great weekend

reality is always interpreted with the lens of expectation, sheer will in seeing what you want to see, and retrospect.

I had an awesome weekend.

I spoke to 50 people for 50 minutes on Friday. It was the first time I had given such a long presentation. It went well - probably spoke a little too fast - I found myself having to stop to catch my breath. At one point I also said, "different categories of youth have different characteristics, and these charactegories.." I was amused no one noticed or giggled. Hee. Went to MOS burger later to grab something to eat cos I was too nervous to eat the food catered earlier.

Saturday morning was full of rain. Woke up about 10am to a cooled house. It was the perfect weather for a Saturday morning with no plans! M cooked curry - tad too salty and no potatoes, but I ate it without complaining. You mustn't complain when people cook for you. Left the house at 1pm to "spy" at an event. It took me awhile to navigate through the imposing campus, but I eventually found my way and recorded 1hr 24mins of it from a microphone sticking out of my pocket. Brillant. I felt like the woman in "No one lives forever".

A picked me up after. We went to Beach Road with the hope of sliced fish bee hoon, but it was closed and so had mee sua instead. Drove to Bayshore after. Sat there for a while talking, and went for a run at 7pm. Ran 8km in 48mins 46sec. I've been reading this book titled "Marathon" and it is both spurring me on and putting me to utter shame at the same time. This book says stuff like the minumum distance any aspiring long-distance runner ought to run a week is 35 miles. 35 miles! That is like 58km a week! That is like 10km a day, six times a week! Elite runners do anything from 80 to 150 miles a week. There is a marathon mystique. It'll be so cool to do one at some point in my life.

It is funny how I'm doing all these things I didn't foresee myself doing 5 years ago. Research, for crying out loud. I hated research. And now, reading books on marathons, and saying with perfect sincerity, "It'll be so cool to do [a marathon] at some point in my life." Life is journey.

Went for a dip after my run while my stressed-out friend took the chance to snooze on the deck chair. After filling up our water bottle, we went to Marine Parade for Ramly burger and the famously wet char kway tiao. :) Got home about 11:30pm. Stayed up to check out how to clean my smelly running shoes online. It became really smelly after S and I got caught in a downpour on Thursday at Bishan park. We were soaked ot the skin, and I carried home two shoefuls of water. It was one of those experiences though - it started to rain when we were at Lower Pierce Reservoir and i asked S if we attract rain (cp Great Long & Wet Ocean Road). Read Ps 77 the next day about the clouds pouring down water, and the lightning filling the sky, and the waves rolling in fear of God, and yet his footprints cannot be seen and it reminded me of being caught in the rain, running and running yet completely soaked, completely saturated by the power and bigness of God and still not finding a trace of him. It was neat.

Woke up at 7:45am the next morning to go for a constituency Walk-a-Jog. Took a picture under the Spottiswoode Park sign. It was fun. :) Went to have breakfast at Tanjong Pagar cos got tired of waiting for the big shots to finish their speeches - had vegetarian beehoon, tau huay, and chicken pau. Back to CC to claim the goodie bag and then home to sleep another 2 and a half hours. :) It was a great nap.