And more

So much's happening these few days that i've got no time to stop and look and plan, as is habitual of me.

So much happening as in, everyday going out, which is pretty unusual for the homey me.

Lets start from postgrad day 1, fri: Going for the last lesson before Whampoa. Kinda fatigued by grad.

Sat: Day 1 of whampoa. Fine. 2/3 wins, lost against jin. Reasonable. Nice hanging out with the weiqi guys. A weiqi community. thats developing.

Sun:Day 2 of Whampoa. Not so good. Lost to xunkang and sionghwai again, and the other 2 games could be attributed to vastly weaker opponents, cuz i didn't get myself in good mental condition to play them after the tough loss against xunkang. And phillip asks me to switch to grp A of fast go, which means giving up a likely champ in the sec sch cat. Dilemma.

Mon: Original plan was to gym in the morn then go for chalet, but too tired to gym in the morn. went in the afternoon instead but had to cut it short cuz of the lack of time. This nice angmoh lady in the gym praised my control of weights and not banging them. So nice of her!
We ended up missing the shuttle bus as ben and i were both late bleah (sry chenz) and had to take a bus in. Saw a few familiar faces and many new ones. Regardless, we quickly settled into what Clement calls the "Raffles Room" lol. BBQ that time we went to play freezebee it was fun and yeah its the first time i'm playing it. I like smacking it into the floor and watch it rise up again!!!
Anyway we played bridge late into the night after hy sam and keanyung left. I enjoyed bridge. Plz. i paid my dues with the suaning i got lol so glad i enjoyed it.yayness.
LAter that night we slept on the bed, 5 ppl on one bed lol and then mark snored in bed so yeah had so probs sleeping but then again its only 1 night, couple of hours so ok lah.

Tues: Morn woke, showered, went to look for bicycle shop which took us an hour and the half, and by the time we had breakfast it rained so we had to go bowl instead and after that we cycled for an hour with rather screwed bikes.
But the cute lil 2-3 yr old gal brightened our day up. Such a cute gal! We saw her at macs when we ate breakfast and ben waved at her and she kept smiling brightly. When we came for the toilet after cycling, 2hours later, she was still there with her parents fully utilizing the wireless hotspot so we waved and made faces at her again lol. I saw some gals looking at us weirdly cuz they thought we were waving at them, until they realised it was the lil gal we were playing with lol. Then when we left she gave us a bright BYE!. with a sunny smile. Makes me day!
Anyway i decided to shift to grp A already, as i hear TPH words, 做事要破釜沉舟. This voice beat the other voice that said, dun give up certain small benefits for unclear bigger ones. But no. I must break all retreat routes. The only thing worth winning, is the right to represent sg. Now, go win it.

Please release me.

Not the most creative of titles, but neither does the situation call for so. Sentimentality. Sentimentality. What i'm listening to now: this

Not a surprise huh? No. Sentimentality builds up creepily, but when it overflows you just know it was coming all along.

I know many others have had their lists of best frens and all the farewell they wanna say to them, so this will come kinda late, but when sentimentality flows the time the right, when the time is ripe the plants will flower; a beautiful sight; autumn or winter.

There won't be any 'special mention' lists of name kinda thing, cuz if a person is really special, a mere mention's never enough.

2cups of honey and a mouthful of chuanpeipipagao later, let the pen flow:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(not in order of any sort, except in which they come to mind)

Benjamin Goh
Weiqi gave me many special things in my life. And that includes befriending you. Going out with u and chenz is always a pleasant experience whr i never feel out of place, were i know i'm surrounded by buddies. Thx, and there'll be more to come. Think floorball and weiqi :)

Chenz & Huixiang
None of us made the bball team, but through bball we found someone who understands how it feels warming the bench, or not even getting to sit on it. We found each other.

Daniel yanjie yongjin fuginn gerrard yelin
Though i never played an official game with you guys, thx for making me still feel part of our bball batch when we do meet up, however rare that is.

Hongjie
Same class and same cca and same games (battleon, ragnarok, maple and whatnot) we were really tight in lower sec. Thx for the friendship. Though we interact far less these days since we're no longer in the same class, hardly go for bball and i've quit gaming, thx for still being a good, understanding fren that i can trust.

Mark yeow
My chairmanship would have been a hell lot tougher without you. I'm not too good with words. Let's just say, you do deserve a Service Award as well.Thank you so much.

Junhan
Thank you, fellow class psl. We only worked together for a short time, but ur a friend i can trust. Thanks.

Arunapuram Gokul Rahul
Its always a joy to chat with you and take a glimpse of your immense knowledge, computer-related or otherwise. Our philo proj in sec2 where u made the animation, in sec 3 when we set up the philo forum and in sec4 when we collaborated for RE. Oh and your guidance when i took CEP in sec3. My 4 years 'd have been less colourful without you. Sorry for not being able to get u a place in our grad table. It'd have been a joy to have you there.

Fahd imam
Our sec 2 philo proj with rahul, the interclass debate were u rightly were disatisfied with the judging, our near-perfect RE grp in sec 3. It was a pity you had to go abroad. We were perfect work partners :)

Ming xue and Ming quan
Thanks for showing me what a good pair of monitor/assistant monitors is like. Your sacrifices for our class and ur working in tandem really earnt my respect. I'm sorry that we didn't do as well as we could have done in sec3 RE with such a great group. We really underachieved, but it was a great ride.

Chinks
The last i remember of our lower sec days, we were quarreling because i won't lent u my maths textbook as it was the 2nd time u forgot to bring it. Fast forward 2 yrs later, and we never lack something to chat about. The difference 2 yrs make. Or perhaps its the gymming :)

Zishun
I love speaking chinese, actually. Its a joy conversing with you.

Joshua Heng
Lab partners for 2 years, thx for showing me how the stuff at physics lab look like on the inside, then managing to put it back all together again. Thx for for SS proj, without you it never could have been done. And thank you for helping me take pic during grad ceremony. Help me thank your mom too :)

My SS Proj Group
Mark-wise, we didn't deliver. But process wise, in terms of member's cooperation, it's one of the best ones in my time at RI. Thank you for all the filming, scripts, interviews, question lists, and of course, the EDITING. >< And sorry for the lost 4.0s.

Zijian
We should have chatted more earlier. Our similarity in ideas and ability to cope with differences in ideals, our common admiration for mr tan puay hock and the Chinese language. And our honesty to each other. Thank you for it all. Oh, and when tph says your 为人正直, don't be so quick to reject it. Perhaps deep down, you really are so. Maybe rebelling isn't that cool after all. Maybe this funny stuff and witty put downs doesn't detract from zheng zhi-ness. Or at the very least, its smth u can aspire to :)

Ian Yap
Thx for ur support during our SS proj. Thanks for those little gossip sessions we had, a few times at the library and twice at thai express. We didn't really hang out much, i understand the whole thing abt cliques and all, but i know that decades down the road if we meet we'll have no lack of topics to chat about, and honesty to put forth our thoughts, though u may sugar-coat them if u so wish to :)

Heng Zhong
Hello fellow Amber! Thx for being the loyal, trustworthy friend that you are. Smile more though, and consider adopting a more positive outlook! Oh yeah and lets continue our bookclub!

Walter
We've have been classmates in primary sch before being in 3/4 H together, but truth be told i don't really know him well. But you gotta respect a guy who so loves both School (as is obvious) and Country(as i've heard) and (recently) Class, when there have been times, at one point or another, that feeling otherwise would have been the hippier sentiment. Though for the latter, my opinion hasn't changed.

Jayanth
Someone else i don't really know very well in person, but his conduct when getting heckled during pe by hanlin was admirable.Perfect self-restraint. Kudos.

Prasatt/ravi/zijian
Thanks for going down to the rally the other time. It really was a great experience, hearing the speakers speak in the different languages and being able to understand them all through the explanation of one another. Smth i won't forget. Or at least, a reminder 'd come every 5 yrs =)

Taufiq
We've been in the same class for 4 yrs straight, and its only in the past month that we've been hanging out together. Really wish we did that, 3yrs 11mth earlier. But there's 2more years to go =)


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Must have took some time to write all that. And all of 4 years to experience them.

And now we're Released.

shop, shop, shop

today went shopping for grad nite outfit, after realising that what i bought at vivo certainly doesn't look grad-worthy. Looked at stuff at seiyu ytd before lesson, then today went with fiq x2(taufiq and shafiq) annwaar and khairul to queensway to shop (i know jingna's gonna say, cheapskate!! but hey we're students lah. normal students. Not those having to rush to photoshoots =/)

Anyway i'm satisfied with my catch. Grad outfit cost abt 200 in total (90 to levis shoes, 110 for shirt pants belt heh) and i got a 3/4 pants and another shirt as well. Shopping's fun!

Oh and my sleep last night was so screwed. Slept at 1!! oh no. and my weiqi game sucked. Was like i was drunk. now off to a better game!

Some progress

Chatted till 1am with shane last night. I'm normally not very chatty, but when the topic's right, i can go on forever.

Which explains why i woke up at 10 today, had breakfast, then slept till 12.30. heh. No more, baby, no more of these.

Afternoon did sihuoti. gee i was so glad when i solved one of it, though i took the whole of 40min. But its rewarding, nonetheless.

Then went to the gym to skip. Couldn't run my 2.4 and play bball cuz of the rain. Skipping was fine. The workout plan of 3min of skipping +1min of leg raises per set didn't work out very well though, cuz i planned to do 8 sets of it to exercise for roughly 30min but could do no more after the 4th, so i headed to the trackmill, ran for 5min at 11/12, then called it a day. Not perfect, but better than growing fat at home :)

Then at night weiqi, finally won a 3d. woohoo. First time ever. =D Not a perfect game either, very luan, and i had to surround the center, which is hardly my natural inclination, but oh well a win is a win, i'll take it in any form :)

U can see i put so much smilies. *beams*

Weary

I think i won't have problems going to bed tonight. Just tired.

Glad i won my previous game. By 0.5 pt. Felt i was behind by midgame, must have caught up in the endgame. I've been participant to this type of turnarounds many times before, thankfully this time i'm on the right side of it :)

Today's 2.4 run didn't go will. Was at 9:33 with 1.5half rounds left, and totally gassed. i dunno whats wrong. Perhaps the hot weather. Couldn't be the sleep, since i slept plenty last nite, though i had trouble getting to sleep, but i set aside 10hours for it so it had to be enough.

The workout was better. Oh i so must correct my form on the deadlift. Oh gee and its hands outside the legs, not the other way round! bleh.

I'm gonna run 2.4 more often now. That means, everyday without swimming, since i can't run 2.4, then go swim 50laps. Can die sia.

Oh, and let me remain chocolate-free. its the end of wk2 of the holiday, and the progress hasn't been really visible, possibly cuz i rested the last 2 days away. Alright, no pt crying over spilt milk.

Oh yeah. Great Expectations has been a mighty fine read. A joy.

I forsee something good. I won't have trouble sleeping tonight.

Pull it back

admittedly, been rather slack these few days. Didn't work out at all today and ytd, but today's reasonable, cuz my abductors really hurt (ouch!).

But i haven't been following my schedule at google. Partly cuz google calender has been quirky lately, but thats no excuse.

So its time to get back to the routine :)

I'll call it Nanyang Trail

Went to Boonlay gym with taufiq today. Geez the facilities rival even california fitness! Ok

ok, not really, but dollar for dollar, Clubfit wins hands down (duh, subsidised fees what :P) Oh and the gym instructor there was really nice, for the first time a clubfit instructor actually taught me anything. Kudos!

Decided to take a walk back home since it was like 4,5 bus stops away? Then after entering NTU , i suddenly had the urge to explore a path i nvr took before. Since this whole trail loops round NTU, i figured i can't quite get lost, so off i went in the way.

A long, silent trail. Feels so good that there's so much space around, surrounded by nature (one side's housing for foreign lecturers, but i see no one there, and the other side's forest) and ur all alone. And a few ant hills later, tadah:

Its well worth the walk.













Can't quite see from the pick, but there's this little slope that's so quite and peaceful. And the birds, colourful birds singing, but rather too quick for my hp cam to snap.










Then i suddenly had the urge to revisit my old place. Before i moved to hall 12, i used to stay in hall 11 blk 55 instead. So well, nostalgia, it so strong.


Not much changes here, the little garden outside the canteen's still the same.












But the inside's different. Where are all those arcade games i used to play? My street fighter machine?












The little build right at the left, that used to be home.












There, this one.














The building on the right: when did it pop out?














Somewhere along this strip,
Lies the shell of my good old turtle.











Gosh. From outside it really looks the same.













Circles and circles, Squares and squares.
Round and round the level i used to cycle.












On top this tree used to be a bird's nest.
But now even the tree looks different.












Do you see my fighting fish?













And what was green is now blue.















And maybe if my photography were better it'll look prettaye.












Go! Maybe right outside your house is another adventure.

point by point

Ran 2.4 again ytd. 11:30. Hmm thats still 1:31 off from what i want, so i'm gonna increase my no. of runs.

Today took 1h 43min , 22min more than the previous time i swam 50laps!? Next cardio session's gonna be skipping instead, boredom's starting to set in. Oh wait, i'll give myself an off day on fri as well, i mean, such drastic cut in speed, means u gotta cut urself some slack =p

oh and i finished Antony and Cleopatra!!! =D

just some notes

Somehow not much mood to blog these days. Perhaps its a good thing; i'm less rooted to the com.

Ytd collected results then went vivo. Results were within expectations but then the comments were rather short and seemingly perfunctory. Watched Flushed Away at vivo, a very british cartoon. Good for the laughs :) Then soaked our legs at wadding pool then went shopping. Gee thx ben and chenz for waiting so long while i tried on clothes =D

Ok just some notes to remind myself:

• Sleep early. This has been flung out of the window lately and then i'll miss my morning workouts and have to push it to afternoon, when it often rains :( rain, rain, go away.
• Watch your diet. Yeah. Ate the milo bar ytd, thinking it was the healthiest option available when i was hungry at 7-11 waiting to travel to vivo and gosh by its sweetness i doubt so. Then today ate my mum's mee sua which's full of pig's innards. I love the taste but geez watch it, too much calories!
• Go fill up the Humans Scholarship form. Gee. this one, DON'T FORGET!!
• Surf less Stomp forum and blogs. Gee, this is taking up alot of unplanned time.
• Play weiqi before u do sihuo. Aiyoyo. its part of what's keeping me up late. Cuz i do sihuo, get stuck and by the time i decide its time to go play its already 10+ and after the game its VERY LATE and i'm somehow VERY AWAKE. gee.
• READ, READ. Not done with Antony and Cleopatra yet ><>

Ok other than these my week 1 of holiday was roughly acceptable. Grade: B-

Time to plan week 2!

So thats what they do in europe

Was watching the live relaying of the finals of European Youth Go Masters League 2006. (sure, i'd prefer to watch live matches of korean/chinese/jap pro games, but tell that to william shubert)

And guess what i saw the relayer say:

"

EYGML2 [-]: Both players are leaving their chair
EYGML2 [-]: There are a little stressed and want to breath a while

"

!?!?!?!

I sure wish we could do that here!!

A filling time

Phillip was saying, should play more games, 'd fill up the 'holes' in your game. Which i comprehend as saying that the more u play, the more weaknesses in your game you/your opponent will spot, hence helping u improve. Going by this understanding, it would seem that on games that i lose i'll benefit more, since my opponent spotted my mistakes, punished it and made the impression on me only too vivid.

Then, ytd must have been a filling time.

Lost 2 straight ytd, making it 4losses in a row. Was certainly looking forward to a 'less productive' day today. Heh. And i did! won my game today, though wasn't as steady a win as when i went on a 6wins out of 7 run. Right now my current streak is, what, 4losses out of 5? Lol.

Oh but today really was less productive. Overslept and woke only at 10 (planned to wake at 6.30.Aww.) Oh but i went to swim after the rain in the afternoon and for the first time in a long while completed the 50laps (which means, no rain/time constraint or being told to switch to breadths). Took 1h 25min. Gonna better the next time.

Tmrw gonna run 2.4. Better improve from my 12min03sec last time. Sub-10 by end of dec!!!

I'm seeing things

No, not things i shouldn't be seeing.

I was doing sihuoti just now, and the first question took me abt 45min? And i still couldn't find the answer (i think). Couldn't kill cleanly, had to settle for a 2-step ko. Then when i moved on to the other questions, after looking at each of them for a while the 'correct' sequence flashed in mind and i 'solved' them in 10 min flat. Open inverted commas because i'm not 100% sure they're right, cuz have to wait for phillip for the answers, but should be right lah.

Oh and look at the power of comics. Yewei asked me abt coming my house cuz he read slam dunk and wants to play bball. Shane wanna come cuz he read hikaru no go and wants to play weiqi. lol

=)

Family

Family : A place where there's no 隔夜仇

If you lie to me don't get found out

It just seems silly how trivial this matter is.

That my mom, lies to me, of all things, about television.

U see, we tape a show regularly, the mon-wed 10.30-11.30 mystical show. Then this new airport show crops up and its from 10-11. So mommy last night ask me go watch my mystical show but i was playing weiqi. So i said no.

Then today when we watch the tape, she said, forgot to change channel, so only had half the show left.

Bloody liar.

I knew it then it was a lie, but i just kept quiet.

Then tonight again she ask me watch. I said no, cuz i can't watch it and still sleep by 11 as i had other things to do. Then she get pissed off. It really pisses me off that my mom, for the sake of TELEVISION, is trying to shake me off my schedule that i'm taking pains to stick to. It was all because of her guidance (compulsory afternoon naps, thereafter hardcore sch work) that lead me into relative success at psle. And now she's trying to derail all these good work?!

I can't comprehend this. It just sounds pure silly.

Oops i'm 2min off schedule. Bedtime, sweet dreams :)

and its day 3 of holiday

This was meant to be a long, long post.

Till i decided to remove the negatives.

So this is all that's left.

=P

Not that bad lah. Just went for a swim, feel so much better. Went cali fitness ytd, the machines are ZOMG but then i'm not very used to the stuff there. today no ache from ytd. Oh and my schedule ytd was upsetted gee i need to catch up with my reading.

And i must sleep by 10.30 tonight.

Tired.

I ate choc today

Alright alright the title's so random. Um. I just ate chocolate, the one of the teachers gave on last day of sch. Just feel very lost so wandering around the house and reached for it.

ytd wasn't too good. Aching, so couldn't go gym. Then sihuo got stuck. and at night couldn't sleep well. Wonder whats wrong.

Today's grad wasn't anything fantastic. The REACH video was stirring, but other than that, nah. Graduating in a sch that isn't mine, shaking the hands of form teachers who 've taught me for merely a year, and leaving with an empty folder. Oh, lets not mention the laughing heard when we found out who the Guest of Honour was. Oh please. I still think i 'll look back at the Sec1 orientation camp this year as the most memorable experience, as we seek to incalculcate in our juniors what we feel is Rafflesian, we reflect it best.

The rain prevented me from swimming more than 18laps today. well short of 50.

I'm being so negative.

Oh, sleep it all off.

Or munch a chocolate bar.

Order

Yay. Today was good.

Finished with my other planning. Moved my pre-jc study plan till after whampoa tournament, meanwhile upping my weiqi time. Spent 80min on 4 questions today, no wonder phillip told me in the meantime no need study pro game. Cuz sihuoti CMI, must pull that up first!!!

upper body still aching so had to scrap my plan to swim. Went to run 2.4 then do the abs exercise that i missed out on thurs. Geez took 12min and 3 seconds! last time was 11min 30 sec only... aiyoh... although i felt faster today than before... probably cuz its been a long long time since i last ran 2.4 lol. Supposed to do some skipping as well but had stitch. I'm hungry all the time, i must stop eating too close to workouts!

Things are going mighty fine, just that they must keep on going this way: Mighty Finely.

Messed Up

Its an emo day.

Last day of sch & all.

Oh and i finished the last episode of Tian Long Ba Bu. Oh my Qiao feng died. Actually i knew he'd die already, the tuition centre teacher said b4. But still, the visuals were far more saddening. Plus many other heroes died as well. And its not just that. When the series is over, all the good u had once seen, gone as well.

Perhaps just like the goodness of ri. Gone with the wind.

Oh and the plot of tian long ba bu. Some of it i can't figure out as well. Well the drawing of the lady carried by that little monk looks the same as wang yuyan , and the statue also looks like her when its in fact done by that old "Xiao yao pai' head when with the 86 yr old lady long ago? And who's that lady's sister that she said the guy actually liked? OMG did anyone else read this bk as well? explain explain!!!


Ok looking on the bright side my workout ytd wasn't that bad, judging from my aches(aka test results) today, my upper body's pretty well worked but i didn't feel anything on the legs.Until i went to swim todya and realised what all those Lunges worked : the Glutes(read:ass). heh. so it worked something at least heh.


ok i'm still rather confused. State of flux in my mind now, time for zzz.

The Last Late Night

A hearty game altered what was to be a sorrowful post.

Ok, not SORROWFUL, but still, not the brightest of posts.

Today's workout didn't go as well, due to:

1)forgetting to bring my gloves
2)Not understanding the technique of the new exercises i included
3) not sure what weight to use. Seems that just after 2 weeks my strength dropped. Or is it that the absence of gloves made it so hard that i cannot distribute the weight properly?

But the biggest reason is: Nausea!!!!

Must be the lack of sleep last night after the ample sleep the night before. gee. So much for mine 10hour plan.

I made a new rule today, hands off the com after 10, but now its 10:53 and i'm still on it. But geez my weiqi game was well worth it.


Ok, last night's late night was silly, but i think it's worth it too. getting things off ur chest feels mighty great, though its effects might render it silly. But then, its the feeling that counts. The feeling of 放下心中大石and moving on. heh.

Because so far only my fitness plan's completed: might more to go. Up next, should be weiqi plan.

Gambatte!

when plenty isn't a blessing

Today was Research day.

Meaning, doing research for my new workout plan this holi. I even took 'leave' for it (no, not pon)

And i realised how many issues of Men's Health I bought.

Anyway, my main goals by the end of this nov dec is to:
1)Run 2.4km in less than 10min
2)Slash body fat % from the 20+% (i think its my osim machine that's spoilt, but..) to 12%(minimum for revealing abs, heh =D )

So i thought the commonsense thing to do is circuits whereby u do large reps and u do exercises that work different part of ur body in your supersets. But i took a long time thinking abt this cuz....... despite what i was telling myself, i know intuitively that i didn't just want to burn fat, i wanted to grow more as well. And besides all those stuff abt 'packing it all into 1 wk' (i.e train for strength and endurance in the same week, alternating btwn the 2) is pretty well ingrained in me so i decided, leave the fat-burning to swimming!!!! Its not as if if i do the workout i just planned i won't burn fats. I still will, just not as much but who cares i'll swim the calories away and my diet has always been sensible.


Looking at my workout plan i'm feeling really satisfied cuz it pretty much takes care of everything....... but then i look at it again and gosh, HOW MUCH TIME WILL I HAVE TO SPEND ON EACH SESSION?

No idea, i'll find out tmrw and maybe make adjustments cuz i've got many other goals for this holi as well.

Oh yes and i have another resolution: 10hours /sleep per nite!!! Thx in part to chenz who pointed out that ppl who sleep less tend to be shorter and i think it makes sense that the body grows when one sleeps. Ok lah its kinda late to make up for the lack of slp in the past but we'll see how things go the next 2 months.

Hope for the best :)