Cycling Training.

Today was supposed to be a hard morning for me, Norms and ZY. Obviously things didn't go according to plan. So we had one of the best mornings in a long long time :) Thanks Mich for the gentle reminder... There was a dream before the dream... I should try and remember my goals and ambitions...

Ramblings: Part 4

I am starting to understand how a mugging session should go. A little bit of reading, then some gaming, a tinge of You-Tubing, a little chit-chat session with the bum who's eternally on Football Manager beside me, togopart-ing with the other bum across the table followed mixed in with... some revision. Productivity level should remain at a maximum of 47 percent, failure to do so will result in an early burn-out session. This post isn't supposed to be coherent in any way whatsoever, hence the title. Anyway, as I am penning this little blog entry, I have discovered a great deal more about the online behaviour of my fellow Singaporeans. We like to bitch about the most bizarre of stuff and we seem to enjoy intruding in each other's private affairs. Next, the quality of local tv productions... need we say more (again... just a personal opinion...). NUS should seriously consider replacing Channel 5 , 8 and U with AXN, Starworld and the Hallmark Channel. I think we'll have a much happier population of TV viewers here. Alrighty, I'll leave the other potential discussion topics for another post :)

Food for the damn mind.

Subway meatball... 6 inch no cheese... all the works... THAT is what one needs to stay awake at such an unearthly hour... Mambo... next week... Anyway, something to sooth the soul on a terribly boring Tuesday evening... 

Till the next post moi friends!

My Lullaby :)

Excellent piece of work. Stunning... if only I could do... that :)

Gone

Its 2 in the morning. 

I can't sleep cause i screwed up my sleep pattern.

I have a calculus paper tomorrow.

I do not understand half of what I studied.

I need a miracle.

I do not subscribe to any religion which might grant me that miracle.

I need to finish 5 more examination papers before 1 p.m.

I am still blogging. 

I am so screwed. 

Coming Soon.

Its working for ZY so I believe its going to bloody hell work for me too. I am going to start a list of stuff than I am going to accomplish before the year is out... and I am going to publish it here. Correlation doesn't imply causality some might argue but hey if it works for her it might work for me right. Let's see... knowing all the questions to MA1102R, VIP status at subway, 27 hours in a day (I just need three more for the bike ride...).... :)

Awareness...

The recent spate between the old guard of AWARE and the newly elected executive committee of the Women's association is the latest of saga's to have hit Singapore mainstream media. The wild accusations, media frenzy and badly organized press interviews do in someway provide relief to the my rather exhausted-cramming-for-examinations-undergraduate mind. Call me apathetic but I believe that if everybody just minds their own bloody business and go about on their own merry way, the world would be a much better place. 

I did browse through some of the articles online and I must add (to the already bustling furry of responses) that we, as the general public, really don't know much about what the heck is going on in the first place. I am pretty confident that a good number of the people chastising both the old and new executive committees don't even know what AWARE does in the first place. I'd say we all just take a step back (if we have the damn time...) and take a good look at all the facts before us and the events, both before and after the election, before deciding which side of the fence we should (want) to stand on. 

The new exco has garnered a lot of bad press as of late with regards to their proposed direction and vision for the women's right civil organization. Personally, I don't really like what I read about the new exco and their rather zealous, holier-than-thou, quasi-religious personas. It seems that they might have bitten off more than they could chew and have throughly underestimated the resistance of modern-day civil society. The media seems to be having a field day too, as online articles, press releases and media coverage rip to shreds whatever cover story they might have in their search for that elusive "real" story. I did manage to catch a Channel News Asia interview with the incumbent president and one of her side-kicks and I must add that they did not really do a decent job in convincing those watching of their rationale behind the "pseudo-leadership-coup". 

The AWARE saga is still ongoing and I doubt it's going to end anytime soon. To deviate a bit from reality, this whole episode is starting to really closely resemble the "Secret Invasion" story-line :) Anyway... what concerns me most for now is this coming Monday's Calculus Paper... its back to the books for me! 

Ramblings: Part 3

Sometimes I wonder if these things happen for a reason. Is there a deeper meaning behind it all or is it perhaps just some ill-conceived prank meant for the gullible. It's amazing how the all-too-familiar feeling comes out of nowhere and seizes you in a chokehold; a jolt of electricity shoots up (or down) your spine as the air gets sucked out of you slowly.. but surely. Every heartbeat echoes like a church bell on a Sunday morning, its deafening beats drowning out every other sensation one might have. Damn. Damn. Damn. It sure as hell feels good. 

With that out of the way, I guess its high time I got back to the cursed books and get some real work done. Till the next entry. 

Just a thought

Your dream in someone else's hand. Its a sucky feeling. Trust me on that. I am going to make sure I make it there before you; if you ever make it there at all. 

Schedule

Just as a personal reminder, you know how its like with me and dates :) Especially unimportant ones :) 

EC 2303

06/05/2009; 1300h; MPSH 2-A

EC 2101

29/04/2009; 1300h; MPSH 1-A

EC 2102

04/05/2009; 1300h; MPSH 2-B

MA 1101R

27/04/2009; 1300h; LT26

Here comes the rain :(

It poured today at 4.15 a.m. in the morning. 

I was sad. 

I was so sad. 

The mental preparations made the night before to take on the roads of Changi. 

Calling it a night early instead of mugging hard through dusk and burning whatever midnight oil I had left.  

I laid down in my bed in tears. 

My training plans lay in ruins before me.

Then I closed my eyes.

And I was happy.

The clock struck 12 p.m.

I awoke. 

And I was elated.

The ride will be pushed till this evening.

Let's hope it rains again. 

So I can be sad again.

I should start my mugging soon.

Cause I am not making any sense.

Lessons from Mum

"Never ever look a cockroach in the eyes. Your Grandmother and I were standing there. I saw it first. Grandmother told me to ignore it; I should have listened. I kept eyeing it as it crept along the wall. Watching it. Observing it. Then it flew right at me..." She shivered as she recalled one of the most frightening experiences of her life. Good advice I'd say :)

Inaugural Hill-Slayer Ride.

I managed to get past the first one. The second alarm approximately 2 minutes later succeeded in raising me from the bed, however it was only after mummy rapped on the door did I get up and off the bed. After downing a cup of cuppachino and three slices of raisin bread, I packed up the bike and my cycling gear into the car before zipping off to school. I met up with Norms, Nic and Josh at TH, and after a quick brief we were off on my first HSR. 

After a warm up ride up Pasir Panjang road through South Buona Vista Road, we kicked off our training at NUH. We did two NUH-Cheers-Law Link-Business Link-KR bus terminal-PGP-NUH loops before breaking out of the loop onto Clementi road through SRC. After that we hit a short Cross-Campus-last 1.8 km-up Central Library loop before going on the NCLBKPN (refer to above) again. We repeated that twice before (plus an extra 1 kilometre cause we missed a turn...) before ending off at NUS MAC's. Total mileage for today was about 28 km which isn't too bad for a early morning hiilly weekday ride:) Josh, Nic and Norms have morning lessons, so we downed a quick breakfast before going our separate ways. I showered and changed up before heading to YIH to continue on my mugfest. The academic pursuit has not been exactly fruitful thus far but after a quick nap... which I am about to take now... I hope my afternoon will be as fruitful as my morning :) 

Thanks guys for the ride and thanks Norms for that sms... :)

The night is long...

Long run, Long night, Long bike ride (on tv that is...) and a Long mug session ahead... damn.

Thoughts during a Mid-Monday Afternoon Mug Session

The sights before me are as captured in the following three photographs. The sounds... there is no sound lest the shuffling of papers as another set of notes are successfully copied, or the clicking of the mouse to open another webcast session to help reinforce the ever-so-forgetful mind. I, however can be taken as an anomaly in this sample of bobbing black heads (a feeble attempt at incorporating EC2303 into this blog article...). Idling around, Facebook surfing, shameless napping... these are what make up the bulk of my daily itinerary at YIH study room. Its about 3.20 in the afternoon now, Michelle seems to be throughly caught up in her law stuff and Qiu Rong, she frantically going through tons of what looks to be stats and maths note. JJ's off to "finish" his assignment and I am sitting here, near the entrance looking throughly lost. 

Table Top

To my left.

To my right.

The finals are in two and a half weeks time and its pretty obvious many are feeling the crunch of the up and coming examinations. Again, the story is so very different in my case. Having selected my modules based on what I thought would be important in time to come rather than what I would like to study, I am extremely unmotivated in pressing on the assault. Econometrics, Macro-Analysis, Micro... all have been reduced to a blur of roman symbols and random numerical equations before my oh-so-tired eyes. Two more weeks... till I get my one final chance to reset the course I want to embark on for the next 2-3 years. Its hard to imagine oneself in two years time, graduating, starting on one's careers... but then again it was hard to imagine sitting for the O' levels, A' levels and enlisting in the armed forces too. One moment, a hard to envision possibility in the future; a moment later, a mere reflection in the ever expanding list of "been there, done that". Oh well... I guess we all have to go through it at some point in time. 

Demonstrations in the streets of Bangkok

On a less personal note, the civil unrest in Thailand is getting worse all over again. I'll spare everyone the less thrilling details of what, why and how the mess in the "land of smiles" began, one can find the boring, all too familiar snippets of information in the papers and the daily news. Different Parties, Same People, Different Colored shirts, Same Crappy fight... Unless the government and the conflicting parties can come to some form of consensus, and solve the underlying issues responsible for the persistent unrest in Thailand... I'll never be able get the permission I need to resume my biannual shopping trips in กรุงเทพมหานคร :( My last scheduled trip was cancelled due to the Anti-Thaksin protests a couple of months back. For the sake of the Thai economy and my happiness:), let's all hope this storm blows over soon. 

Sunday's bike ride went terribly well. The ride was blissfully uneventful and many previously observed trends were broken. People woke up on time, the punctual ones were late and those many expected to run over a dog or get run over by a bus, survived the ride. :) 90 plus kilometers in mileage concluded by a sumptuous breakfast at Mac's, I really won't have my Sunday mornings any other way. 

This monday afternoon has been rather unproductive. Before I get back to the books, I really want to thank Kevin for helping me out with the bloody Maple quiz earlier. You're a lifesaver really :) And with that final statement, I am off to finish up one last set of notes before heading to the pool. Till the next entry!

Mad World - American Idol Contestant Adam Lambert

Beautiful rendition of an amazing amazing amazing song :)

Mugging @ YIH

Togoparts; Bike Case; Facebook; Showdown; Dinner; Lightning; Stretch Cords; Subway; Mugging; Distractions; Noise; Toilet; Coffee; Vespa; Dumplings; Car Ride and most importantly friendship. 

Not taking the rather low productivity into account, I think the day went pretty well :)

Determination

I am going to finish Econometrics by tonight. Period. And before the night is over... I would have ran a couple of kilometers... and finished reading one of the most insightful blogs I have read in a long long time (excluding those that are already on the blog roll to the bottom left of this page...) 

The things I do on a Saturday Afternoon :)

I just thought that I should upload some of these photos before I settle down to get some work done. I kinda figured that some individuals out there might wanna know just how good I am with my hands and just how green my fingers... really are :) 

Washing the car...

Preparing the "Canvas"

My Advisor. Really needed his opinion on the progress of my work

My Advisor giving me pointers and tips on how to get the job done.

Masterpiece done:)

The Artists and the finished product.

Just thought the world needed a little bit more loving and peace haha :) Alrighty... Back to the books :)

Sunday Morning Work-Out

The morning began at 6 am for me. Got up... lulled around a bit... downed a bowl of museli and nuts with that double shot expresso before dressing up and heading out. I am just going to stick with the point form narrative cause this is supposed to be a quick update (yes I am going to mug my arse off in about 10 minutes time...) and I don't want to delve too much into the gritty details. 

Most of the guys and girls arrived by 7.45 am and it wasn't long before we headed out for our Sunday ride... 

ok here's the ride brief:

I broke off and stuck with Nic and Norman for the remainder of the ride :)

Had lunch at Mac's 

Cycled home with JY

Heard the unfortunate news about Lemin's accident... 

OK... thats' about it... from me anyway... time to mug!!!

Game Theory

9.23 am... Well I think there was a significant improvement over 10.23 am yesterday. Anyway, I still went for a 3+ km run with my new pair of shoes :)

I am quite a noob at the technicalities of running but I do know that I have always been rather heavy heel striker when it comes to running (even walking...). With the new pair of shoes, there was a significant shift in the way my feet contacts the ground... I'll just stop here cause I am really sounding stupid trying to explain something I ain't too sure about. 

Pukka was good last night, with the three of us gorging on two waffle baskets worth of ice-cream. Nic proposed a boycott of Pukka for at least a week, because the prowess of its calorie booster is starting to take effect in a sure yet altogether subtle way. 

The hall accommodation arrangements have too been finalized. Things didn't go exactly according to plan but hey, all things happen for a reason right? I'll just take things as it is, be grateful that the 5 (or 6?) of us will be together for another academic year to come :)

My training program's pretty crapped up. I lack the discipline to get things going and to stay the course. I guess I'll be looking to Norman and JJ and the training bible for that extra strength. 

Alrighty... with that quick little update... its back to Vizzini and Wesley and their strategy profile of who's going to drink some bottle of poison on some random table... :(

 

Almost...

I kinda figured that if only I stayed awake for two and a half more hours, I might have made it to the darn morning run... Sleep, more specifically the lack of it, does wonders... Anyway... Jason-0 and the rest of you morons-1 :S

Stupid Sleep Cycle... argh!!

I know its late... and I should really be sleeping soon if I wanna get up in time for tomorrow's run but... you really got to check this dude out... Beautiful covers... simply awesome!

Yawn!

Just got up... excellent sleep... all that's left now... carpe diem... (HAHA I hope thats the right way to use that oh-so-cool-I-sound-intelligent-term...)