemed to be “broken”, but they were actually working - their indicator lights were flashing as the blender bottle/jug wasn’t screwed tightly enough to engage the microswitch that’s underneath the main body’s rubber seal. This prevents the blades from working if the bottle/jug isn’t screwed on.