where I expose myself to be more like a guy than I'd admit..
Total Number of Shoes you own: 9
Fun shoes: Asics, Sandals, Blue slip ons
Work shoes: Black, Brown, Brown sandals
Shoes I rarely wear: Shoe with hole, White sandal for weddings, Black boots
The last shoe you bought: Asics Gel-1090
For some reason, I don't buy a lot of shoes. My sister bought me 4 pairs (those in red) and friends gave another 3 pairs (italics), which means I only bought 2 pairs in the last 5 years.
How many shoes do you have underneath your work desk: 2 pairs (3 pairs in cupboard at work) Don't ask me why I have so many shoes at work. If you do, I'll tell you it is because I am ten-legged and I require all ten legs for work.
Five people you meet in The Land of Shoes:
trainofthot
carine
mel
smudgi3
the lonely runner
Tagged by Sembler Fatigué
Friday, July 29, 2005
The Shoe Meme
10k in 59mins 23secs
10km in East Coast, Australia, Jul 2004
Yesterday was the first time I did the 10k under an hour. I did my first 10k in Australia in 1hr 8mins and have always wanted to break the hour mark, but strangely, when I finally did it yesterday, it didn't feel extraordinary.
Perhaps I've been reading too many blogs of runners who finish it in 45mins or so. Comparing myself to them doesn't help the ego, but I must remember: running is a recreational hobby to me; I've never been on a track team, never had a running coach, and everything I know and do I've picked up on my own or with my friend. That makes me feel somewhat better.
I started running for a strange reason. I was sitting beside my friend who had been running regularly. I noticed that her thighs were like iron, and I wanted iron thighs too! So I started running. I remember my first run. I did 4 rounds in my neighbourhood (3.6km) and when I stopped, I had to sit down and keep my head down to keep my heart from popping right out. I remember watching the sweat fall from my face like, or I thought then, the great drops of blood at Gethsemane.
I've come a long way since then. And I have iron thighs to boot. :) What were your reasons why you started running? And now, looking back, did running meet all your expectations?
Category: Running
Read More!Thursday, July 28, 2005
Free beer!
A group of students at the IT-University in Copenhagen has created the first open source beer, i.e. the recipe is made available for anyone to use and improve, provided that they publish their version of the receipe as well. The beer is called Vores Oel, or Our Beer, version 1.0.
On their website, they answer the question "Why beer?" with this excellent quip:
Why not? We all like beer, and as an added bonus there is a legendary quote used to explain the concept of free software (now usually referred to as open source software):
"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer".
Haha! Read More!
Blogger Categories
I just created categories for my blog. It is a somewhat tedious process, but the earlier you decide to do it, the more work you would save. This was how I did it:
1. Create a new blog for each category.
I have three categories for now, running, reading and poems. These were the blogs created (`category blogs'):
the pencil runs: http://onemillionruns.blogspot.com/
the pencil reads: http://onemillionreads.blogspot.com/
the pencil poems: http://onemillionpoems.blogspot.com/
2. Copy template from main blog and paste into category blogs.
This ensures that your entire website has the same look. I used the same template except that I included a link back to the main page in the category pages. I also ensured that the links in the category blogs made sense, for example "Home" should lead back to main page rather than to the category blog.
3. Populate category blogs with relevant previous posts.
This is the tedious part of the process. What I did was to go through my archives and copy and paste each individual post, remembering to change the date to match the original date.
4. Tweak email settings in main blog and category blogs.
Email all new posts in the main blog to yourself by specifying your email address under "Settings" and "Email". Set a mail-to-blogger email for all category blogs so that you can publish via email. Remember to tick the "Publish" box.
5. Start posting!
When you post to your main blog, a copy of the post will be emailed to you. Forward the post to your category blog via the secret email address and it will be published. You could also set your email rules to automatically forward the emails.
They whose hearts burn
I look not only at tongue and speech;
I look at the spirit and the inward feeling.
I look into the heart to see whether it be lowly...
Enough of phrases and conceits and metaphors!
I want burning, burning...
Light up a fire of love in thy soul,
Burn all thought and expression away!
Moses, they that know the conventions are of one sort;
They whose souls burn are of another.
By Jalal al-Din Rumi
The Daily Dig published the true story of the encounter of St Francis and Sultan Melek Al-Kamil, a Christian and a Muslim.
Excerpt:
In 1219, Francis of Assisi traveled to the Holy Land to bring the gospel to the Muslims. Given a pass through enemy lines, he met with Sultan Melek Al-Kamil. A sickle-shaped sword presented to Francis by the sultan as a memento of their encounter can still be seen in Assisi...
Francis of Assisi was sorely troubled. A great army of his Christian countrymen had come to Egypt to fight the Mohammedans. They were on a crusade to win the Holy Land from the Turks. They were killing many people. Francis saw people starving; he saw little children dying. It was not right. What could he do to stop the terrible massacre?
Read the whole article here. Read More!
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
One year running
It has been a year and a half since I started running, and a year since I started keeping a running log. Today is a good day to start and end my running year because it is my sister's birthday. Happy birthday sis!! Life is so much better because of you.
Category: Running
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow
I read this novel in two parts due to unforseen circumstances. But I finally finished it this weekend, and it was a wonderful read.
The setting of this novel is really quite something. Ralvelstein is set in New York and Paris; Herzog in the suburbia and countryside, Henderson is set in the heart of Africa. The textures and smells of this novel are fascinating. Bellow's descriptions of the two tribes E. H. Henderson encounters in his journey of self-discovery are so life-like that I googled the two tribes in the novel -- "Arnewi" the cow lovers and "Wasiri" the lion tribe -- to see if they had any ties with real tribes, but the search came to naught. I also googled "Grun-tu-molani", translated as "Man wants to live."
Typically, this novel by Bellow is deep. Bellow alludes to links between things you don't normally associate with one another. For example, one of the ideas in this novel is that you can take on the characteristics of the animals that you associate with -- that even inanimate object and animals have souls. Along these lines, Dahfu, the king of the Wasiri tribe, postulates that there is a link between our personality and our external features -- that we are our own authors of our faces, our noses, our bellies. Henderson is described as grunting, with a paunch between his belly, an extraordinary nose, and very strong. It is as if Bellow is trying to say that the world we live in is more alive with connections than we know.Another interesting element in this novel is the journey Henderson makes to find himself. He is driven into Africa by a voice that says, I want I want I want! But the voice never says what it wants. Later in the novel, there is this passage:
"I had a voice that said, I want! I want? I? It should have told me she wants, he wants, they want..." (286)
"All you hear from guys is desire, desire, desire, knocking its way out of the breast, and fear, striking and striking. Enough already! Time for a word of truth. Time for something notable to be heard. Otherwise, accelerating like a stone, you fall from life to death. Exactly like a stone, straight into deafness, and till the last repeating I want I want I want, then striking the earth and entering it forever!" (297)
Henderson is like a microcosm of the world we live in. He takes on the desire, the fear, the preoccupation with death, and the suffering of the entire world. He suffers more than anyone else, perhaps like how Christ suffered for the sake of the whole world, except that Henderson contained within himself both sin and redemption. Dahfu alluded to the great figures of history as model forces:
"Do you think that Jesus Christ is still a source of human types, Henderson, as a model-force? I have often thought about my physical types, as the agony, the appetite, and the rest, to be possibly degenerate forms of great originals, as Socrates, Alexander, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus..." (303)
Even with dead persons in the past there are connections! Gmilo the lion is Dahfu's father, as Suffo the lion is Gmilo's. It is altogether extremely thought-provoking.
Read More!Whose meat is it anyway?
Does anyone know what is the meat they use in fan kin? I bought some this morning for breakfast because it is twice as large as the luo mai kai for only 20 cents more, but the meat is scary manz. The meat in luo mai kai is obviously chicken. But what is the meat in fan kin?? Is it char siew (pork) or fake char siew (glutten)? Eeuw. I think I'll stick to luo mai kai from now on.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Yippppeee! :)
My friend passed her exam!
She passed, thank God! Oh joy, joy, joy! :)
:)
No more studying, lots more playing, we're going on a holiday!
Just don't run
We live in such tragic times.
On 7 July, suicide bombers denonate four bombs in London, killing 56 people and injuring 700. Exactly two weeks later, another four bombs partially explode, throwing the city into chaos again. The next day on 22 July, the Metropolitan police chase and shoot dead a man on the tube with five bullets in the head. He was later found to be innocent.
It is very sad when even the effort to reign in terror results in tragedy.
Friday, July 22, 2005
7.2km benchmark
I love Friday evenings. :)
Finished the 7.2km hilly route near my workplace in the fastest time ever. In August last year, I was doing this route in 49mins. Today, I did it in 41mins 57secs.
Date | Minutes |
| 03-Aug-04 | 49 |
| 16-Aug-04 | 49.9 |
| 25-Aug-04 | 45.35 |
| 01-Sep-04 | 44.46 |
| 28-Sep-04 | 45.95 |
| 06-Oct-04 | 45.15 |
| 12-Nov-04 | 48.6 |
| 01-Dec-04 | 47.6 |
| 08-Dec-04 | 44.38 |
| 18-Jan-05 | 45.5 |
| 16-May-05 | 45.6 |
| 17-Jun-05 | 43.8 |
| 22-Jul-05 | 41.95 |
So much of running is in the mind. I've been doing the 10km on the treadmill and I suspect that the only reason I could keep up the pace today was because I kept telling myself that it was only 7.2km so I might as well go a little faster. I was very tired actually -- the hills did me in, but I kept thinking, "Just a little bit more, just to that junction, and then I'll be almost done" etc. etc., all the way home.
What a great way to start the weekend! :)
Category: Running Read More!
dealing with guilt
I have been keeping myself from becoming mind-numbingly bored at work by
1. Blogging, reading blogs, learning html, and other related activities;
2. Daydreaming about doing runs I've never done before;
3. Surfing for swanky gadgets that I'll never buy; and
4. Looking forward to meeting my friends for after-work activities.
But there is a caveat: before you may harness the wonder of the above-mentioned solutions, you must first deal with the inevitable guilt. Until and unless you can deal with the guilt, the solutions will only make you feel worse. It would be a horrible roller coaster –- feel dead, feel like scum, feel dead, feel like scum, feel like dead scum, and then all over again.
I'm not sure why I don't feel guilty anymore.(Maybe I've crossed the line of no-return in scuminess!) In fact, I'm less often plagued with guilt now as compared with two years ago. Is it part of growing older and being capable of fancier and more "righteous" justifications? I'm not sure.
Two days ago, a four year old toddler fell to her death while her grandmother was out buying breakfast. I've been thinking a lot about her grandmother, and the awful, terrible guilt she must be feeling right now. I wish time could be turned back for their sakes –- I wish things could be made right in a Ctrl-Z kinda way –- just undo the whole horrible episode -- what silver lining or God's purpose can there be in episodes like these? But no, life is not like that, and I can only pray for her family.
The Catholics have a poignant liturgy they repeat at mass:
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
(In Greek: Kyrie eleison / Christe eleison / Kyrie eleison)
It seems so little compared to their loss, and I don't know how it could possibly be enough for them; but in a selfish way, I don't ever want to know the real meaning of "my grace is sufficient for you," if you know what I mean.
Kyrie eleison.
New Layout
Yeah :)
Spent a good few hours today tweaking the template so that it'll look just right.
I think I'll stick to this template for a while – I've always wanted a wordpress template. I know it is not "uniquely mis_nomer" (cough) but somehow the clean, neat look appeals to me.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
very cool electronic stuff
I’m such a nerd sometimes. I’ve been surfing around looking at gadgets and programmes that will track your heart rate, distance, pace, speed, etc. either via GPS or a foot pod thing. Seriously, these gadgets are amazing – they can even plot a graph of the elevation of your route! And take your timing every kilometre! Automatically! And do a simulated “re-run” of your route, along with elevation charts and speed! With maps! But I don’t want one cos I don’t want to wear a chest strap. I also don’t want one because too much information spoils the jog. And that essentially is the primary reason.
The thing about keeping track about how far and fast and often you run is that you always want to do something you’ve never done before. The most recent thing I did that I haven’t done before was to run the 10k on a treadmill. Exhilarating, when you do things for the first time…
Links: Garmin Forerunner 301 ; Timex Speed and Distance ; Polar Heart Rate Monitors ; MotionBased Performance Tracking
very despicable behaviour
Xiaxue's blog and gmail were hacked last night and all her emails and blogs were deleted. What an obnoxious and cowardly thing to do!
Read More!Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Word of the day
smarmy \SMAR-mee
1 : revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, or false earnestness
2 : of low sleazy taste or quality
Example sentence:
"I was so disappointed to hear you didn't get that promotion," said Kit, using a smarmy tone of voice that made me fume.
Fed up with words
You are fed up with words, and I don't blame you. I am nauseated by them sometimes. I am also, to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with causes. This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand what I mean.
It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it. And then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to make the meaning be there again by magic. Going through this kind of reaction helps you to guard against this. Your system is complaining of too much verbalizing, and it is right...
~ Thomas Merton
the clearest blue water
She held in her hands a photo she took. It was a picture of the clearest blue water flanked by a high rocky cliff, two polar bears in the water, and in between the bears, a large turtle.
But the strangest thing was that she didn't remember being there at all. And stranger still, when she turned her eyes away from the photo for a moment, the turtle moved.
Just because you are in a car
does not mean that you can use your horn at hapless pedestrians trying to cross at the traffic light.
Do you feel better now that you've blared your horn first thing in the morning?
I swear, I should have stopped dead in front of his car and looked him in the eye when he used his horn. Try to run me over now.
This is the traffic light across Bukit Timah Road and Dunearn Road. The pedestrian crossing is split in two sections, one across Bukit Timah and one across Dunearn, with a no-man's land in between. The lights are timed such that you have to walk very quickly to get to the other end. I called LTA about lengthening the time for the pedestrians to cross but they said they could not as it was a very busy street. Perfectly reasonable. So every morning, my colleagues and I do a half-run across the street and we usually get to the other side before the light turns red.
Now, they've shifted this traffic light so that they've removed the slip road on Dunearn road and made it a normal turn where cars have to give way to the pedestrians crossing. So it is even more stressful while trotting across the street cos now all these cars have to give way to you. You are pressed for time cos you want to get across the street (otherwise you'll be stuck in the middle of the two roads and have to wait another 5 minutes before the lights change again); the cars are stressed because they want to turn into Dunearn Road; and it was at this juncture that the above-mentioned car blared his horn.
Regardless of your stress level, you still do not have that right.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
How to display source code
1. Replace < with & lt; (remove space after &)
2. Replace > with & gt; (remove space after &)
Therefore to tag this post "code":
<a href=http://technorati.com/tag/code" rel="tag">code</a>
Therefore an invisible technorati tag:
<a href=http://technorati.com/tag/code" rel="tag"></a>
And, the final clincher, to display the code above:
& lt;a href=http://technorati.com/tag/code" rel="tag"& gt;& lt;/a& gt;
(remove all spaces after the &)
(I feel like I'm speaking in a foreign language)
Things I learnt this week
1. How to include invisible technorati tags.
It is actually exceedingly simple. All you have to do is to leave out the link name in the tag. See directions here. I would have typed it all out myself except that I don't know how to post code in blogger (see number 3).
2. That NKF was the number one search at technorati.
Unbelievable isn't it? That a nation of 4 million can generate so many search enquiries? See screen shot here. Singaporeans must use a lot of technorati.
3. That I don't know how to input source code in blogger.
If I can't use the plaintext tag, what can I use? The pre tag doesn't work either so I've given up.
My next running shoe
Toying with the idea of an adidas. I have an asics GEL-1090 now and I love it. It fits well; it is light; and it gives sufficient cushioning. The pic below is a shot of my running shoes hanging out with my office dustbin while I blog at work.
My asics are a year and a half old and quite worn out as it is my only pair and I wear them a lot for both running and non-running purposes. There are little holes in my right shoe where the toes flex upwards, and it has been feeling a little "flat".
Adidas has a new customisable shoe called mi-adidas where they measure each foot individually, determine your gait, and let you print your name, etc. (See yewjin's account of his session; he got a free shoe just by blogging about it, wah lau!) Moi-Carine's new shoe is an Adidas Adistar Cushion; Renohtaram's new shoe is the Adidas Supernova Cushion. S's shoe is also a Supernova Cushion – you can find a runner's world review in the linked post. Moi-Carine is the queen of excellent shoe reviews though – see it here and here.
So I'm thinking that I may get either the supernova or the adistar, if they fit alright, or stick with the asics if they don't. From what I have read so far, the Asics-1090 has a dual-density sole (stability shoe) while the supernova and the adistar is a cushion shoe. I guess I will have to see which fits better. How exciting. :)
Category: RunningRead More!
Monday, July 18, 2005
On anonymity and paranoia
Thank you canopy, smudgi3, trainofthot and lancerlord for your comments in the previous post. You guys are really sweet. I'm sorry about being such a drama-queen. I guess I just freaked out 'cos I absent-mindedly left a link to this page when I created an MSN "My Space", not knowing that "My Space" is automatically linked to MSN messenger and visible to all my contacts. I had this MSN conversation with my sister:
Sis: I've finally figured out what the yellow asterix beside your name is!
Me: Really? What?
Sis: It means that you have updated comments on your blog that I haven't read!
(pause)
(realization hits like a ten ton brick)
Not sure what my problem is - I suppose I'm paranoid of being stalked, and blog-stalking is the most insidious kind. I certainly don't mind my sister or close friends reading this, but other people, I'm not so sure. The content in this blog, while not intimate, is very personal. Which is why I will probably never attend the Singapore blogger's conference, unless I like settle down in life, and finally, finally, have nothing to hide.
But I won't be closing this blog -- too infatuated with writing posts, reading your posts, commenting and being commented on. So sorry for all the hullabaloo. Read More!
Friday, July 15, 2005
I fear..
I fear that I may have to close this page down. If you know me in real life, please tell me now.
Read More!10K and purple berries
Date | Place | Time (mins) | Distance (km) | km/h |
| Thursday, July 14th | Gym | 63.38 | 10 | 9.5 |
10km would have gotten me from Orchard to Yio Chu Kang. But when I finished running the 10K yesterday, I was exactly where I started; in fact, to be precise, exactly where I've been all along. It is a strange feeling.
Date | Place | Time (mins) | Distance (km) | km/h |
| Monday, July 11th | AMK | 44.1 | 6.5 | 8.8 |
In contrast, the 6.5km run on Monday got me from AMK central to Lower Pierce and back, and S and I got to pick and eat purple berries (jaam) from the ground at Bishan Park along the way. Lower Pierce was covered with a low mist that evening -- refreshingly beautiful.
Both runs were great. I would do both again in a heartbeat.
Category: Running Read More!Thursday, July 14, 2005
We are barking up the wrong tree
NKF (National Kidney Foundation) sued SPH (Singapore Press Holdings) for an article that alluded to $900 gold-plated taps in the personal restroom of its CEO, T.T. Durai. In the course of the proceedings, it has emerged that T.T. Durai earns $25,000 a month and gets 10 to 12 month bonus, which comes to a $600,000 annual salary. The public is outraged. Vandals paint "Liar" on the NKF sign. On day two of proceedings, NKF withdraws its suit.
But who is the judge in these cases? Who decides how much salary is too much? We function in a market that is ruled by demand and supply -- if T.T.Durai is a fundraising genius, he will be paid an appropriate fraction of whatever he raises. There are so many charities in Singapore who can only dream of his genius at raising funds. The organisation I work for has a charity arm as well -- their salary has been frozen since 2000 for an indefinite amount of time because of the lack of funds. Every year they have to do never-ending fundraising gigs to beg for money to cover their operation costs. Charity workers deserve their wages too. If you paid your CEO less, will you be able to get the necessary funds in?
On the other side of the suit is SPH. Now, who in their right minds wants to take on SPH in a legal suit? Remember SPH has monopoly over the media -- what they put on the front page of the Straits Times, the heart-wrenching letters they include in the forum page, the quotations they highlight in their shout boxes, the pictures they choose to include... Can you really fight with that? They can sway a nation's heart and mind.
Now, how much is the CEO of Straits Times making? Someone will say, this is different, NKF is a charity organisation while SPH is profit making. But SPH is a profit-making monopoly. Which is worse? As a consumer, I have a choice in either case -- I can choose whether I want to buy the morning papers or not; I can choose whether I want to call that 1-900 number to donate $5 or $10. At least part of the $5 I give to NKF would go to charity.
Take issue with corporate monopolies and oligoplies who make profit out of public goods; take issue with under the table business ethics; but at the same time, create checks and balances for public charities so that they can function, raise funds, and contribute to society in a transparent yet efficient way.
Singapore cannot survive without its charities. Go easy, please.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
Faith of our Fathers
Faith of our fathers, living still,
in spite of dungeon, fire, and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
whene'er we hear that glorious word!
When I sing this hymn, I am reminded of the early martyrs for Christ -- Ignatius, Polycarp, Perpetua, etc. These men and women of incredible faith, whose blood became the seed for Christianity.
I was surprised to find out today that this hymn was actually referring specifically to the persecution of Roman Catholics by Protestants during Henry VIII's reign as he was in the process of establishing the Church of England! This is the third verse (often omitted).
Faith of our fathers! Mary's prayers
Shall win England back unto Thee,
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall indeed be free.
Ironically, the writer of the hymn, Frederick Faber, was brought up and ordained as an Anglican priest in a strict Calvinist home. He later joined the Tractarian movement that promoted a return to ancient liturgies and traditions, and eventually became a Roman Catholic. It was as a Roman Catholic that he wrote "Faith of our Fathers".
Ironically, again, this hymn is now sung in both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches all over the world. God does have a sense of humour.
Intermission
Just updated the post "Where to find that elusive locker" for YCK gym. I swear, the treadmills at YCK feel faster than the ones at California Fitness. Not sure why. I've only run there one other time before and it felt fast that time too. Although it could be that I was running on a full stomach yesterday.
Date | Place | Time (mins) | Distance (km) | km/h |
| Sun, July 10 | YCK | 45 | 6.84 | 9.1 |
A gym is the best place to run if you wake up late and have appointments in the evening. At twelve noon, it is worth every cent of the $2.50 entrance fee that you hand over to the aunty behind the counter. It is worth carrying a towel like a personal ID; it is worth running faster than you would have run because you didn't want to lose to the stranger running beside you; it is worth lugging soap, shampoo and a change of clothes; it is worth the long groggy train ride there. Read More!
Saturday, July 09, 2005
I keep having to take breaks from reading this book for fear of completely drowning in the haunting story line. I am only at chapter nine, and it has broken my heart a few times already.Friday, July 08, 2005
London Blasts
Vavoom put it well, the events were saddening, not shocking. He has a good post of the events from a moderate muslim's point of view.
My condolences to London.
New Arrival
My father bought an accordion. It looked like it popped straight out of a fairy tale into my living room. It is red, shiny, and very large. It came in a large luggage-type box, lined with red velvet.
It is a Parrot 48-base, 2 Voice accordion, exactly like the one in the picture below, and in excellent condition too. It is selling for US$355 at amazon.com; my father bought it for S$40 at Salvation Army at 50% off the selling price. He was as excited about his purchase as a teenager about a new base guitar.
Admittedly, it is very cool. Things we found out yesterday while playing around -- the indented button on the left is the C chord. The button below that is F. Apparently the button above C is G, so you have the four major chords right next to each other. (see layout of buttons here). The black and white levers above the keyboard changes the octave of the notes.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Pallbearer
I was standing, watching them struggle with the coffin. They looked over in my direction and asked, "Can anyone young and strong help us with this?" I looked around to see if there were any able-bodied men around, but there weren't, so I went forward and offered my services as a pallbearer.
The coffin was light. We carried it through a glass door, making a sharp right turn and placed the coffin on the marble slab. By that time, there was a crowd of mourners surrounding us.
Elizabeth was the chief embalmer and funeral director. She told everyone in her lawyer's voice, "Mr Tze was 84 years old. Perhaps you all better stand back when we open the coffin." Stand back? Whatever for? Are old dead bodies worse than young dead bodies?
Suddenly, a sick sour smell hit me. The coffin lid had five sections that opened separately. Elizabeth had just opened the top section of the coffin, revealing a death mask with holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. Underneath the death mask was a bloated, disfigured face -- it was so bloated that it took up the entire section of coffin. The sick sour smell made the crowd reel with terror and shrink back into the edges of the dream.
Elizabeth continued opening the other sections of the coffin, apparently unfazed by the smell. Upper Torso; Lower Torso -- a mess of bloated intestines; the smell intensified. What kind of embalmer was she? The dead embalming the dead?
She really sucks at her job.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Here in my cage
11:50pm, hungry already, another 40mins more before I am let loose to eat. It doesn't help that I have absolutely nothing to do to distract me from my stomach. It also doesn't help that I've uppped my mileage recently and my appetite has grown. When I was playing volleyball for the college and training three times a day, I could finish a US-sized hamburger with fries and wash it down with a jumbo milkshake, preferably oreo or peanut butter. I would love a real peanut butter milkshake now -- not the watery, icey stuff that passes off as a milkshake over here, but the kind that gets stuck midway up your straw 'cos it is so thick. That kind of a peanut butter milkshake.
Read More!Yin Foh Kuan Cemetery
This is a Hakka cemetery tucked behind Blk 32 of Holland Close, one of the streets leading away from Holland Village. The memorial stones are packed close to each other, like a Roman army formation. My colleagues tell me that the memorial stones are for civilians who died during the second world war. They also say that LKY's grandfather's memorial stone is supposedly among the thousand-odd stones. There was a worker re-doing one of the larger memorial stones when we visited yesterday.
Update: LKY's grandfather is not at the Holland Close cemetery but was at another Hakka cemetery at Holland Lane Holland Link. There were talks to acquire the Holland Lane Holland Link cemetery in 1971. Please see Gelyn's clarification in the comments section of this post. Thanks.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Quote from Runner's World
Summer Smarts: "Cool mornings are wonderful for running, but they won't prepare your body for hot summer racing. Instead, run once or twice a week during the warmer hours of the day. Or run on a treadmill with the room temperature at 72 degrees." -Erin Ploskonka, RW designer
Erm, or you could just run in Singapore. 72 Fahrenheit is what, 22 degree Celsius?
It is 10 in the morning. The temperature outside is already 30 deg C.
Traversing worlds
I told it to him the way I would have if there had been a death involved.
"My friend has decided to go overseas to study."
"Oh, where?" he said, in between mouths of rice and dumplings.
"Australia," adding quickly, "She was the colleague I had lunch with everyday."
"Uh hmm."
"For the past week, everyone who saw me during lunch would say, `You are alone today?' and I would say, `Yah lor, what to do?'"
"Uh hmm. Hey, this fan choi (steam rice with pork) is really big; the one they sell at my school is like half the size."
"Yes, of course. Fan choi is usually larger than luo mai kai (glutinous rice with chicken)."
And so he missed what I was trying to tell him.
I'm used to saying bye at airports -- the heart and gut wrenching goodbye and the sombre foreknowledge that life will never be the same again. When I left the US for good, it felt like a dying. I gave away my car and my money to my sister; I distributed my clothes, cooking appliances, utensils, and books among my friends; and I drove myself the airport for the final time, knowing that in all likelihood, I'll never be able to own a car again, that I'll never see my roommate or friends again, that I'm leaving the community, the church, the people, my favourite place in the whole wide world, my bicycle, the hikes, walmart, the dryer, the lifestyle; everything behind. Oh, where do I hide the memories of my favourite place in the whole world? It overlooks a river -- swift, powerful, wide; shaded yet in the sun, made of a rock tinged with red.
I am leaving pieces of myself all over the world.
One day I would like to live in China for a while. The people and the language intrigue me. It was only after living in the US for five years that I had an intimate knowledge of American idiosyncrasies, fashion, slang, food, and ultimately, their worldview, in spite of having known and used English all my life. In the same way, I would like to know the Chinese mind too -- they are so similiar to me -- we have the same fair, yellow skin and indistinct features, yet so different. But I don't know if I could leave again. Read More!
Funny stuff.Monday, July 04, 2005
California Fitness
Did you know that California Fitness has more female members than male? Surprising isn't it? When I go to the YCK gym, it is almost 90% male. One of the reasons suggested for this discrepancy is that a lot of women at California Fitness join for the classes: pilates, yoga, kick-boxing, etc., rather than for the weights. California Fitness is a veritable hothouse of fitness activity. All kinds of gleaming contorted bodies on specialised equipment; running, stepping, stretching, straining... The atomsphere borders on the fanatic -- nothing at all with what I associate with running. But the up side of the gym is that it provides wonderful clean towels, the kind where you want to burrow your face in over and over again, not to mention the soap, shampoo, conditioner and hairdryer. It makes exercising very convenient.
Friday, July 01, 2005
The clock
The clock at the bottom right of the screen
Counts the seconds and the minutes, and finally
The hours, between eight and six;
The months, between payday and caution;
The years, between which one grows old;
With decades tucked in the belt, a realisation,
That wisdom was never in the package
When you signed above the dotted line.
