Run run run

In 2 months, I completed 2 10km marathons. Never seen such zest for running in myself before.

The first 10km marathon I ran for after sometime was the Adidas Sundown Marathon. The night was cooling and the race starts at night so there was no problem of waking up early.

However, the second one, Mizuno Wave Run, required me to wake up before sunrise in order to make it to TP. Crazy crazy crazy because I stay in the west and TP is all the way at the other end. Truthfully I convinced myself that I wouldn’t go after I went to the bus stop in the morning to find out that the bus services hadn’t start yet. But I still managed to drag myself there thanks to another form of transport called – taxi.

I was quite glad that I did make it for the Mizuno run despite physical tiredness, transport difficulties and being emotionally disturbed. One thing that I like about long distance running is that it not only builds up your endurance and perseverance, it trains your mind power to push yourself. I filled my mind with positive and encouraging thoughts throughout the run so that I wouldn’t stop to walk along the way. Although I was very tempted to stop running for a while but I’ve never stopped in previous 10km runs I’ve participated in so this was a definite no no.

The post marathon feeling is…WOW. Its like, I completed it! And the satisfaction is like a rush of blood to the head. Adrenaline rush! Whoo! The run not only trains your endurance, it shows you that you can endure what you previously thought was impossible. I like~

What comforts you?

I realised that I haven’t put up my last post yet. Oops.

There are certain things that people do when they seek comfort.

Some turn to food, some turn to music. Others probably include sleeping, drinking or shopping (!). A few may even turn to their favourite soft toys or pillow. Alright that mainly applies to children.

Studies have shown that chocolate has anti-depressant properties. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/02/2049304.htm)

But I don’t know why my emotions went rollercoaster downhill after eating a CHOCOLATE sundae. Well, chocolate is chocolate, right? (inside joke) HAHA. Ok, maybe the main reason is that I let my emotions take the wheel and it just…crashed. Did I tell you that the swing is therapeutic? If it isn’t too late and the last place I want to be in is home, I head to the playground near my house and sit on the swing. Sometimes I do swing and sing softly at the same time. But I refrain from singing when there are people walking their dogs around the area.

So I swing and swing all my troubles away, or at least I try to. It is a nice feeling to be on a swing, suspended in mid-air and all. You feel unbounded. And ready to fly off anytime! Ok, exaggeration. But really, it gives me freedom.

What comforts you?

I wanna hug clouds

I took this during the evening while I had break for my captain’s ball game. Although it was taken with my lousy phone, I still love the way the clouds look. Simply breathtaking.

When I was about 4, my cousin and I would stand at the window of our grandmother’s house and look out for the clouds. A sunny day with plenty of clouds in the sky is the best. Each of the big clouds seem to look like something to us. My cousin would go, “Hey! Thats a crocodile!”

We could spend an hour by the window, just looking at the shapes of the clouds. Each time one of us spotted something, we would tell the other one excitedly and point our little finger towards the particular cloud. Simple joy.

As we grew up, we forgot how to lift our heads up to the sky and look at the clouds that are always above us. More than 10 years later, I remembered how pretty the clouds are. The other day, when I was taking photos of the clear blue sky, It struck me that life is like a bunch of clouds. Isn’t it?

Just like my cousin and I who were trying to find something out of the shapeless clouds, each one of us are constantly trying to make something out of our lives. You never know when it ends, you never know exactly when it’ll rain.

Clouds are pretty, yeah?

P.S.: Both pictures were taken with my phone.

Fragility of life

2 May 2008 – Cyclone Nargis hits Myanmar

12 May 2008 – 7.9 magnitude earthquake hits China Sichuan

Hundred thousand of lives gone. Just like that. The scary part is that we don’t feel a thing when disaster strikes somewhere and sweeps lives away in an instant. We’re oblivious.

On Sunday night, I just casually picked up the chinese newspaper to have a quick look. Upon unfolding it, the images of the earthquake victims and headlines overwhelmed me. A little boy covered in debris had his rugged clothes changed by his parents so that he’ll enter the afterlife more peacefully. Parents crying their hearts out beside the cold, crushed corpse of their only daughter. A little girl told the reporter that her school collapsed just 2 seconds after she escaped from the building. A close shave with death.

I think the picture that gave me the strongest impact was one of a father squatting quietly beside his 2 dead sons, having his last look at both of his sons. I’m choked with grief as I recall the image. It feels like needles poking your heart one by one, each one sinking deeper as a new one pokes in. Heartbreaking.

We’re so lucky to be sheltered from all these natural disasters. Let us be grateful from the bottom of our hearts for the safe geographical location of our little island. Thanks the heavens that we worry about helping other countries affected by natural disasters and not about natural disasters hitting us.

Drive

I’m not gonna talk about driving cars here. I’m talking about the motivation that spurs you on when you’re doing something. It strengthens your determination and perseverance. It pretty much decides if you’re gonna make it or break it.

On Saturday, I took part in a Captain’s Ball tournament. I had 2 teams of 8 which represented NP. We played against teams from TP and SP. Being a previous netball player, I was in charge of supervising the trainings for NP’s teams. Seeing each of my friends putting in the effort to improvise techniques and implement the little tips that I give gives me a good feeling. On the day itself, their teamwork is just amazing. The prize for the winning team was $200 in cash. So I guess the driving motivation behind most of the participants is mainly money? But for me it was simply nice to see that we’re all working together with one goal – playing with our best. We won most and lost a few games. Faced teams which played a little too rough for us to handle but we survived it all.

What if we put in equal amount of drive behind all the things we do? Would life be better? Would we achieve everything that we dream of and even if we failed, we would not look back in tears because we understand that we have already put in our best efforts. Who knows? Only God knows. We as mere humans cannot foresee our outcomes. The only way is to give everything that we’ve got. Sounds simple? Application is the hardest part.

Looking back

Why do people like to reminisce the old times? We always think about the ‘good old times’. Thinking that we are better off stuck in the past. Is it really better that way?

I surmise that there are several reasons why that we tend to let our minds wander back into the past. Firstly, we’re unwilling to step out of our comfort zone fully. Secondly, we have regrets that haunt us till this day and we wish that we could go back and change it.

Everyone goes through this. First day in a totally new environment, surrounded by faces you’ve probably never even seen before in your entire life. You start to think about the times when you step into class and you know and recognize every face that looks up. Compared to what you’re going through now, you’d rather go back to the past. The reasons being that you have to go through another phase of getting to know people, you have to make the effort to understand your new friends. Instead of just chilling out with those you already know so well. It’s the effort that we have to make that puts us off. Really. But once we overcome that, everything else falls into place.

Who doesn’t have regrets? I do. I really regret not treasuring the times when I still had my parents with me. It hurts when the fact that we’re not together as a family anymore dawned upon me. Hurts to the core. I really wished that I had done more in the past. But wallowing in grief really doesn’t help. I’d rather move on. Ever heard of the saying ‘life can only be lived forward and understood backward’? I have strong belief in that saying. After all, aren’t the past experiences that make up who we are now?

Think about the good old times, live your present life to the fullest and hope for your future.

BBQ noob

What happens when you don’t have a barbecue pit for barbecue?

You use aluminum trays and poke holes at the sides for ventilation, put your charcoal and fire starter in it and light it up.
Just that it wasn’t so simple. The low quality fire starters my friends bought had problems lighting up and my friend almost burned off his fingers in his attempt to get it lighted. Alright I was exaggerating. When we finally got the fire started, it looked something like this:

Talk about extremity, the fire got really big and for an instant I really thought that we would be the culprits for burning down Punggol Park! My friend had to tell me about his friend’s exploded barbeque stand. The poor guy escaped the incident with slight injuries and a laptop with a melted keypad. Just imagine the horror of the barbecue stand blowing before you.
Thankfully, the aluminum trays didn’t explode. But it was sauna hot! If my head were an egg, it would’ve become a hard-boiled egg. So I gave up being chef of the night after grilling a few sausages. (They were slightly burnt) Subsequent people who took over the cooking made the feasting a more enjoyable experience. We completed the barbecue course with marshmallows! Oh the delight of sweet roasted marshmallows!
Everyone left with full and happy stomachs.

I’m alive

So I survived the first week of school.

I guess anyone in the first year could agree with me that poly life IS a big difference from secondary school. Be it in terms of daily attire, classmates, lecturers or school environment. But to me, the greatest challenge of all was the freedom given to us as first year poly students. We’re no longer treated as kids clad in dull uniforms but young adults capable of looking after ourselves and being 100% responsible for our own academic performance. There are no form teachers who chase after you for that consent form that was due 2 weeks ago or discipline master who stares at you from top to toe looking out for your attire and hair. None of that could be seen here.
Taking the poly route could have been a route towards destruction for me because I regard myself as the greatest class sleeper in secondary school. Dozing off in almost every lesson that I had. Falling behind in my work was the most expected consequence and that cost me my O level preliminary exams. Since I was such a big procrastinator and didn’t bother to work that hard for exams, imagine what the freedom in poly would affect me as if I am still a big procrastinator? Thankfully my prelims woke me up from my deep slumber. I really wanted to pull up my grades and score well enough to enter JC. And I did it!

But why am I here then? You might be asking. NP FSV was my 3rd choice. I couldn’t get into the JCs that I wanted but right now I am really truly grateful that I wasn’t placed in my first or second choice because I don’t think I’d enjoy JC life as much I’d thought. So here I am, pursuing my dreams with almost 60 other people who share the same dream as me. I really want to put in my best effort in this new environment of studying and prove that getting into my 3rd choice isn’t a mistake. Who knows what blessings can be showered upon us right? If I hadn’t entered NP, my life will be a wholly different right now. I don’t know how, but I am very satisfied with what I have now and with the people around me.

I will survive the next 3 years.