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22 December
Again another day with 6hrs of training! Thank goodness for the slack "run" and alot of medicine balls which were pretty fun. The swim was slack too and so we ended a little early and I had time to watch hall 2's polo training for a while. Swimming was fun with Rod, Sue, Desmond, me! I discovered the bliss of flipper-ing! Zoooommmm! Then I went to the dentist and had to wait for more than an hour after my stated appointment time. I fell asleep in the waiting room in an unglam position. The dentist was ..... I'd rather he talk to me about the options I have when my baby tooth falls out rather than just skip the whole issue so lightly and talk about where did I come from.
Leewei was the greatest friend on earth cuz he came to find me and gave me a packet of fruits knowing I was bored waiting and dying of starvation since it was 5pm and I haven't eaten since morning! Ate dinner at can A!
23 December
I had time to kill in the morning so I went to swim! Slack one. I realised I didn't bring my wallet and I wanted to eat at can 2 badly, so I decided to take a walk to can 2, hoping I can meet friends to borrow money. Thankfully, I met the hall 2 swimmers outside! And very paiseh but I borrowed money from Rod thank goodness. Inside I met ter ho and xt.... Could've avoided it all.
Anw nice meal, showered and headed to NIE hockey pitch to return money and then to JE for lesson with Hannah and Adel. Afterwhich I almost died travelling before ending up at ntu's OCK to happily order all sorts of sides and watched them cook it. (I'd never wanna eat the curry puffs again) NTU Bi team christmas party at hall 16's lounge! It was fun! Mostly thanks to Yogi and Pingwei. It's always the seniors who're filled with crap. Had to eat CHICKEN (shrunken turkeys apparently ha-ha) cuz I got ACE. Card game. Stayed behind to watch finish Ice Princess in the lounge till 12.
Apparently Marcus' was my secret santa. The whole story goes like this. The drawing was done during the training when I was in KL. (Oh yes, it seems this hol the whole world went KL! well.. almost) And so apparently while talking to leewei online thru lols' msn, the question abt 5x5 rubiks, marcus, and would I want it came up. So apparently we thot marcus was my santa, he asked leewei to ask if i'd like it. So I was !@#$%^&^ at lw for 'giving it' away. Turns out lw was thinking of christmas presents for us in general and was wondering if marcus/me would like a 5x5. IN THE END, it turned out marcus WAS my santa, and he got me a 5x5. Without lw knowing.
24 December
Met up with tjband frens at Paragon's Bakerzin! :) :) :) Apparently the meeting time at 10.45am was met only by idunno...who? Ended up one train behind lols so arrived with her. A nice meal! (Speaking of which I still owe lols money for that!) Good food I must say! Except for the whatever dessert qtz ordered haha!
In the end we all followed Neem to Bugis where xt lols neem decided to brave the streets of Bugis, but I escaped with the guys ttk qtz edmund mj to the arcade! There's this fun game, ball throwing one, where the first round we did very well and hit top scorer! And qtz entered 'TJC'. Second round not so good he entered 'VJC' and it was 5th haha! Xt is REALLY good at bish-bash! I got a turtle massager from pam!
25 December
Christmas! :)
26 December
10am lesson with Rachel before driving the car back to hall! (Since it was 1100 car I was crawling like a lady driver) Preview of night cycling route to KR bike shop to repair my chain. I was too hungry to swim so I went to eat first instead, and slept by the stands while waiting for food to settle. Ended up watching hall 12's preparation for soccer match and met Manfred! After the swim, apparently hall 12 was winning hall 6! (guy's soccer) And I met Rod and Songloo (who had track training). Met ferroz with hall 3's trackers too! And hall 15's ppl! It's nice to stay ard during IH!
NIE prac at night only ended at 11.30! And I was more than ready to slaughter the SC.
27 December
I skipped bi training cuz it was ridiculous to try going. By the time I reached NIE (15mins late and met aloy) they'd finished moving the stuffs so we sat junjia's car over to audi! loitered around abit and did what we do best (act busy). Rehearsal was mad cuz we played through everything again. Thinned out reed, faint everywhere else. Thanks for all who came to support! Although the playing was atrocious.
THEN, I had some visitors to my room, and we went J.P. to eat dinner and it was the fun fun fun night cycling! Pics and videos and what nots are up on facebook! :) It was great, it was good, and a really great big thanks to guanhim for the maps and cautions and all! he rocks socks totally!
I really had fun with everyone! :)
28 December
Not having realised I ate breakfast at 5+am, I didn't eat till 4+pm. No wonder I was half-starved. TKGS Nakamura concert VCH. AWESOME! Totally worth the $12 circle seats. It was great to hear tkgs again. again. again :) It's amazing, how the tone remains. How the neatness is still there. How Ms Sia rocks, how tkgs rocks, how the dearest clarinet jnrs rock :)
Nakamura simply blew the audience away. The band was pretty small. The flautist was simply AMAZING. At one point where half of the already very small band was singing, with 3 trumpeters, it filled the whole hall. All in all, 5 trumpeters, 5 tbones (isit?) 3 french horns, 2 euphos, 2 tubas, was enough to fill the entire hall. Amazing. They sang too. 2 rows of girls and their voices floated to the ceilings of VCH. They encored 4 times. All the songs I knew! Eurobeat disney, fantillusion, el cumbanchero, my way! :) :) :) I could sit there all day! The girls were tearing alot. Aye. After 1hour of playing their lungs out, dancing, swinging around, singing, I'm amazed.
Then I KO-ed.
29 December
I decided I really couldn't wake up to go for training. Went for swim at 1pm but apparently no one came except Rod. Swam for abit but ended up mostly talking at the side of the pool in the end.
Ate dinner at 6+ without realising how starved I was. (Only a waffle for lunch!)
30 December
Taught Hannah Adel and ate alot.
31st December
I skipped training again! uh-oh! And ate alot.
AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
It's time for a long entry :)
Tuesday
Thank goodness I met Wen Fang on the bus. It was a wasted trip made to NBS early in the morning though cuz it was, like I said, wasted. Only thing I got was 5 mosquito bites while waiting for shuttle bus. So I headed to the pool to swim since I had time. It's frustrating :( I can't swim fast!
Home time was short after which I went to meet mj and hm at pp mrt. Apparently my dearest roomie was so late tt I spent 20mins playing many rounds of Mastermind with mj at the control station! I used to hate tt game when I was young cuz pited against bro how to win. I think I've grown smarter wahaha.
So it was a sprint home and back to the mrt to NEL down to DhobyGhaut to meet leewei for Gelare! Yummy yummy yummy. And then a sprint back to PP mrt where dad sent us over to his house, bro did free manual labour, and we shopped at Thomson plaza NTUC and I sat on a horse.
We were left alone in the house to welcome Dolphine (my 10 year-old cousin) at 10+ after which she refused to sleep, ate alot of marshmallow chocolates, and the lights-out at 12am only lasted till 1am where we all woke up. And subsequently fell asleep only after that girl stopped tossing n turning at 2am+?
Wednesday
Woken up at 5.45am! Unearthly. Crossed the causeway only at about 8am. We went to the new one. Isit 'ten millionth' visitor or 'tenth million' visitor? Many tolls, and zooming on highways. I drove for about 2hrs+ of the way! Quite proud of myself, a 4-month-old driver hitting the roads of malaysia! But it was freaky, especially when drove by this crazy smoking humongous lorry which was like weaving left and right. Damn scary. And when we met all the burst tires on the road! First time, I didn't know what was that, and almost banged, if not for dad screaming at me to slow down and holding the wheel. 140km/hr! Fun though :)
We ate lunch at Ayer Keroh or something. I ate this thing which was like mee rebus. But the taste of the sauce was a mix of mee rebus mee siam and laksa. HAhha. By the time we reached KL and the place of dad's fren's condo which we were staying in it was almost 1+. Since maps were useless, a nice couple actually showed us the whole way there by driving all the way there. We were assumed to be VIPs. ha-ha. But we reached there a little bit too late, sis jUST ran finish :( All thanks to slow walking grandmas and all. Dots. The age gap is like 1930 to 1998? haha. Watched some 800m guys before taking a long time to find our way back.
Swam in the huge pool downstairs the condo. Lovely view and sunset from there really! Played with Dolphine and even sat the slide! How gay, but fun haha. She's primary 4 and she can't shower on her own?!?!?! At pri4 I was suffering 2hrs everyday, showering in cold water from a shower where you have to press it every few seconds or so. We ate dinner at this roadside zi cha. Super yummy delicious. I eat until damn shuang.
We reached there in 7mins! Dad found the correct way. Superb, not bad. Reached 8.45+, in time to watch mok run his 10k in a PB and getting 3rd. The prize giving presentation was too irritating and long to wait tt we left ard 10+ n took a long time to get back. (Got lost)
Thursday
We woke up pretty late. 9+, and by the time we reached sunway lagoon it was 12. By the time we started playing it was 12.30 and we only had till 3pm latest to play! Slides were pretty mild, wave pool was actually v fun and i like the slide on the mat one! :) No time for the amusement park so I tried to pick the scariest ride which turned out not the LEAST bit scary at all. I was just worrying the girls nose opposite me will leak onto me.......... But it was fun all the same. Thank goodness for the clouds which blocked the sun halfway through if not we'll be charcoal black by now.
We got back and ate at around the same place. This time round, ice chocolate, plus roti prata and mee goreng. Lovely! The roti prata makes spore's prata seem really pathetic. So many different curries on one plate, and prata was made with butter and sugar. Super unhealthy but heavenly!
Bathed, and took a cab down to the stadium. The three of us. Roomie, me, dolphine. The taxi driver was irritating. I mean, I'd rather throw a 10 ringgit at him and walk there. Who cares abt the amount. I'm more worried abt reaching there later. Reached around 6pm. Missed the 200IM :( But managed to watch 50m breast guys girls, and 4x200m free relay. So I got to see aLL the spore team swimmers swim actually haha. Went over w sis n mok to talk a little w all of them. After swimming, we got roomie's heavenly ramly burger haha.
Track finals at 8pm. Watched some events. 3km steeple chase, 200m finals, sis' 1500m where she got 4th and missed 3rd by 1s!!!!! and their 4x400m relay. The most interesting event of the day. Last event for the entire AUG track was guys 4x400m. First, there was a false start. And when they restarted, it started to pour at the track. Alot of ppl around cuz it was like the last event so everybody who finished hung around etc. Spore started off last. Then the overtaking started, and we were SECOND AT THE LAST BEND! But the last runner, cramped like 50m to the finishing line. Oh my goodness. Got 4th or 5th in the end. What a waste :( The most exciting race on earth.
It then poured. Like the heavens opened, and it poured.
Reached back really late cuz the last event was like 10+ already. We went for prata round 2. YUMMY! Thank goodness for leewei's patient entertainment for dolphine every night on msn! Since day 1 on tuesday night haha.
Friday
Morning had curry this time round. It's really nice and CHEAP! Packed up the place, including the bleached towel. (I feel totally dots) And we headed to Jalan Bukit Bintang for shopping! Lunch was at this bar.b.q place with a really interesting method using lard instead of butter! Yummy Yummy! We sat the monorail. Shopping was reduced to a short time only though. Spent abt 200ringgit yay free money.
By the time we left it was close to 6.30pm! Which was really late. Watched the sunset. Ate at ayer keroh again. Yummy nasi lemak and everything! so yummy. I think I like the food best during the trip haha. Star gazing! Really nice stars at night! Except tt I was sitting on the side facing the oncoming traffic so abit hard to see :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
Reached back home around 1am+.
I really enjoyed this trip. And for the many experiences. Lack of sleep, lack of water, lack of fruits, lack of nutrients, super unhealthy food and carbonated drinks. But it was good :)
I missed this year's fiesta :( The first tj fiesta I've not attended since 2002 being the first.
Sunday really zapped me of all energy.
Today I woke up at 6.30am, took train down to school, and made it in time for biathlon training, 9am SRC track, despite the rainy and drizzly weather.
"We run, rain or shine" quote from Audrey, tracker-cum-schoolfren.
How about we swim, rain or shine? :)
So we ran, two rounds in the rain. Amazingly I could move! Calves were okay after awhile. Haven't ran since stan chart so it did feel quite good. We only entered the pool around 11+, did alot of drills and could hardly meet the main set for sumiko's planned training programme. I was quite disappointed with my swim :(
Only finished close to 1pm. And the swim ppl came down. Few ppl around today so we did mostly slack stuffs, like swimming breadth, stroke check, turns etc :) I shld've taken this opportunity to learn fly :( But I was a little too tired and disappointed with how I'm so slow for free and I feel weird swimming breast :( Finished around 3..
I am happy though :)
I like this :)
Can we have more?
I feel really stupid for doing the sets of jumps during yesterday's swim trainings. Apparently such intense activity on the legs should be avoided, especially so since I didn't even run at all last week in the name of 'recovery'.
Why didn't I use my brains?
When your captain ask you to go jump, you go jump. Literally.
AHHHHHhhhhhh! Now my calves hurt a lot. And I think I quite damanged the muscles I'm worried. Seeing how jumps are suppose to work your thigh muscles but my calves are giving me sharp shooting pains even worse than walking down steps after stan chart.
Sigh. And I wanted to run on Monday cuz I would've not run for 1 week.
Another quote from Swim to Win by Coach Ed Nessel:
After giving the reasons on why....... So for the breaststroker, no running, no doing stairs, no kneeling on hard surfaces while doing chores or hobbies. Purpose is not to harm the knee which is very impt in breastroke.
No running?!?!?!?!
We had two consecutive days of training on Tues and Wed. Thank goodness for the marathon excuse which allowed me to give the runs a miss! But instead, we had to walk in the water and my, is that tiring. Sumiko came down on Wed and we had a fun swim session doing weird drills and whatnots. Fun cuz it's not just the normal hardcore intervals or something. But we had a 8x50m at the end, and it was supposedly going on 55s. Obviously, it was terrible.
Upgraded my line to get a free hp which I'm selling and earning some spare cash yippee! Watched Bolt as well. It's a nice show worth watching! :)
Thursday was a day of much learning. NAAT workshop in the morning did teach me a lot of auditing skills which I'm sure the familiarity of such techniques will prove useful in the future. Came back and was too lazy to go out for a cycle with leewei. (Reason being he came over last night to talk till 11pm! and mind you, that's WAY past my bedtime) The afternoon nap was a wise choice cuz it was raining when I woke up and a cycle in the rain on my road bike (and the subsequent cleaning) didn't quite appeal to me. Leewei and me went can5 to eat! I think I should make it a point to try out the different canteens and food stalls during the rest of the hols!
At night we headed over to hall 14's sem room to learn how to keep score for softball. A day of learning. It's pretty interesting. And it reminds me of the times in primary school we used to stay back after school just to play that! :)
Friday, I watched a movie and a anime episode in the morning before heading to our very first swim training ever since ivp ended! 3 sets of jumps kinda worked their effect cuz this morning the legs were not very cooperative. I'm still sore at the core so please don't make me laugh cuz it hurts to laugh.
It was pretty fun. Roderick desmond wei shing sue chee marcus! kim hock n xian rong joined for some time.
NIE band at night was disastrous. 1) Prof Ho wasn't there and so at the start it obviously wouldn't be a productive session. 2) I was surrounded by two bLASTing ppl. A clarinet and a saxophone. (plus out-of-tune altho not quite so bad this week) I seriously felt like I was in a war zone. Didn't quite produce much sound yesterday cuz the noise pollution was too much for my ears to take I didn't quite wanna add more sound. It wasn't till they started talking over me that I found out both were from SAF band. The irony. That I initially felt I was in a war-zone.
Today, I'm sitting in hall blogging this on a Saturday morning! Cuz I left my EZ-link and NIE band tix here. (When I initially thought I lost them and started to worry) Okay I shall head off to catch the next 199!
What a week it has been! Time for updates! :)
Let's see, Wednesday we had bi training, for the first time in a long time. We did 5x800m and I slacked oops. Swimming consisted of 2x500m with me slacking again.(drafting behind bekky) I always wonder how come I can swim so much faster using a pull buoy. I think it's the way my body balances in the water. I can't quite figure it out as yet. It was pretty exciting day at the pool cuz at around 11+ the pool became so crowded with groups of swimmers tt we had to swim breadth! All the IHG peeps, (I saw guoxin like again), roderick was swimming, hall 3 polo-ers were there etc. Training ended like at 12?!?! Bridge left me aching the next few days. That's how lousy core muscles are! (and how disgusting bridge is)
Thursday was one hectic day with IHG swim in the morning. Not bad since Yuan Lun had the car! :) After which I went Hannah and Adel's house for piano lesson, queued up at Expo for 1hr to collect race pack, and had a pretty nice band prac with William conducting. As much as I initally felt glen miller was boring cuz we played it a million times back then in tkgssb, but I think it's always the same, you discover joys in playing no matter what :)
Friday was birthDAY. The weather was perfect :) Morning swim was cancelled when I decided to sleep 12 hrs instead and only woke up at 11am! :) Ate lunch at Paragon in town where there was this life performance of singer, pianist, and double bass-ist. Cool x1million! :) I did a short short 15min run and cycled to lower pierce to catch the sunset. I really like the peacefulness the minute you enter that place, where your ear facing the forest part is like so quiet and muted.
Saturday had only one student, and alot of sleeping in between. A great big thanks to Fingerprints cell for the VERY nice shirt which I WILL wear someday soon, n the present. Love it alot :) :) :) They're such nice ppl aye.
Tried sleeping at 9pm but couldnt sleep. And I woke up at 3.15am again and couldnt sleep. But woke up at 4.15am due to alarm clock and wanted to continue sleeping but can't.
The Marathon Experience
The baggage area was a little unfriendly, with the long winding queues and the mud-land which some ppl around me were saying it's worse than AHM. Crowded crowded crowded. Half of the lanes were opened at the beginning and by the time it opened to the beginning near the start point, it was to my surprise that I found out the race had already started! When the group of Kenyans running the opposite direction passed by with the clock reading 8.35. Like oops! The race had already started for so long. (Because the route started with a 1km run and then a loop back) Due to the excessively long toilet queues, I gave it a miss and decided to survive till I reach ecp, but apparently I decided to go at Esplanade instead. You know how thankful it is to be a girl when the guys toilet queue was like 15 ppl outside the door but the girls only had 4.
The run to ECP was pretty nice with nice cooling air! Great weather! I met Jingyan and he told me 'oh haosiang's way in front'. I lost my first pacer at a water point. The rest of the way I was going at jogging level. Amazingly Norman (a hall friend) knew of my existence and said hi. Met Jonathan also. (Sis' church fren) Timed pacers were sources of motivation when I met them which said 5.30, it motivated me to run faster and pass them cuz I didn't wanna finish it in 5.30, (despite the fact that I started at 9mins pass gun time). The miracle happened when at the first water point after the turning point at 21km, I heard 'jOCELyn!', turned out to be neohaosiang!! Thank goodness for him. I was rather tired of running already and the company was more than welcome. Every water point was a luxury because 1) You get water! 2) You get cold 100plus 3) You've excuse to walk for a while. HAHA.
The gel was disgusting cuz it was chocolate taste? Like ewwww. I was well hydrated throughout though :) So I survived with hs all the way till the end of ECP (30km) with about maybe say 400m of walking? After which I took off and had to find new pacers. Ran quite abit with this pair of guys. I think they must be very sick of me tagging after them cuz I kept sigh-ing. But I dunno why it makes me feel better. Like I can survive it better. After that I met Sui Hui and a guy friend she was with, and they were going at a normal 21km-pace, and so I just kept up, like REALLY tried to keep up for the last 10km. I think that was the fastest 10km of the entire run haha. The last 1.195km I took off and met suddenly found this other guy running alongside me, at a mad sprint pace. Everyone was walking and I didn't understand why. I mean it's so near the finishing point! Get it over and done with!
Thank God for the great weather and happy legs and muscles which didn't at any point feel like cramping or feel pain. Only thing was the soles of my feet hurt alot with every land, so might as well minimise the number of lands by striding, going faster, finishing earlier! It was fun, the last stretch fast run with the other person, zooming and overtaking people, knowing it's the end haha.
Oh, the aftermath of the race was much worse than the run itself. In fact, it was TERRIBLE. Like I only got to the baggage half hour after I finished my run, with lots of stops/sitting down in the middle of nowhere. Legs were not very cooperative and felt light-headed and pukish. Met this other guy from the bi team. (I dunno their names like i said) It was nice to meet a whole bunch of ppl altho I went there alone. Afterward collecting my bag and almost dying in the process (I must thank the nice ppl there) I sat down at the side there and just died. Thank goodness for sis who brought me home and for the massage and buying lunch and everything.
THE LEGS were terrible. And I still had to hobble down to teach piano. Worse still, somehow I kept wanting to pee, so like every student after I had to pee AND peeing involves walking down the studio steps, going all the way to the end of the block, and down the stairs. Poor knees and legs.
Home sweet home and I feel asleep at 9pm. And woke up at 5+. I think this is getting to be a habit. And really thank goodness for the weather, seeing how it rained the entire day today.
Now I just discovered today's training's pushed to tmr! I thought public hol so will cancel but NO it's tmr! ahhhh should I go back hall. I want to go for the swim though. (of course no more running)
Hmmm shall see shall see.
3 things I liked about Saturday's alumni:
1) I just like Hs's piccolo's sound floating above
2) It's pretty fun to play with QinJie!
3) Mavis played Glen (xy's husband haha!) tpt solo and I um-chio-ed
I still remember the time in tkgs hall, behind the stage with dead lizard corpse, and the echoy-ness of the foyer :)
But it's getting quite sian. I mean attendance has never been this bad before and it seems like more ppl make it for jazz band than for alumni. I mean if everyone doesn't wanna play, then might as well just scrape the entire item and replace it with jazz band perf right? And also I think after sitting beside NIE's pro saxes for 3 months, the feeling's quite different now haha.
Yesterday, I taught equivalent to 12 students, 9am-630pm with only half hr lunch break and another 15mins in between! I felt like the world was revolving after I finished. But thinking about it, I've had worse days starting at 8.30am before. And there were times I went to teach tuition after one whole day of piano. Looking back, I feel amazed at myself.
I took my favourite bus no. 7, and passed by Orchard Rd just when the sun was setting so I managed to see the lights in action! Hmmm I don't understand why ppl are complaining so much abt this year's lights. I think it's very nice! And the effect of CandyLand is pretty much there! I like the big figurines of candy christmas trees and cute little kids with hands that can wave. And the shopping centre's own lights are complementary! I had a fun time :)
It was a productive day yesterday. I received my pay and completed the NAAT worksheets thingy haha so funny.
I have a big bruise on my thigh all cuz I banged into a chair in can2.
And you know time really flies by when every month when you get your thing your mom says "aGaIN?!"