The peaks of Kinabalu

My visitor chart looks like the peaks of Mt K.

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You wouldn't believe this...

... but I actually RAN FOR THE BUS today! Or at least trotted for it. Oh wonders of wonders! Each day just gets better. And that's my new year's wish for all of you: that each day is better than the last.

All this euphoric trotting for buses is making me one to make a resolution list, so here goes:

In the year 2006, I hope to, God-willing,

1. Get to work on-time.
2. Keep my desk clean.
3. Clean out my room.
4. Keep the fish tank clean. (and the fish alive)
5. Run the full marathon in December 2006.
6. Eat less fatty meat and fast food.
7. Make an effort to cultivate/ mantain friendships outside my comfort zone.

And other quiet resolutions only between me and God.

I am such a sloppy girl -- three out of six of the above deal with personal tardiness! Tsk. Aw well... who keeps resolutions anyway? ;)

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Play speed 1/2x

I am having a terrible case of I-don't-want-to-do-this-right-now, even though my other boss just reminded me of an important project that needs to get started by yours truly, I am still sitting here typing, day-dreaming of a day when my legs don't ache, and thinking about going Christmas shopping.

I had a surreal moment last night. A bulging bladder woke me in the middle of the night and I sat up in bed ramrod straight, staring at the route to the toilet. But I couldn't move. I was convinced that between the blessed toilet and I was a series of steep downward steps and rocks that my poor legs could not manoeuvre. So I leaned against the wall and nodded off to sleep again. I don't know how long it took me to figure out that the steps were imaginary (all but one anyway) and mustered the courage to finally get out of bed.

But enough of these embarrassing stories. I figured that if you're reading this, you may have a bad case of I-don't-want-to-do-whatever-I-have-to-do -right-now too, so here are some links to aid you along the way.

• Do non-Christians really make the best "theological films"? Sometimes I really think so. Thom Parham makes an interesting argument in this article. (Thanks Jim for the link!)
• George Barna has gone from being a reseracher to a fiery doomsayer. He says the end of the local church is nigh. Read Barna's summary of his new book Revolution here, and Christianity Today's article on it here. It seems like a somewhat individualistic way of doing things to me.
• What a lot of "churchy links". Aw well. Will do different next time.
  

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Late Christmas Greetings

Feeling a little sick since I got back from Kota Kinabalu: slight headache, feverish, no appetite, no motivation to work or play, cannot stand, cannot walk, cannot climb, and certainly cannot walk down steps. This trip costs one grand, one Christmas, and comes with a lot of side effects; yet, so worth it.

Merry Christmas everyone... Hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas season.

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Mt. Kinabalu

What, or who, is this mountain?
In 1991, two climbers from Sarawak went missing and were never found again.

In 1994, eighteen British soldiers spent a month lost in the thick jungle.

In August 2001, two British teenagers missed a turning on the granite slope and got lost as the weather conditions detriorated rapidly. Most unfortunately, the 16-year old girl was found dead six days later.

This was the mountain we wanted to climb -- the highest peak of Southeast Asia at 4095.2km -- Mt. Kinabalu.

The local Dusuns treat the mountain with the deepest respect. Every year, seven white cockerels and seven eggs are offered to appease the mountain spirits at Panar Laban, which means "place of sacrifice" in Dusun language. While foreigners like me see a large, imposing nine million year-old granite mountain formed by the movement of the earth and grows at an average of 1cm every two years, Dusuns see the spirits of the mountain.

Even the British-Malaysia team that made the first full descent into the insurmountable Low's Gully in 1998 conceded that it was not so much that they had "conquered" Low's Gully as the mountain "allowing them passage". The team admited that their historic feat would have been impossible without the coincidence of an El Nino which kept conditions dry enough for the descent.

Who is this mountain? This is her Dusun name: Kinabalu -- the "revered place of the dead".

Mt Kinabalu, taken from a suspension bridge by the road

The route to the Park Headquarters
The trip from Kota Kinabalu to the foot of Mt Kinabalu took us about two and a half hours. It is a long and winding route and we had a driver whose idea of avoiding motion sickness is to put your seat down, close your eyes and relax. My idea of avoiding motion sickness is to NOT weave in and out of winding streets and NOT accelerate and brake like a maniac, duh. We passed by a large overturned trailer by the side of the winding road, glass shattered everywhere; it had been going too fast.

If you are not car sick, thank God, the view on the route between Kota Kinabalu and the Park Headquarters is quite something. At one point, I think near Kampung Kelawat, the mountain rises dramatically as you round a corner. The sheer size of the mountain can give an otherwise normal city girl megalophobia, the fear of very large objects. We are going to climb that?!?

We stopped at Pekan Nabalu where our driver got his kopi while we snuck out to get the picture below. Shifting cultivation covers most of the hills here.

Clothes hanging out to dry with the peak of Mt Kinabalu behind

From here on, the weather gets cooler and the mountain peeks in and out of view as you go along. We caught sight of the impressive long trailing waterfall of the Kadamaian -- it looked like a large gash on the side of the mountain. The water on Mt. Kinabalu is freezing, as I would find out later...

Got to the Park Headquarters at 9am and stood around with the other climbers, anxious to start this adventure.

The Climb to Panar Laban
One of my favourite bits of this route is watching the vegetation change. It starts out looking like a tropical rainforest with a thick canopy, and as you climb higher, it gets sparser until you are surrounded by gnarled looking trees. Below are the variation by altitude:

Lowland dipterocarp forest	Rich with fruit trees such as rambutan, durian, and figs.
Lower montane oak-chestnut forest	Above 1,200m, conifers and oaks become more dominant. Oaks and chestnuts are important food for squirrels.
Upper montane forest	Above 2,200m, trees are thickly cloaked and shawled with mosses and liverworts dripping with moisture. Abundant orchids.
Sub-alpine zone	About 3,300m, the trees are gnarled and stunted, forming a shrub community with conifers and rhododendrons dominant.
Nothing zone	Above 3,700m, fierce winds and torrential rains make it impossible for plants to survive. A few bonsai-looking shrubs exist in sheltered places.

This part of the climb is remarkably enjoyable, with breath-taking views both of the peak as well as the valley below at various points of the climb. We stopped at Layang-Layang for a sandwich, chicken wing and boiled egg lunch. The last bit with the granite stones is steeper and more tiring, it gets colder too, especially if it starts drizzling, and it is a relief to see the Laban Rata resthouse finally in front of you.

The picture on the left is of a pitcher plant (Nepenthes), a carnivorous plant that traps, drowns and eats unwitting insects.

View from Laban Rata

The view from Panar Laban steals your breath away. The locals were playing sepak takraw on the ledge against a backdrop of sunset and clouds, undescrible! Literally, it is the same view as from an airplane, only that you were outside with the clouds.

Sepak takraw in heaven?

The mountain that steals your sleep
I couldn't sleep a wink. Nada. I had a headache, felt like I couldn't breathe, couldn't get comfortable, and lay there with my eyes closed and my mind running a mile a minute. I was actually grateful when I heard the first people getting up at the unbelievable time of 1:45am 'cos I was sick of trying to fall asleep. What an ominous start to a long day..

The *cough cough* race to the summit
We were up at 2am for a slice of bread with jam and a hot cup of coffee. I wore practically everything I brought -- one sleevelesss top, one t-shirt, one long-sleeve sweater, one windbreaker and one lined track pants. Met our guide at the breakfast hall and left at 2:30am.

I was a bit worried about climbing in the dark but after a while I realised that it was really just a matter of going one step at a time, and not worrying too much about what you cannot see. A bit like life I guess. ;P

The climb up is steeper than the day before. About one-third way, S got nauseous because of the altitude and took some maxolone. The nausea was worse when we stopped for a break. At one point, because of the dark and the thin air, I found it somewhat hard to breathe, but I think that was more like a mini-panic attack and it went away once I stopped thinking about it. :)

Our torches died twice enroute. In the end, we climbed by the light of the moon. Thank God it was a half-moon night! Because we couldn't see very well, I stepped into a large puddle of icy-cold water. Brr! I yelled at S not to step into it, but the next thing I knew, in her foot went as well. It is amazing how quickly you stop feeling your toes.

I will always remember looking back and seeing the little moving points of light behind us (like The Lord of the Rings!), and the little lights from the villages far below. Without the lights, the landscape is desolate and makes a person despair.

We reached the summit at 5:55am, 5 minutes before the sunrise. We were tired, cold, and wet, but the view was awesome.

On top of the world!

Sunrise from the top

Back down again



The trip down killed me. I have one tip: bring a walking stick. We didn't have one and by the time we got half way down, we needed all the help we could get. Our legs would suddenly buckle and we would laugh -- our legs were that far gone. I thought I would never get out of that god-forsaken mountain! Altogether, we took nine hours up and six and a half hours down, but the journey down feels so much worse.

It was made worse by the rain which made everything slippery. I think I slipped at least five times. One Japanese tourist slipped and fractured her leg and so had to be rescued. How awful!

Back in Singapore
Cannot walk, cannot stand, cannot walk down stairs, feverish, nausea, no appetite, but so worth it! :)

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I didn't get it

Went for an interview for this job and got a letter today that told me that I didn't get it. Now I feel like curling up with my bolster in a corner and flagellating myself with tied up bedsheets for being so useless.

Maybe not. But it is still disappointing.

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brown paper packages

I love the smell of sun on bedsheets. I love catching sight of a bird in a bush, the sound of a mynah's chirping first thing in the morning.

I love watching my parents laugh. I love holding your hand. I love watching people take care of other people, watching your children push you in the wheelchair.

I like being pampered when I'm sick, when you pet my arm and say, "Poor thing!" I like hot soup, porridge and kang kong, salty steamed fish cake and stir-fried pork ribs.

I like hearing you talk.

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Shelob

What has eight legs and is larger than my hand?




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This!



I saw her on the overhead bridge near my place. She had spun a gigantic web reaching from the top of the roof to the bougainvillea plant below and when I took this picture, she was in the middle of her web gloating over her trapped prey.

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blessed

Can't wait to go on holiday. Simply can't wait.

I know I have a good job when it is only 6:35pm and I am feeling that this is an unusally long and busy day. My shoulders hurt and I feel a little scattered and stressed from doing too many tasks at the same time all day, but I am grateful that I can go home now to sit with my family.

This blog is too mushy.

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Elliptical Machine

I tried one of these Elliptical machines at the gym yesterday. They are called Elliptical machines because your foot moves with the pedal in an elliptical motion, with reduced impact on the knees and other joints as compared to the regular threadmill. While this means that it is better on your knees, it also means that you burn less calories per hour because it is low-impact.

I did a 20 minute workout on resistance 9 at varying gradients. Although most people find a regular threadmill harder than the elliptical, I was quite done in by this machine.

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Training to climb Mt Kinabalu

Oh boy. According to Kevin Chia, you should start training two months before your climb.

The typical training programs (relevant if you are based in Singapore) are two months long covering the weekends and they consist of:

(a) Trekking at Macritchie Reservoir to Bukit Timah Hill (About 10 km) and Bukit Timah Hill Parks HQ to its summit (Take the steep slope up, rock path, dairy farm, jungle fall then summit) - This builds up your stamina for the Day 1 of Kinabalu Trek to Laban Rata (abt 6 km).

(b) Stairs climbing at 30-sty HDB Flats (You can choose Toa Payoh Lor 1. There are 40 sty blocks but we felt that the staircases were too short & winding) - This builds up your stamina for the Day 2 of Kinabalu Trek to Summit (abt 3 km).

Crud! I only have one week! If I start training now, wouldn't I be tired by time I get there?

Jame DiBiasio has a harrowing account of her climb up Mt. Kinabalu, all 4,095m/ 13,434ft (and growing) of it. Guess what's the sub-line of her article? "What ever made me think that I could climb Mt Kinabalu?" Ha!

What impulses drive people to go places where they're not welcome? Human beings have no business on mountaintops, even if the mountain is a relatively puny one like Kinabalu. There is nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to shelter us from the wind and the sun, and not even enough air to breathe. The process is expensive and time-consuming and, at times, lonely. It's hell on your knees, your leg muscles, your lungs. Even sleep is denied you by the altitude and the thin air. You are stripped down naked, your willpower exposed. Jame DiBiasio

My only consolation is that I've been training for the half marathon so my cardio-vascular fitness shouldn't be too bad. Am a bit worried about getting altitude sick though. And it strikes at random! And it depends on something called "hypoxic ventilatory response", whatever that means.

Beyond mere huffing and puffing, some people begin to suffer such symptoms as headaches, nausea, and lethargy as low as 8,000 feet. Above 12,000 feet or so, virtually everybody suffers a bit, at least initially. As altitude increases, symptoms can become more severe, including potentially fatal cerebral and pulmonary edema. Oddly, altitude sickness seems to strike almost at random; a vegetarian marathon runner may be laid low while the fat chain-smoking slob in the next tent does just fine. One theory says that one's susceptibility to altitude sickness depends on one's involuntary background breathing rate, or hypoxic ventilatory responses. The higher yours is, the better. A Mountain Climbing Primer

The tips to combat altitude sickness sound just as scary:

The most important thing is to ascend gradually once you get above 10,000 feet or so—ideally, no more than 1,000 feet per day. This gives the body time to acclimatize by building up extra red blood cells and growing more capillaries. Altitude acclimatization days are an inherent part of any mountaineering expedition above 15,000 feet. Acclimatization on Everest takes weeks, with climbers returning to base camp several times to recover before pushing on. Your success as a mountain climber may well hinge on your ability to adjust to a low-oxygen environment.

Secondly, guzzle water like there's no tomorrow. This helps to keep your blood at the proper level of acidity, which affects your natural breathing rate. Thirdly, take Diamox, a prescription diuretic that has been shown to prevent or delay altitude sickness in most people. A Mountain Climbing Primer

Great lah. Laban Rata is at 3,273km (10,738ft) and the climb to the summit is another 822m (2,696ft) which is about 2.7 times above the recommended altitude increase a day.

Since I don't have time to train, I'm willing myself to grow more red blood cells. Does anyone have any tips?

---

Update TrainofThot thoughtfully gave the links to two articles on mountain climbing. This article has good tips on treating altitude sickness, and this article has tips on what to bring.

The article reiterates that above 3000 metres, you should not climb more than 300m a day. Brilliant. It also states the side effects of the drug Diamox, and a second drug Dexamethasone that apparently makes you euphoric!

The prescription drug Diamox has been in use for over thirty years as preventative medication for high altitude sickness. It stimulates an increase in breathing, thus helping to maintain oxygenation and aiding acclimatisation. Many dose regimes have been effective with the most common being 250mg twice daily starting at least 24 hours before ascent above 2500m. However, there are possible side effects that include tingling of the lips and fingertips, blurring of vision and alteration of taste. Dexamethasone is a steroid drug that is also used to prevent AMS, although it is not as popular as Diamox and does not aid acclimatisation. The recommended dose for adults is 4 mg every six to eight hours and should be taken at least 24 hours prior to ascent. Short term use of dexamethasone is relatively free of side-effects, although it is usually associated with a euphoric feeling that may mask symptoms of HAPO and HACO.

Interestingly, lots of water, carbohydrate and garlic helps with altitude sickness. Yep, you heard right, garlic!

This, though, is the clincher. It made me laugh out loud. :)

Rapid accent to high altitudes often results in the syndrome known as acute mountain sickness (AMS). The first recording of mountain sickness was in the History of the han Dynasty (Ban gu) in 30 BC, where Chinese travellers named their climbed mountains "Mount Greater Headache, Mount Lesser Headache and Fever Hill".

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Singtel Internet SMS sucks!

Singtel has apparently outsourced their internet SMS services and there is only one word for it: it sucks!


The log-on screen looks crappy. What's up with the multi-coloured background and the low-res picture of the fella playing golf? It gives an "unable to connect" screen when I try to register for a password. And when I finally get my password and try to login, nothing happens.

I'm still waiting..

... (five minutes later)

... (ten minutes later)

Quite unbelievable that they have turned a simple one-step process into a multi-pop-up window nightmare. I understand that this is a free service provided by Singtel and users don't have the right to complain but these are the little professional touches that sets Singtel apart from its competitors! Easy, efficient internet SMSing was the one reason I would have chosen you over M1.

Hope you know what you are doing.

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Survivor: Down to the final three

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No wonder I feel like crap

I live right smack in the doldrums!

“The doldrums are a belt of very still air near the equator that stalled sailing ships. The doldrums are located between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the equator. The doldrums are also known as the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (or ITCZ).

Early sailors named this belt of calm the doldrums because of the low spirits they found themselves in after days of no wind. To find oneself becalmed in this region could mean death in the era when wind was the only motive force available, and it was certainly a depressing experience to be isolated, in the middle of the ocean in a hot muggy climate.”

Thanks Joan

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Sunday Lunch

Celebrated my mother's birthday by catching a free wind ensemble perfomance at the esplanade, and then heading to Siam Kitchen for a bounteous Thai buffet lunch.

The audience at the performace irritated me with their hooting and other obnoxious behaviour. But it was all put right after a couple of plates of spicy pomolo salad.

Happy birthday, mum.

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Letters to the dead

12:44 AM. I wonder if she is asleep. The night makes me want to write letters. Letters to politicians, letters to friends, letters to dead people. To tell them what is wrong with the world, and what, exactly, is wrong with me.

12:46 AM. Dear so-and-so. There are three things I have never told anyone. 1. My letters are poisoned with sarcasm and misplaced wit. 2. I think I am funny. 3. But in these unwritten letters, I am king.

12:53 AM Have you ever seen the deepest clear grey eyes, in which you can see your very soul? As if you could drop a coin in, and you would barely hear the sound – the well is that deep?

12:55 AM Neither have I.

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naming the teh

teh ah-lia halia warms the cockles of my heart! :)

teh ah-lia halia is a hot indian tea with milk, condensed milk and ginger. Ahh... :) Last night, I bought a packet of teh ah-lia halia from the railway station after a run. When it had cooled down enough to take a large sip from the straw, it made me sigh aloud in appreciation. Ahh.. it warms the cockles of my heart!

These are the various types of tea you can get at in Singapore.

teh tarik	literally "pulled tea". The guy "pulls" the tea from cup to cup for a frothy cup of sweet milky tea.
teh-O	hot tea with sugar, without milk
teh-C	hot tea with Carnation brand evaporated milk
teh-bing peng	iced milk tea
teh-kosong	hot tea without sugar and milk
teh-ah-lia halia	hot tea with sugar, condensed milk, and ginger
tiao yu	Literally "catch fish", tiao yu refers to Chinese tea because dunking the teabag looks like fishing with a rod.

This is again repeated with the coffee: kopi, kopi-O, kopi-kosong, and kopi-bing peng. As far as I know, there is no kopi tarik or kopi-C. Though for kopi, you can get kopi-gao, which means extra strong coffee.

My friend mentioned that our names for our hot beverages is a mish-mash of languages. For example, "kosong" and "tarik" is Malay, "bing" is Chinese, and "C" is English. "Pak Giu" (Milo) is Hokkien. In fact, surprisingly enough, the English word "tea" originates from the Malay word "teh".

So, what do you like in your cuppa?

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Still looking back

Four and a half years ago, this was the objective on the top of my resume:

"To find a fruitful job that will help pay for seminary."

Gosh. How things have changed since then.

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Beginning the review: 2005

Stolen from Tym. This is the first post in 2005:

Welcome 2005!
I am glad 2004 is over and done with. There is a certain psychological satisfaction in entering a new year. It is almost as if there really is a difference between Fri, Dec 31 and Sat, Jan 1, and that somehow the grime, bad karma, depression of the previous year will be washed away. It rained all day yesterday too. It was a persistent rain, on and on and on and on, like a little energizer bunny, hosing the old year out.

And in this light, new year resolutions for 2005:

...

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Picture two

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A Prayer for Owen Meany

I bawled when I got to the end of this book. I had fallen in love with with the tiny, squeaky-voiced Owen Meany who SPEAKS IN A CAPITAL LETTERS, and it was heart-breaking to feel like you couldn't do anything to help or the change the way it was going to end.

What is it like to know the day that you would die? Is it how Christ felt like when he told his disciples, "They will kill me, and after three days I will rise"? What is it like to have the burden of having to suffer and die so that you could redeem the world, and no one, not even your closest friends, have any idea? I have never thought of it this way. No wonder Jesus cried in the Garden of Gethsemene.

Owen Meany is a Christ figure. Unlike Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Owen is not just the ideal Christian -- loving, submissive, and kind. Suprisingly, almost blasphemously, Owen is described to have the authority of Christ. The nativity scene in this novel brings new meaning to the last line of the Christmas carol Silent Night: "Jesus, Lord at thy birth". I don't think I can sing this line the same way again.

In many ways, this novel is an UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE, as Owen would put it, because it is blasphemous, seething with anger and a sense of impending doom. All of this is embodied in `Hester the Molester'. Yet, when Christ was born on earth, isn't that exactly how it is? An UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE?

Go read the book. At points it gets tedious, but it is worth it in the end. This book comes in number one spot with The Cider House Rules for me. The plot is less interesting, but Owen Meany, as a character, is riveting.

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Picture One

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silent night

Strangely sentimental. Possibly because there isn't anyone else in my department, and it is just me and an incomprehensible powerpoint cacooned together in an air conditioning cubicle on a hot tropical afternoon. Possibly because of the Christmas carols crooning from my computer, sad sentimental words that I've forgotten about between last Christmas and this.

By the end of this month, I wouldn't want to go near a Christmas carol with a ten-foot pole, but right now, in this cool cacoon, the words mean something.

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Can you see this?

Very strange. I can't access any page on blogspot, yet they are allowing me to put up a new post. I hope it is a problem with blogger's server and not because my organisation has banned access to blogspot pages. That would be sad.

Update: Problem solved. :)

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The day of the big race (21.1km)

The day started for me at 4am. Woke up bleary-eyed, brushed the teeth, boiled the water for the coffee, and sat down and had four pieces of Jacob's Sunlife Breakfast biscuits with Gold Roast 3-in-1 low sugar instant coffee. My father was also up -- he was up 'cos he thought it was 6am already, the poor guy! -- and he was making soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, so I had one as well.

Dad was talkative so early in the morning already. He told me a story about how my uncle died during the riots of the 60s. Surprisingly, this was a story I had never heard before. Finally I excused myself to get into my running gear. I had laid out the clothes the night before so all that was required to put it all on and slather on the Vaseline. I put the blessed Vaseline everywhere -- between my toes even -- and I was glad of it, because after the run, I was abrasion-free, which is a big deal because I chafe easily.

Smole came to pick Jamie Oliver and me up under my block. Her dad dropped us a distance from Esplanade and so we had to walk the rest of the way there. Jamie Oliver decided to wait for us at the bus stop while we went to the baggage area, which turned out to be a bit of a stresser, because by the time we came back, there was a barricade between us and her, and the guy adamently refused to let us pass through the barricade so that we could proceed to the start line together. We pointed to where we would meet but by the time we got there, we couldn't find her anywhere. We looked and looked. By this time, the race had started and the 10km people were already hoarding the starting line. We waited 10 minutes and finally decided to start running. Had to squeeze through the 10k folks to get to the starting line. Eventually they parted to let us through. Two walls of people looking at us as we passed, as if we were crossing the finish line like that!

Smole was pretty peeved about losing Jamie Oliver, but thankfully, we caught sight of her as we turned into Marina, and so it was all good.

One of the best things starting a whole 11 minutes late is that you get the entire road to yourself. And you get to overtake loads of people along the way. We saw the elite runners coming the opposite direction while we were running along Shenton Way. Boy did they look good. The sun was rising at that point -- Marina South was beautiful -- at least until we joined the hoard of u-turning 10km runners. Then it was overtake, squeeze, overtake, like atoms squeezing through to the bottom of the jar.

Had the powergel at the 12km mark. Yuck. I hate how that stuff tastes. But I supposed it helped cos I wasn't too tired at all the whole route. Nicole highway was hot. We stopped and asked one of the officials to help us take a photo -- Smole carried the camera the whole way.

The last bit was hard on Smole. But we carried on running, anyway, despite Smole's unusually high heart rate and the pain in the knee. We stopped to walk about 10 metres at the 20km and the 21km mark, but other than for that it was a slow plodding all the way. We crossed the finish line in 2hrs 35mins, in the heat of the 9am sun. Jamie Oliver finished the route too. I'm so proud of us! :)

There is something about running in a race that is different from running on your own. It is being a part of the moment; it is running in the same race as the elites; it is altogether exhilerating. Everyone runs their own race -- everyone struggles to finish on their own in their own time -- yet everyone struggles together. That is the wonder of it -- it is every man's race.

The news on TV didn't seem to capture this sense. It showed two shots -- the first man and the first woman running in, one Kenyan and one Russian. Where are the ordinary people?

It was well-organised. Lots of water and cold 100-plus at the finish line. The baggage claim was a bit of a foul-up, but not a biggie. We went home to shower first before coming back to claim our bag as we didn't want to queue. The smell at the end of the run was overwhelming. Eeuw.

So it was a wonderful day. Everything I expected and more. I felt better this time than during the Sheares' Bridge so I'm quite pleased with that. Very pleased with our training plan before the race as well. Went for lunch, then to the Sports Expo to collect our free Nike socks, and then to look at Christmas trees, before heading home for a long nap. At times like these, you feel grateful to be alive and well.

Congrats to Carine for finishing the marathon in 3hr 55mins. And to Taz, Penguin, Dream Runner for completing their first marathon. Way to go!

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The night before

Terribly excited. As if it is the night before an exam, except it is in an entirely wonderful way. Smole and I went to collect the race pack from Suntec Convention Hall this morning. The Tshirt that came in the race pack is cool. It is a bright blue Adidas climacool running top with three green stripes down the side, with a reflective strip at the end of the stripes. And, better yet, it is in the right size.

21,000 runners. It seems like everyone is running this year. We bumped into a mutual friend standing in line who will be running with his father. We stood around and talked about blisters and wet socks for a while, before going off to explore the “Marathon Village”.

The “Marathon Village” was large. Smole did the fitness test and we both got our body fat percentage tested. Smole also subscribed to the new local Sports magazine and got herself a pair of crocs for free. Crocs are those roomy, colourful, plastic shoes that originate from Boulder, Colorado that has become all the rage here. Smole got the black pair. Two lucky draw entry forms, two free bags of pasta, three race packs (we collected for Jamie Oliver too), two tiny cups of power gel drink, one magazine subscription, and two pinch tests later, we were more than ready for our Kenny Rogers’ lunch.

(What a good lunch. The chicken pot pie there is excellent. It is probably made of left over chicken, but it is bursting with flavour. I simply love this eat, drink, rest phase in training for a race! :) )

So it is the night before. Cooked some pasta a while ago and am putting my stuff together for 4am tomorrow. Shirt: check; shorts: check; EZ link: check; money: check; socks: check; Vaseline: check. Ah Vaseline, the runner’s best friend. Tomorrow I will oil myself as slick as a seal.

So adios! Wish me luck! Smole and I will be sticking together throughout the run, no matter how good or tired either one of us feels.

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Today

Sad news in the Singapore blogosphere.

Sad news at dawn.


“To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth –– Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending – a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.” Thomas Wolfe

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"Sweetheart, you're going the wrong way."

I've been thinking of you a lot recently. How you like your tortellini stuffed with cheese, how you twirled me dizzy because you believed that you could teach my reluctant body salsa, how you left sweet notes by the door of our room, how we went on late night drives to nowhere because you needed to drive, how we pounded at Taco Bell's door past midnight for a $0.89 bean burrito.

I saw you too, at the airport the morning after your wedding -- I exhausted from a night of crying, you flushed pink from your first night with your husband. How would I have known that I would have bumped into you? Typically I was sending a forgotten international student off at the airport -- that was what I did that year with the car -- back and forth, back and forth -- I knew the 45 minute route between the airport and the college like the back of my hand. And that morning, as ironic fate would have it, I saw you.

I don't think you sensed how appalled I was to see you that morning. Though I saw you everyday for two years, that day was different, you were flying off, with your new husband, forever. And when you said, "xx, you should get married," and beamed in that way, a part of me died, and on the way back, I missed the exit and kept driving and driving, until my carload of international friends started yelling at me for going the wrong way.

It felt like life was going the wrong way, anyway.

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Need to

Need to, want to, have to run today, but it looks like it isn't going to happen, because it it 6:45pm and I am still at work. Unless I am super-motivated and go for a midnight run, I'll either have to be super-motivated and go for a really early morning run tomorrow, which isn't likely either. Help, I feel fat and unfit!

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We have links

The first face transplant took place in France this past weekend. Kinda reminds me of Irving's The Fourth Hand.

How to write for the web here, courtesy of The Fireant Gazette. I don't quite understand the article either. Quote:

You know you’re on the Information Superhighway to Hell if crap like enhance, leverage, implement, context, driver, focus, core, actionable, outcome and stakeholder crops up in your copy.

Everybody loves colourful bubbles!

Are you a Ravenclaw church, a Griffyndor church, a Hufflepuff church, or a Syltherin church? Find out here.

And finally, last minute announcements from the marathon organisers.

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Sign here

Okay, I'm stressed. It is a dull nervousness that makes my fingers cold and my mind go blank. I'm not even sure why I feel stressed. Most of the urgent work is out of the way; my boss and colleagues will be leaving for a two-week holiday soon; and I'm in a very good place at work now. But I received something in the mail today that is making me all jittery.

All it says is.. "Here is the xxxx renewal contract for your confirmation" and my legs have all turned to jelly. Me, sign? All I've signed so far are misery little receipts for misery little amounts. No big deal, right, put your name on the dotted line and the sum will be deducted from the company's coffers. Have I told anyone that I hate spending money?

I think I'm going to go make a powerpoint or two to calm my nerves before looking at that email again. Meanwhile, I need to stop mumbling "stress.." under my breath in the pantry so my colleagues won't walk into me and think I'm a wuss, which I am, anyway.

P.S. 4 more days to the race and I am eating PURE JUNK. Sigh.
P.P.S OWEN MEANY is restoring my faith in John Irving.

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I need to get back to work

but I really have to say this:

1. Coffee should be its own food group.
2. MCYS has produced an e-consultation paper which addresses the issue of cycling in Singapore. Point T5 says "Bicycle neglect policy not working". The full paper elaborates:

T5. Bicycle policy neglect is not working

Bicycle safety again hit the news several times in 2005 in embarrassing and tragic ways.

• We lack a coherent policy towards bicycles as a part of the transport system. LTA is the leading land transport policy agency but so far the LTA has seemed reluctant to provide leadership in this area, to take primary responsibility for bicycle policy or to take bicycles seriously in general.
• We suggest that the LTA commission a serious study of the policy options on bicycles. Bicycle policy involves more than ‘bicycle lanes’ and includes software issues of education, enforcement, encouragement as well as engineering (hardware) issues. We still need a coherent policy even if we decide not to encourage bicycles as much as European or Japanese cities do.
• Bicycle use is ignored in transport data collection. Cycling in certain parts of the island (for example, the east and north and in many parks) and for certain purposes (eg trips to MRT and especially for leisure) appears to be increasing but it is difficult to know for sure. We should include bicycles in all travel surveys
• In practice, many bicycle users ride on pavements (which is currently illegal but with the prohibition not enforced) while some use the roads. MP Irene Ng suggested making pavement cycling legal (as in Japan) and the Traffic Police are reviewing this issue. However, even if pavement cycling becomes legal, many bicycles will continue to be ridden on roads (bicycles may appear on any road that is legally open to them).
• Significant aspects of the road network have been designed without apparent awareness that bicycles will be used on them, thus failing to take responsibility for the safety of a group of legitimate road users. LTA’s road design standards should include a statutory requirement for bicycle safety and convenience to be considered in the design or redesign of every road where bicycles are legal to be ridden (even if no special facilities are provided).[1] Examples of dangerous designs include: multiple left turning lanes (especially when one of these allows for both a left turn or to proceed straight); narrow kerb-side lanes; narrow bus lanes; drainage grates running parallel to traffic; slip road designs that encourage high traffic speeds on left turns; multi-lane roundabouts.

• We suggest that the Traffic Police focus limited enforcement resources on those behaviours (both by motor vehicles and bicycle users) that are most dangerous (a bicycle-safety-focused enforcement strategy). Relevant agencies: LTA, MOT, MHA, Traffic Police

---

[1] See for example, AASHTO design guidance 1999, which states: “All highways, except those where cyclists are legally prohibited, should be designed and constructed under the assumption that they will be used by cyclists. Therefore, bicycles should be considered in all phases of transportation planning, new roadway design, roadway reconstruction, and capacity improvement and transit projects." (p.1)

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Congrats!

Congrats to Colin, former journalist now financial guru, for penning his 50,000th word and finishing his NaNoWriMo project last night! He is now the proud author of a published work. Read his story, Of Gifts Ungiven, here. Eh Colin, got free e-book format or not? ;)

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Bits and pieces

Today is a fairly long day at work for me, but it is nothing compared to renohtaram's work day. My shoulders are tired from having to hold my head up. Looking forward to snuggling with Owen Meany later, though I would much prefer snuggling with someone else.

Advent began this past Sunday. Not sure why Advent means so much to me. Perhaps it is because that tension between expectation and joy captures the essence of Christianity, heck, the essence of life, for me. Read about the meaning of Advent here.

This is also the last week to the half marathon. Kinda excited, but I keep forgetting about it too, since I've been busy.

Also, one phone and two SIM cards is just not a good idea.

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Pickpocketed

Well, someone stole my mobile phone yesterday. I'm not sure how he or she did it -- it must have been in the crowded "This Fashion" shop at Suntec yeterday evening. The pickpocket also managed to help himself to the cash in my wallet, all of ten dollars.

I'm not too upset about it. It isn't an expensive phone and my mobile phone contract expires this month, so I have various options available. I am also relieved that the pickpocket didn't take my wallet (with IC and ATM card) and that there wasn't more money in the wallet. How he managed to get the cash out and return the wallet though -- now, that is a scary thought!

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Running slower now

Why is it that though my weekly mileage is at an all-time high, I am actually running slower than before? :(

I just finished the 7.2km benchmark in 44 minutes. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and felt like crap most of the second loop. Why?

The fastest time clocked for the 7.2km benchmark was after a week's training in the gym. Somehow I think access to a gym helps a lot.

Meanwhile, after the half marathon, I think I will work on increasing my speed for middle distances, and putting back some oomph into those triceps.

Category: Running

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Don't tell me

I live up to my parents' expectations, simply by acting the part and keeping from them what I know will hurt them. And in many ways, I expect them to meet my expectations too, by keeping from me what I don't want to know.

The first day of the sexpo exhibition in Singapore was swamped with participants mostly in their 50s and 60s. The sexpo exhibition is the first of its kind in Singapore that is devoted to adult toys and sexual health. Anyway, The Straits Times had a large picture of this auntie and uncle, the far-sighted uncle having taken off his glasses so he could see better, looking at a ancient Chinese sex torture horse girdle thing used to torture wayward females.

I just don't want to know.

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Over the hill

Day	Distance
Monday	7.4 km
Thursday	1.82 km
Saturday	13.8 km
Sunday	18.4 km
Weekly Total	41.4 km

First week over 40km. To celebrate, here is a quote from the blog of Track & Field Olympian, Joan Nesbit Mabe, Songs of Experience.

On Monday I was invited to speak to the local middle school cross-country team. When I give talks to kids, I usually try to use props … like one time when I brought an old phone book and tore out individual sheets to give to each runner. “Here,” I said, “Rip this in half.” Everone ripped with a vengence until there were 50 torn sheets of phone book paper fluttering in the air. “Okay,” I said, “That was easy, right? Try tearing this in half.” I then passed around the thick phone book. Several of the older boys gave it a good effort, grunting and turning red, trying - trrryyyyyiing - with all their 8th grade might to rip the thing. Impossible.

SO, my point was, if you run as a bunch of individuals, it’s easy for a team to beat you in cross-country (like ripping the one sheet in half)… but if you run as a pack, your strength multiplies exponentially. You can’t beat the phonebook. “Be the phonebook,” I urged. I heard, later, that the team still chants, “Be the phonebook!” (perhaps in jest?) and I gave that talk several years ago.

My most recent talk was about moving from “I love to run” … to “I love to race” … to ” I love to win.” How do you get from point A to point C? Training. I quoted Mihaly Igloi, “Every day hard training must make.” And then, to illustrate this point, I brought in a tupperware container with a pint of cream. “The cream is you as someone who, simply, loves to run,” I said as I poured the cream into the tupperware and then sealed it shut. The container had the words, “Every day hard training must make,” written on it. I passed the tupperware around and had everyone on the team shake it for all it was worth! After 5-7 minutes of vigorous, non-stop shaking [”hard training”] we opened the container to find the cream totally transformed into butter. “You, too, will be completely transformed into racers and winners if you train hard,” I concluded.

Inside the container, the solid yellow butter was separated from the skim whey milk and one of kids yelled out, “Hey, that’s our sweat!”

They GOT it.

by Joan Nesbit Mabe

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Anyone wants to swap

their 10km for a half marathon?

I'm asking on behalf of a friend.

Let me know soon!

Thanks! :)

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Jumping in anyway

Even though I don't know if I can swim.

I hate this feeling.

I just handed in a draft proposal for a work project a new boss tasked me over the weekend. I've no idea whether the proposal I sent in is good or not, considering I've never done anything like this before, and this work project is the first task of many this new boss is giving me, in view of, dare I say it aloud?, a possible promotion with an expanded portfolio.

The expanded portfolio scares the dickens out of me.

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How to mount bike light on helmet?

Otterman has his blinking red bike light mounted onto his helmet. How cool is that?

I also want... How to mount?

(For that matter, I also want his iBook and lightly tinted shades.)

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Quiz: Hope as an anchor

In reply to Anonymous' comment on my post Girl, Interrupted, I am reminded of one of my dearest phrases -- "Hope as an anchor".

First person who correctly identifies where this phrase is from and gives the context will win a personally drawn postcard by me in the mail, aesthetics not guaranteed.

The contest begins now!

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Sundays

My Sundays have settled into a very pleasurable pattern.

After attending morning church service, I amble to the library to pick up the week’s supply of books. Then I hop onto a bus back home to read and rest until evening when I go for the long jog of the week.

I am strangely content.

This is the proposed route for this evening's run. If we manage to finish this route, I would say our training for the half marathon is complete!

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Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen's personal account of her stay in a mental institution. It is simply told, yet the words manage to transport you into her world in the late 60s. Compared with One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, this tale is less chilling and satirical. This tale is also true. The first chapter is stellar:

Toward a topography of the Parrallel Universe

People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can’t answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It’s easy.

And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it.

My roommate Georgina came in swiftly and totally, during her junior year at Vassar. She was in a theatre watching a movie when a tidal wave of blackness broke over her head. The entire world was obliterated – for a few minutes. She knew she had gone crazy. She looked around the theatre to see if it had happened to everyone, but all the other people were engrossed in the movie. She rushed out, because the darkness in the theatre was too much when combined with the darkness in her head.

And after that? I asked her.

A lot of darkness, she said.

But most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening?

In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest, and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks, faces, flowers.

These are facts you find out later, though.

Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you came from looks huge and menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly, at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit. Either way, it can’t be discounted.

Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.

Ever feel that way, that you are looking from yourself from outside, as if you are not really you? Sometimes, late at night, when the buzz of life quietens down and I find myself writing, time seems to slow down to a crawl and it feels like I can see myself forming each letter, each word, slowly, and I lose the meaning what I am doing, and I can only observe dispassionately as the letters appear. It is a strange sensation.

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Craving regular breathing

I need to run this evening.

I am a bundle of nervous energy. I wrote an email to the boss-man to tell him that the lack of advancement in my current position did not sit well with me, and now they've come back to me with a few proposals, all of which involve a lot more work and a lot more responsibility that I'm used to.

I need to run to rub that edge off my thoughts so I can think this through. Do I really want what they are proposing?

I need to run until the regular rhythmic breathing gives me comfort.

There are as many reasons to run as there are days in a year, hours in a decade, minutes in a life.

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What does goggle god say I need?

Picked up a meme from Jim. What you do is to type in your name into google, followed by the word "needs" and write down the top ten hits.

So, I need

... to be fit as it is at the top of quite a steep hill.
... to learn to be “yielded and still.”
... clients from every part of North America.
... to be properly tamed into a petite lady
... to pay attention to sign.
... to respond even in the waking state

I think it is hilarious. :) Thanks Jim!

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Itch

It itches right there. What is that part of the foot called anyway?

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Lost words

Writing an article and all the words have gone into hiding, squeezing into little nooks and crannies, in between the space between m-n-o-p, slipping off the page and falling away into never never land.

And I cannot find them.

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Rain

What if it rains on 4 Dec, 2005?

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:(

Where is pop?

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The thinking place

Strange how I get most of my work done on the bus to work than in the office. By the time I buckle down in front of the computer, I am better at doing than thinking, and I would be lucky to squeeze out one original thought then.

When are you most creative?

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The Elements of Style

Unlike Portugese Irregular Verbs, this is a book on grammar, composition and style. After reading this concise rulebook by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White from cover to cover, I am now intensely conscious of how rambly these posts are. I obviously break the first rule in the chapter on style: `1. Place yourself in the background'.


I also break (and intend to keep breaking) the first rule in the grammar section:

1. Form possessive singular nouns by adding 's.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonent. Thus write,

Charles's friend
Burns's poem

Some rules are a useful reminder:

9. The number of the subject determines the number of verbs.
A common blunder is the use of a singular verb form in a relative clause following "one of..." or a similar expression when the relative is the subject.

Wrong
One of the ablest scientists who has attacked this problem.

Right
One of the ablest scientists who have attacked this problem.

It is surprisingly witty:

Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful for saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible". For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.

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Portugese Irregular Verbs

No this isn't a book about Portugese grammar. This is the first book of a trilogy by Alexander McCall Smith comprising Portugese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, the third of which I read in April this year.

The series revolves around the adventures of Professor Dr Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld, a pompous Professor specialising in ancient and obscure languages. Although it is touted to be "deliciously funny", the only chapter that made me smile was the first, `The Principles of Tennis', where a group of academics tried to play tennis according to a rulebook.

The other stories were mediocre, even on the verge of xenophobic. For example, in the last chapter `Death in Venice', von Igelfeld keeps imagining the water tainted and the stares of a Polish family. In both this chapter as well as `Holy Man', von Igelfeld is relieved to return to Germany, "dear, friendly, safe, comfortable Germany!".

All of this is to be taken in a light-hearted vein I suppose, but as a whole, it is not quite my cup of tea. The binding and cover of the book is lovely though.

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The library is cool

The National Library is a cool establishment. In illustration of their coolness, you can now borrow up to eight books, up from the usual four, all the way to 31 Jan 2006. If you are a family of four, this means that you can borrow up to 32 books altogether! (How you would finish reading 32 books in three weeks is another matter, the fact remains that you could borrow 32 books, if you really wanted to.)

In celebration of this announcement, I went to the library and checked out these books:

1. Porturgese Irregular Verbs, Alexander McCall Smith
2. The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
3. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
5. Girl, Interupted, Susanna Kaysen
6. Indian in 6, Monisha Bharadwaj

Other reasons why the Library is cool:

1. It has an online catalogue.
2. It has its own book blog.
3. It allows you to make recommendations for new purchases.
4. They email you 3 days before your book is due.
5. They don't make you settle your fines before you borrow.
6. It is free to be a member, if you are Singaporean.

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I feel like crap

And no wonder. This is my first run this week.

I was supposed to run 7.2km but after the first loop, I felt like dying. It was only 3.5km! The race is less than a month away!

Sigh. I think I'll run really really really slowly tomorrow and try to get some distance in.

I'm just glad this tiring and busy week at work is over. I think the bosses think that presentations are made by magic. Next week will still be busy, but not in that if-you-don't-do-this-right-now-you're-gonna-be-so-screwed way.

NB: Why have all my friends suddenly jumped on the blogging bandwagon?

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The supernatural

Stumbled upon this website yesterday that described the rituals at a syncretistic temple in Tampines, Singapore. This temple, known as the Jiutiaoqiao Xinba Nadugong Temple, houses three deities from three very different religious traditions. There is Ganesha (Hinduism), Nadugong/Natoh Gong (Islam), Dabogong/Tua Peh Gong (Taoism). All three are worshipped under the same roof. And get this, as a symbol of "religious harmony", twelve decorated Christmas tree will also be included!

Reading the account of the rituals at this temple and seeing the pictures of the possessed mediums gave me the shivers. Go see them yourself. But don't blame me if you get the heeby-jeebies.

The supernatural is very close to us here in Singapore. At the folk religion level, the philosophy of the religion really doesn't matter. As long as you can "bai-bai" (worship) the god, you might as well do so to increase your favour with all the gods. It is increasigly common to find Chinese people worshipping at Hindu temples. In fact, one of the pictures on that website shows a Chinese person carry the kevadi, a traditional Hindu form of offering. It also shows a Chinese woman possessed as an Hindu god, dancing in a sari with her tongue sticking out. The "possessed dead" were really scary.

Overall, Taoism is the fastest declining religion here, falling from 30% in 1980 to 8.5% in 2000. Most of these Taoists become Buddhists, switching to the textualised philosophy that Buddhism offers. Yet, my theory is that in our heart of hearts, whether we are Buddhists or Christians, we still have that kernel of fear and admiration for the supernatural.

Compare the Taoists' rituals to the charismatic's speaking in tongues and being slain in the spirit. As we move further away from being "fresh converts", the horror we used to have about the supenatural dwindles, and that kernel of fear and admiration draws us back again to supernatural manifestations of god. We want these manifestations. We are an orthoprathic people, not an orthodox people.

This also explains why the Protestant churches in Singapore are as a rule, so much busier with programmes than the churches in the United States. Programmes have become our practice of religion. If we aren't doing something, we don't feel religious enough. The Catholics, on the other hand, seem less busy and happier to let things flow. I suspect it is because the Catholic church is replete with supernatural rituals -- they eat the body and blood of Christ every week! The Protestants lost these rituals gradually along the way, and so make up with programmes aplenty.

When do you feel the closest to the supernatural?

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Defending the blog

Some older Christians tend to pooh-pooh at the concept of blogging. I’ve heard it said that reading blogs are a waste of time. A survey in the US reported that one out of four workers spent an average of 9% of their workweek (3.5 hours) reading blogs, and that Americans will spend the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs unrelated to their work.

A pastor said -- Why read blogs which are usually unprocessed thoughts and gripes when you can read the formed, mature thoughts of bygone philosophers and saints?

While some tend to pick up only on evidence of how modern society is going to the dogs, I only see the potential.

Blogs bring new meaning to the term “living testament”, or “living book”. What you read here on this page is really my life flattened out into words. If you are a popular blogger, let’s say mrbrown, you have the opportunity to interact with hundreds of thousands of people. When I read the post about mrbrown running into the pool fully clothed to pull his autistic daughter out of the deep water, I was touched by his unconditional love. That kind of thing.

Reading blogs also fosters compassion for other people. If you read with an open mind, you get a sense of what it is like in the other person’s shoes. What is it like to be a pastor and have to close down your church? What is it like to feel as if all the teachers are always picking on you? What is it like to be branded a hopeless case? What is it like to fail an exam? What is it like to be dumped? What it is like to be human...

I have to get back to work now.

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Lots of work today

Lots of work today
No time to post
Time enough only to say
Lots of work today

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:) and coffee make the world go round

3-in-1 coffee is way stronger than Nescafe Gold Blend. I had a cup of Gold Roast Stronger Coffee this morning at home and the neurons are firing a thousand a minute. Connections are connecting as never connected before. (I am also as verbose as the long-necked mongoose who ate the alphabet.)

There is something about being here in this moment.

The office recently installed a security pass system that is incredibly anal. It is like being in secondary school all over again, with the purple nametags pinned over the school badge, but worse. No pass, no entry, nothing else to be said, even if the security guard sees me every day and knows for a fact that I work in this impregnable castle with photostating machines. They are so anal that they won't even let you out of the building without a pass before 4:30pm!

Needless to say, I've been quite sulky about it, now that I've to walk an extra five minutes in a large detour to get to my cubicle because they have closed off all unnecessary entrances for security purposes. I don't smile as much to the security guards in the morning when I'm rummaging through my bag to find the pass.

And then it struck me today, why in the world was I making the guards my enemies for? I remember one of my former bosses, a very approachable and jovial guy, and I can just imagine him joking with the guards and laughing at the passes together. That should be way to go about it. Laughter makes the medicine go down. (And sugar too, for that matter.)

And that is the thought for the day, thanks for tuning in.

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1.

The streets are always clean. The bushes grow wild in the hot tropical heat and early afternoon downpours, but they are always trimmed back judiciously by middle-aged women wearing large straw hats. Snip, snip, snipping away the excess, the leaves and flowers fall in rhythm with the latest gossip. “So-and-so’s daughter’s got a $5,000 a month job at a bank, but she never gives her mother any money,” they whisper loudly to each other in disbelief, and shake their heads and click their tongues.

Snip, snip, “ah, but did you hear of so-and-so’s son? He married a Vietnamese woman and now doesn’t even visit his family during Chinese New Year!” How terrible! What horrible luck! The gods must be punishing for something she has done, if not in this life, the previous, or the life before that. “It is better to be barren than to have ten unfilial sons,” they say and shake their heads some more.

There is never an idle moment for this industrious city state. It buzzes with snipping work -- this is how a country grows strong. Trees grow in straight rows here.

The children line up in straight two-by-twos. Early on, they are taught which finger is the “shush finger” and where their lips are, and how to place the finger vertical to the lips. Kids learn it quickly. But still they forget and talk anyway, until the teacher in exasperation brings out the masking tape, and suddenly, the child grows up.

I had never liked to talk anyway.

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Quick Links

"There's a lot of ickiness in the bible" - Jim. Go vote for the ickiest bible slaying here.

How did durian make it to the BBC list of top 50 foods to eat before you die? (thanks, daryl)

The physics of bras. (thanks, tinkertailor)

Marathon gadgets, anyone? (The lactic acid injection for the sole of your feet sounds way fishy though.)

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An absolutely chillilific weekend

I cooked a huge pot of chilli this weekend. And for the first time in my life, I felt the allure of being a cook. It is in the eating! Nothing else! Dicing the onion made me cry, peeling the tomatoes was a pain, but it is all worth it when you can scoop for yourself a large bowl of chilli at the end of a long run.

Bragging aside, the chilli really rocked. It was everything I remembered it to be. Ground beef, onions, kidney beans with melted cheese and saltine crackers.. ah. I was in seventh heaven all weekend long. This was how I did it:

Ground beef
1 large onion
Garlic
Tomatoes
2 cans kidney beans
1 can tomato puree
Chilli padi
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
Pepper

1. Crush garlic and dice onion. Brown ground beef, onion and crushed garlic in a pan. Add crushed chilli padi and pepper. Turn off fire.

2. Peel tomatoes.

3. Put kidney beans (with water), tomato puree, tomatoes, cumin, oregano, beef (with onions etc.) into pressure cooker. Cook on low fire, stirring occasionally.

4. Scoop into small bowl, top with shredded cheese and saltine crackers. Eat.

Very fuss-free. I browned the beef and peeled the tomatoes the night before and in the morning, stuck everything in the slow cooker while I went for a long morning run. Unfortunately the slow cooker was not working so I had to cook it over the fire, but it didn't take too long. It is the perfect lunch after a run -- lots of protein and carbo -- perfect with a rented movie too. :)

Update: Eric says "No. Beans. In. Chili." and posts a link to the Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) Official Rule Book, which is a hilarious document! Whaddaya say? Beans or no beans?

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Snatches of conversation

(I in blue, you in black)

"Birds eat with their heads tilted sideways."
"Really?"

"Yes. They eat with their heads sideways because of their beaks. If they put their heads down directly, they can't get much food. While if they tilt their heads, they can scoop it up like this."

(You illustrate by clamping your fingers together like a scissors)

"Like chopsticks!"
" Yes, like chopsticks. Don't you know the story?"

"What story?"
"The story of the wolf and the bird. There was a long jug of water and the bird laughed at the wolf because the wolf couldn't drink from it. The bird put its long beak in and drank happily. Then there was a plate of water and the wolf laughed at the bird because it couldn't drink from it. The wolf lowered its head and slurped up the water."

"What kind of story is that?"
"A fable lah! Except they tell it better and with a moral at the end."

"I've seen many birds drink from puddles..."
"Ah, but have you seen them drink from plates?"

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Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami

Another lovely public holiday. Finished the novel Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami today, on smudgi3’s recommendation. There wasn’t a boring moment in it, but how do I put it, it was a little too skewed and dark for my liking.

The book wasn’t so much about love and death as about dependency and suicide. The love stories in the novel did not capture my imagination as it did not rise above the emotional and sexual dependency the characters had for each other. The deaths in the novel were overwhelming suicides. True, Midori’s parents both die of tumours, but in a way, to Toru, the main character of the book, this is a peripheral event. When it comes down to it, it isn’t so much about love as it is about survival.

Nobody actually understood anyone else, it seemed like. Everyone was closed within themselves, all prototypes of Nagasawa, the ambitious playboy. I think the passage with Nagasawa, Toru and Hatsumi is pivotal in understanding who Toru is. Nagasawa says to Toru:

“But Wantanabe’s practically the same as me. He may be a nice guy, but deep down in his heart, he is incapable of loving anybody. There’s always some part of him somewhere that is wide awake and detached. He has that hunger that won’t go away.” (277)

In some ways, I think Nagasawa hit the nail on the head. Despite this novel being written in the first person with Toru as the narrator, the readers never really understand him. I was almost taken by surprise when he declared to Midori that he loved her and that he would always take care of her. Really? When did that happen?

But I suppose this sense of terrible isolation, even from your own self, was the point Murakami was trying to make. There is no redemption in this novel – only leaving behind the past and trudging towards the future. It is most depressing.

I wonder – is Japanese society really as bleak as Murakami painted?

(Sidenote: lovely food and lovely names though. Lots of miso soup and rice, and beautiful names like Naoko.)

(Read about the differences in Jay Rubin's and Alfred Birnbaum's translations here. It is actually quite different.)

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9 hr mutton curry / 3 day work week

Two public holidays this week -- Deepavali on Tuesday and Hari Raya Aidilfitri on Thursday, which means that this week is a three day work week for us. Deepavali is the Hindu festival of lights and Hari Raya Aidilfitri marks the end of a month of fasting for the Muslims. What a lark! Especially since I am not Hindu, Indian, Muslim or Malay, which means I have no obligations this festive period, unlike Chinese New Year or Christmas.

My large extended family met yesterday to celebrate my first uncle's birthday though, all thirty-odd of us in a small two-room HDB flat. It was great. First Aunt cooked mutton and potato curry for eight hours, birthday noodles, mushrooms and cauliflower, fish, buttered prawns, fried fish, pigs' organ soup, green bean paste and almond jelly, and we all took turns at the table that only sits six at one go. Dinner by rotation, I call it.

A smattering of languages could be heard all evening -- Hokkien, Cantonese, Chinese, and English -- testament of how much has changed within a few generations. It is amusing to watch my aunts and uncles learn English for the sake of the little ones at home. I used to get it rough from my aunts and uncles because I couldn't speak Hokkien very well; now, they've all softened up because of their grandchildren, learning to speak Chinese and English for them. The little ones, all nine of them, are ALL boys. What's up?

Every family left with a bag of birthday buns, those pink topped buns with almond paste inside. Yummy.

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Weekend Long Run

Hit 17.9km this weekend, the longest run in my life. Heh, that is so cool to say, the longest run in my life. :)

Woke up early and took a cab down to AMK. Inadvertently took a longer route to Upper Pierce. Saw a lot of smiling joggers coming out of Upper Pierce as we entered. They all looked very happy for some reason. (I think they were finishing their runs that's why!) Smiled and waved and smiled some more.

Upper Pierce had its share of hills, but nothing like the hills at the golf course. By the time we got there, the sun was beating down on our heads. Phew. Somehow managed to smile and wave at a few golfers while huffing up the hills.

It felt good to turn into the trail at MacRitchie for more reason than one. First, it was much shadier than the road; second, it was familiar ground. Stopped at the Ranger's Station to top up the water bottle (710ml) and to use the loo. Saw a furry little catepillar there too. Then it was the rocky trial, the golf link, the scenic path, the boardwalk again, then out of MacRitchie onto the road again.

Stopped to get a 100-plus from the vending machine at MacRitchie. We didn't have coins so we SMSed "PUK" to 54848, made our drink selection, and out tumbled our can of drink! How cool is that! The cost will be charged to our next mobile phone bill. Topped up the water bottle again. The water cooler at the top of the hill at MacRitchie dispenses really cold water. Excellent stuff.

The road after MacRitchie was tiring. I think it was because my body was not used to running for such a long time. Even though most of the route was flat, everything felt like an uphill -- as if I had wet sand in my shoes. I kept thinking, just 20 minutes more and we'll stop, 15 minutes more and we'll stop, 14 minutes more, and so on and so forth. It is funny how time manages to crawl by so slowly sometimes.

Well, we finally got to stop. Took a bus back to AMK, had some mushroom chicken mee and an ice cold coke for brunch, then it was back home for a shower and a nap.

One more month to the half marathon.

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Jesus, a modern American?

I don't know if it is just me, but Jesus sounds like a brash American in Eugene Peterson's The Message.

In Mark 8:34, he says to Peter, "Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works."

Then he tells his disciples, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?"

And then Jesus "drove it home" by saying, "This isn't pie in the sky by and by. Some of you who are standing here are going to see it happen, see the kingdom of God arrive in full force."

What does "pie in the sky by and by" mean anyway?

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Socks (Not my picture)

Sweet picture posted by afeman that I found on Flickr.

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Planning for the weekend run

Map image courtesy of malsingmaps.com.

Has anyone done the route from Upper Pierce to MacRitchie? What is it like?

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Sweet dreams are made of cheese

Guess what the British Cheese Board (hee hee) found out in their study? If you are female and want to dream about Jamie Oliver cooking in your kitchen, eat 20g of Brie 30 minutes before going to bed!

If you want to dream about celebrities (smudgi3 this is for you and your `mr pouty lips'), take 20g of cheddar instead.

If you want odd and vivid dreams, such as a dream about a vegetarian crocodile who was upset because he could not eat children, have some Stilton cheese.

And if you don't want any dreams at all, have Cheshire.

Okay, okay, who wants to do an experiment along with me involving a chunk of Stilton cheese? :)

(Read entire article here, link via Laura, who wrote a great poem about the effects of Beenleigh Blue cheese.)

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I put words

I put words
one after another
hap,hazard,ly
and make me a poem.

I put words
string them like beads
red white green purple
bedazzling my prey.

I put words
in with my thumb
And send them away
Into someone's pocket.

I put words
with ink on paper
paying the bill
of modern living.

I put words
one after another
hap,hazard,ly
and make me a poem.

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New shoebag

New shoebag, a present from S. :)

It is large enough to fit my running clothes and socks too. That's my blue running top you see underneath the "Adidas" logo.

I like it. :)

Btw, I've enjoyed the ride on my new Asics GT-2100 so far. It is a little roomier in the toebox compared to my old GT-1090. It also gives more support -- but that is an unfair comparison as I can hardly remember what my GT-1090 felt like when they were new. A bit slippery on wet pavement, not sure why, will observe further.

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On The Straits Times Journalist

A poem by Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940)

You cannot hope
    to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
    Straits Times* journalist.

But, seeing what
    the man will do
unbribed, there's
    no occasion to.

* Original, British

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