What in the world?

I’m not a fan of KFC, but this story tickled me.

i laugh, because this dude is ridonkculous

http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20091027-176233.html

Shape and Shaping Up

“I am in shape. Round is a shape.”

2 weeks of holidays and another 1 week of partying before that could not have been good for my body. I went for the Nike Human Race yesterday, and after the 7km mark, my body was telling me all sorts of things. Like how tired it was, and how far there was still to go (it was a 10km race, but seriously, your body tells you all sorts of crazy things when you near the end. For me, at least it does). Then, as always at moments like this, I get very philosophical. I think about my life as a stream of consciousness, and how I could just walk and stop, but it’d be like every other time where I put my mind to something and just let it eventually slide from my consciousness and out of my life, limping away into the darkness of the corner that I have left all the other projects, like setting up the drawers that I bought from Ikea or learning how to play the guitar/piano well.

I guess it’s all about which level you aspire to, how big a pond you want to swim in, and more importantly, how big a fish you want to be. For that, I am still figuring out. But you really have to appreciate the top athletes in the world that perform at the highest level for years. Such crazy hunger, such drive, and such desire to not lose. It’s crazy. And inspirational as well. Inspirational stuff are always regarded as a crazy idea until someone proves that it’s doable.

I always enjoy the scene from the movie The Rock where Sean Connery (as John Mason) is preparing to jump into a gun fight, and he’s asking the agent (Stanley Goodspeed) played by Nicholas Cage if he’s ready to go blow some stuff up.

John Mason: Are you sure you’re ready for this?
Stanley Goodspeed: I’ll do my best.
John Mason: Your “best”! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and f*** the prom queen.

In that sense, I am glad to be working where I am now. People don’t settle for just doing well. They want the prom queen at home.

Transit

So I’m here at Manilla airport, the first time I’ve even been in Philippines (technical or otherwise), and it’s nice that they have wireless internet here. One of the things that constantly remind me how pervasive technology is, is how badly I started craving internet connectivity once I touched down. Facebook, Yahoo (dare I even put Facebook before my email these days?), ESPN, Soccernet… The list goes on.

It’s not such a bad flight, Singapore to Philippines. It’s a tiny plane, and I did have two big people on each side, but mostly they were considerate and left their elbows to themselves, instead of throwing jabs like they were Manny Pacquiao or something. After I got out of the plane, I tried to look for the transit area to go to, but it turns out that the arrival and departure halls are only connected outside the immigration counters, which meant that I had to be escorted by well, an escort that ushered me to the x-ray/metal detector machines at the departure hall on another floor.

The airport is sparse, and by that I mean there’s a tiny costmetics area, a store that sells Manilla cigars (which I’ll have to Google about later), Delifrance (what?) and a chocolate shop. In the midst of all this, there’s this table space with a sign that says “Exclusive for laptop users only”, which baffles me, since y’know, you can set up like a shop there or something.

Well, it’s time to get some Delifrance and start on Hyperion. I hope the guy next to me on the next leg – all 16 hours and 30 minutes of it – will be tiny. PLEASE.

Two

Things that made me happy today. The first, I grinned. The second, I said, “What the shit! HAHAHAHAHA”

First:

Second:
This is war!

fer cryin’ out loud

it’s just 5 people walking. seriously.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_439121.html

What Annoys Me About the Straits Times..

coming up with shitty 100-people polls, without any substantial and proper demographic considerations make me really really angry. They might as well has gone to UWC or SAS to conduct the poll. Bullocks, especially when it comes from our so-called acclaimed national newspaper.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20091005-171920.html

Week 5

It was some crazy-ass cough that took me out for the last couple of weeks, and I ran only like 6km each week. The terrible parts were running and then suddenly feeling completely breathless. Then would come the flashes of my life flashing before my eyes. Okay, well, nothing as dramatic as that, but it did occur to me how embarrassing it would read in the papers “Man dies while preparing for a marathon. Distance covered? 5km” hahaha

This week I started trying to run again and it’s been going well. I went to see my doc about the remnants of my cough that tend to bug me when I’m tired, and I found out that she’s an avid runner that’s been taking part in 10-20km races over the past few years, and that she’s going to be taking part in the marathon for the first time this year. I started telling her that I was going to be running as well, and I think she was slightly appalled that I hadn’t started training hardcore yet, and told me that I should start getting some distance on my runs, instead of just the typical 6km runs that I try to go for.

So, I found out that there’s this charity 10km Yellow Ribbon Run (www.yellowribbon.org.sg/) in support of ex-convicts and started looking for people that had signed up, but wanted to flake, so that I could take their running slot. This was to no avail until suddenly a friend called me on Friday and asked if I was going to party. I hadn’t spoken to her in ages, and it dawned upon me that she was a runner, so I asked. And it turned out that she had a friend that signed up but was not going to turn up, so I asked her to check with her friend if I could take over.

So tomorrow morning, I will be running as Gina.

My friend Gerry thinks that I’m going to be the fastest girl timing there, and I said, “Have you seen me run recently?”

I just hope I finish tomorrow.

Week 2: Bucket List

Cumulative distance: 10.2 km

This week has been a lot better in terms of running prep, but the cough still lingers. I’m getting more comfortable with running though, which is nice.

I just watched the movie Up, and I thought it was a great movie. While it was funny, touching and just a great movie,the thing that struck me was the idea of the “bucket list”, which seems to be a theme in my life this week. I was having drinks with N the other night and we were just talking about bucket lists and things that we wanted to do before we died (no, not Japanese twins). I, for one never really foresaw life after 30, so I was telling him that’s why I climbed a mountain this year, and wanted to take part in a marathon, and hopefully climb another mountain soon. But more than that, it got me thinking throughout the rest of the week about the idea of a bucket list.

I realized that I don’t really have a list, and it’s something that I develop as I go along. It’s like you climb one mountain, then you realize that there’s the next one to climb. You complete a mini distance triathlon, and then you want to do the sprint distance. One builds upon the other upon the other. I guess turning 29 kind of puts you in a spot, since there’s not that much time left, but that was the catalyst. As a side note in my mid-twenties I’ve wanted to make a movie, set up a bar and get really good at guitar, and learn Japanese. I count 1/4 a triumph, because it shows I might actually be able to do the rest also. How cool is that.

It feels like the paternal nature of being in Singapore makes it almost too easy to settle into normalcy, as if there actually is a standard of normal to attain. Heck, the government even wants to come up with laws on filial piety, which I think is ridiculous. Not because filial piety is ridiculous, but because you have to come up with a law to govern people’s behaviors on it. How surreal and strange at the same time.

Anyhow, I’ll just apply the same thing to running. Keep at it.

Week 1

Cumulative distance: 4.2 km

I’ve been down with a cough this week that just won’t seem to go away. The cough meds drugged me up enough for me to go for a 4km run on Tuesday, but on Thursday, I tried again and decided after 200m that feeling breathless wasn’t really a good sign. It’s one thing to be in a race and injure yourself or even die, but the headline that flashed through my head – “Man Dies While Running On Treadmill” – was just too embarrassing. The course of antibiotics is done, so tomorrow I’ll troop to the doc to get more stuff.

On another week, this week is going to be really, really challenging for me, work-wise. Too many things are threatening to go wrong, and while I like things to be nice and predictable, it’s in these situations that you separate the wheat from the chaff. And I like being wheat (in this case), so I’ll need to prove it to myself. Clear-headed-ness is something that is a WIP for me, so being drugged up will prove a stiff test. Let’s see.

To bed!