Happiness Journal 21/5/25

Today is as good a time as any to announce to the Facebook universe that I will be leaving NorthLight.

I probably wouldn’t have announced it so soon, but one colleague just passed me a tumbler from Coffee Bean. Another colleague has apparently narrowed her selection down to two sake brands (九平次 and 百年の孤独), in spite of my insistence that I DON’T NEED GIFTS. “But I must spend on people who are important to me,” she elaborated, somewhat exasperated.

This brings me back to the time when students from three overseas service learning projects came to bid me farewell at Singapore Polytechnic, when the English department at Nishigaoka Junior High School arranged for a farewell lunch for me, when a group of 小弟弟小妹妹 (juniors) at Naval Base Pri Sch pooled together money to buy me NTUC vouchers. Being typically non-demonstrative, I’m a bit perplexed but genuinely floored by these gestures of love. ❤️

I will channel this love to love my wife and kids better and harder.