From You

it's you, you know, just like you

sweetness in spring blooms

how leaves and petals rustle as you walk

shy, giggles, and scatter

that something familiar


it's you, you know, sometimes i feel

child-like rainbows after gloom

teardrops patter from grey skies

then make wonderment of weather man,

a sudden burst of golden hues

Pok and Friends' Grad Shots

They were taken more than 4 months ago, my first time on such scale and occasion. This month, I finally got down to editing all the photos I took for Pok and friends in mortar board and gown. Deleted at least half the shots that I took in all. At a count of 100+.. I really take a lot of crap.

Lesson learnt, never shoot more than you can manage. Minimalism is good, sometimes.

The Graduate[s]


They are everywhere


Model of the Day


And prolly my favourite shot of the lot. The Traditional Toss.

What's with today?

Ho ho ho.. Merry Thaipusam!!

I wish people will stop wishing me merry christmas.
It really doesn't mean anything to me these days. I once thought it was something special, because Channel 5 usually screen their endless Police Academy re-runs for special days. Then I stopped watching tv.

If someone wishes me and I dun wish back, I run the risk of sounding rude. If I do, I know I don't mean it and will sound like another fool to myself. Most times I just tell them happy holidays.

If you're not a christian or catholic, why mutter to me words that are meaningless to you? To get into the festive spirit? Celebrate Thaipusam or Deepavali then. They show Police Academy on telly on such special holidays too.

Is this just typical of Singapore? I dunno. If you go hohoho in iraq today you'll probably get a car bomb in return.

But I'm not really pissed or anything, just slightly irritated. After all, I received an electric shaver from yesterday's family x'mas gathering thing. Though I wonder when I'll ever really use it. *strokes goatee*


And I like my new layout. took almost a lazy day to get it up. hohoho

Recent Pulau Ubin Trip

The six of them, and my bike.


Pretty quarry. At the cliff's edge, hanging on to a tree.


Another tranquil quarry.


Big bird


Nice right?


the rest of ubin photos

Now that drugs don't work

I laid on the hospital bed, looking at other young patients. My eyes took them in in a different light, glowing and surreal. My shyness gradually subsided, much like the thronging pain from my fresh wound. Morsels of undiscovered warmth seeped through me, in a way that I've never felt before. I wanted to lean over and make friends with them, whose faces I had pretended didn't exist till then. I wanted to embrace this new found world. Something in me then questioned the absurdity of myself doing it. I battled that thought for a while, till I finally succumbed to the power of morphine. Drifting off from one surreal world to another.

tv

Wish Upon A Star

Aaron Aziz sounds like an Indian high on drugs and trying to sing.
what was the show about man..? I dun get it.

Not watching local tv programs seems like a terribly good decision now.

Singapore Marathon 2006

My second marathon was completed at around noon of 3rd December 2006, almost 6hours after we started.

We ran so long, my safety pins turned rusty.

But once again we finished it together.

Despite last year's experience, preparation for this year's event was far from ideal. The furthest distance I ran before that was only 13km. Exams, the perennial cow, got in the way I would say, plus a period of lay off due to the niggling groin strain that brought back unkind memories 12 months and 42km ago.

But nothing's gonna stop us from finishing of course.

The night before, I surprisingly got held up at Alex's surprise birthday celebrations at loof. Nice place by the way. Didn't even bother to bath when I got home and slept straightaway for barely 2 hours to wake up at around 4am.

Was supposed to catch the 4.30am bus. Kinda late. So before the marathon even started, I ran all the way from home to Hougang stadium. By the time I sat down in the bus, my legs had gone stiff. Not the smartest thing to do afterall.

Minutes before the race started, I realised I was still holding on to my damn house keys. In a fit of inspiration and bravery, I left the keys on a 2m high ledge right outside Esplanade and hoped for the best.

We set a target speed of 8km/hr and stuck to it surprisingly well for the first 3 hours, till we hit East Coast Park, where it went upslope from then on. When we finally exit from ECP with more than 8km to go, Zijing could barely walk while i nearly got consumed by cramps. From then on, our run/walk routine turned to a walkathon of agony.

We spotted Toh Kit Mien, the baffling puzzle of last year's. Then we identified another girl displaying similar walking phenomenal, whom I labelled Kit-2.

Then it dawned upon us that despite it being a marathon, the truth for majority of the runners is such that, the key to finishing with a good timing is not how fast you can run but rather,
(1) how long you can avoid muscular atrophy - pains and strains and cramps
(2) how fast you can walk

The importance of brisk walking cannot be under-estimated. It shall be part of our training regime for next year's marathon. Sissy butts-wriggling-legs-crossing-hips-twisting, here we come.

A lot of people took part this year, more than I would like. Instead of the marathon being the ultimate race for hard-core runners, more and more people are taking it as a fashion statement, albeit a tedious one where success is not guaranteed. A line should be drawn somewhere, in my opinion.

In any case, the finishing line is sweet and all pain were briefly dismissed for that last 0.195km.

After that however, fulfillment got churned into disappointment. The finisher's tee and medal looked no different from last year's, clearly a lack of effort on adidas and the organizer's part. We didn't get our ordered sizes, and later, the tops went out of stock altogether. An ugly blemish to what would have been a successful event otherwise.

Finally, something else that frequently gets on my nerves.. For all the bimbos and dimwits out there, when someone says he's running the marathon, please stop asking how far he's running, or which marathon he's taking part in, if held in Singapore.

If it's not 42km it's not a marathon, and there is but one, by Standard Chartered, for Singapore.

afterwords:
oh, and i retrieved my keys successfuly from the ledge at the end.

We had brunch at the HK cafe (cha chan ting) outside of Marina Square and it suck horribly.

Next year will be faster.

stop

may time stop still for half an hour so that i can blog a bit

oh blimey, time's up.

tea time

Swiftly they come, and depart as fast.

Exams are over once more, leaving that strange emptiness in you; suddenly you know not what to do when it's 3pm and you see the mid-day storm brewing, strange for you've missed every single similar storm for the past 2 weeks while hiding in the air-conditioned underground bunker of a study area, trying to study, and sometimes you actually succeed.

lost in space

time for a cup of tea and figure out what's next.