Take a glimpse, of what's too near to be seen clearly. Have a look, at the distance yonder. Whatever that's in between, put them in some focus. Not everything needs to be prime and properly fitted into the box always, get the feel of it instead, you can't see too much. Just like life.
Fuck. I've just wasted another 100 minutes of my life watching Shinobi, a japanese excuse for an action/love flick. 7.0 on IMDB.. where did all these dumb pple come from.. Another 100 minutes out of my already wasted recent life. that's quite a bit.
Video killed the radio star, and CGI killed the action film genre.
Run 5 - 29th August, Wednesday
Time - 1:03:20
Distance - 10km
Route - Serangoon Park Connector
Picked up - none
River was at a low tide.
The lungs are still not quite into it. The legs are limbering up. The will power was activated today when there was a hint of betrayal from the lungs. Chalked up a lengthier distance.
My formerly torn ankle ligament is recently feeling sore after soccer every sunday.. let's hope it will hold up.
2 hours to a full day, of forgotten sleep. kept awake still. perhaps you know why.
and the why, if that's the intent, as we know it, then why save the goodbyes.
Run 4 - 22nd August
Time - 41:56
Distance - about 6.4km
Route - Serangoon Park Connector
Picked up - stiff thigh muscles - not quite recovered from sunday soccer
Today I affirmed that there are plenty of fishes in the river, and it's Sungei Serangoon rather than Sungei Punggol as I thought it was previously. Man.. they just keep splashing up on the water surface to feed or something. I told tham about it. maybe we'll go fishing there soon.
But of coz it was also where I encountered the python incident. So I make some good out of my not-very-constructive sober time at home and watched a few snake related documentaries on NatGeo and Animal Planet. No prob. I'll catch one home next time.
Today I made a mental note to remember the distance of the track's length. 2.2km. to simulate the marathon's 42km i'd simply have to run up and down the place 19 times.
Anyway, this year's will be a much more serious event than my past 2 marathons. I even told Zijing that I wanna run alone this time. No more exams to get in the way, no work commitments for now at least, so it's time to test my limits while there is still something testable. I mean if i'm 80 years old and i say i wanna test my limits, i'd prolly just walk around the park twice and try to give myself a pat on the back.
sleepless, by the still of the night
by the voices in my mind, amplified
they seem to talk in clarity
now that what noises, oh not me,
they lay abed where no one cares.
early birds, i hear their chirrups
who will feed me, said them
to this impostor of impending dawn.
i fumble in thoughts of what morning may bring
the night long gone
yet dawn refrains,
a conspiracy with the timer's old hands
half in jest, for those voices
and these words I cannot consummate
silence now.
the early birds,
where have they gone to, did they hit snooze?
and for whom did i write that haiku?
the night is dying, killed by my thoughts.
let me sleep now, before I too rob the new day's dawn.
Run 3 - 16th August
Time - 33:46
Distance - unknown
Route - Serangoon Park Connector
Picked up - nothing
Moodless to run, started with a bit of stiches, but managed to run it off. Quite alright in the end.
This is one of the days when i run with an empty head, not a thought in my mind.
Keep hearing splashes from the river as I run, like fishes jumping in and out of the water. Couldn't make out what it was in the dark though. No one else seemed to pay any attention to the sound. Maybe there are dolphins in that murky water. Dolphins following me. Yup.
The next major accident occurred when I was about 9. I was trying to cycle up a slope when I flipped over, slamming my left elbow into a tree root. Now trees are very strong, but not my young bones, so I managed to dislocate my joints. I picked myself up and looked for the nasty sister. She glanced back at me and, probably feigning oblivion to my plight, turned and got into the lift herself. With that, I lifted up and pushed the heavy bicycle with my remaining good hand and trudged home alone in pain, my left arm with the useless lower half dangling limply by my side.
Emerging from the lift I faced another problem. I had to carry the bike down a flight of stairs to reach home. In my normal healthy state, carrying it with two hands was a struggle. In my current condition with only 1 good hand, the weight of the bike would have dragged me down to a sad death at the bottom of the staircase.
At nine years of age, I had no idea what a joint dislocation was. When I reached home, I told no one about the accident and instead lied abed and tried to sleep it off. Only when I woke up with the persisting pain and sense that something was quite wrong indeed did I inform my parents who hauled me off to a Chinese sinseh.
Dislocating an elbow was nothing. Having someone forcefully wrenching it back into the empty socket was one hell of an experience. My whole face turned sheet-white from the pain, tears streamed silently down my cheeks.
Lesson learned. If you dislocate something for the first time, get anesthetic.
My life is in disarray.
No sunday soccer for 3-4 weeks now. I can't function anymore.
Sleep at 5, wake at 1. The day is over before i know it.
Why?
Because there's no reason to wake up at 8am for the last few sunday mornings, and the week just follows suit.
Somebody help me.
On yet another of my hare-brained ideas, i shall document down my training runs en route to the Singapore Marathon on 2nd Dec 2007. Along the way, there will prolly be many days where there will be absolutely nothing to write about, but hopefully it can help bring more discipline into the runs nonetheless.
Run 2 - 12th August
Time - 34:12
Distance - unknown
Route - Serangoon Park Connector
Picked up - Tightness in right thigh
Minutes into my run, the sight of my threatening runner's frame blazing down the footpath at a lightning speed scared the shit out of a cyclist and he fell off his bike.
This is the first time I'm running along the park connector in daylight. I usually run there in the middle of the night in the past, and on one such run, I encountered a road accident and after which I nearly stepped on a huge python lying in the middle of the pavement next to the canal.
In the warm fading light on this early evening, I realised that it is quite a nice place to run at. I used to call it a canal, since it does connect to canals around the area, but today it appeared more like the proper river that it should be, called Sungei Punggol. Lots of people fishing from the river which I can only imagine to be fertile with fishes of some sort, especially with various species of birds preying from the same river.
I'm hungry now. off to dig out some food.
Just as I'm about to run, a freak shower started to unleash in the perfect sunny weather. Damn it really.
I've got to kick start my running regime before it's too late again.. less than 4 months left to the big day. Completed a short 20min run without any ill effects some days back. Planned to do 30 to 40min today, if the knees and ankle can hold up.
Now if only the damn rain will stop.. Soccer is gonna start in another hour..
listening to sad love songs at 4.30 in the morning does something to the soul; a feeling that i used to know very well indeed.
hi waipeng, i'm reading your blog. and your friend trixie's too. and funnie, that you both know lester, who used to be my best friend 15 years ago, whom i met again in ntu, but we left it at that for some reasons unknown.
Michael W. Smith's Friends is playing now. The song that we sang back in our Sec 1 or 2 class performance. Nostalgia-filled faded memories. I can almost drop a tear right now, the friends we had and those who departed from our lives.
I would like to reacquaint all my old friends. before it's too late.
before the merciless hands of time sweep us by.
which brought a thought to my head, is there a limit to the number of close and active friends one can have at any point of his life? once a certain quota is reached, old friends are pushed down the list and replaced by new ones?
the boys and girls started school this week, back to the humdrums of classes and canteens and girls watching. life in ntu and hall goes on without me, without skipping a beat.
and i miss it all, with somewhat a heavy heart.
I made the decision to cut school in 3 years so that I can get some income. but now that i'm here, working seems to be the last thing on my mind.
the abrupt arrival of the end of 3 years in university felt as if the final whistle of the Liverpool game came 15 minutes early. without injury time. and i'm the substitute who's still warming up by the sidelines.
this recently expired phase has made up one of the most memorable part of my life, alongside my secondary school years, where friends and love were gained and lost. upon seeing the email sent by the students union promoting whatever activities that are going on, i can't help but wish that i'm back there again.
gotta move on, back to the unfinished cambodia photos.
I'm feeling inspired after reading this acclaimed title by Paulo Coelho.
In fact, I'm on the way to becoming one. For the last few days, I've turned all my food into lao sai.
I also transformed early evening and day into night by sleeping 14 hours.
Such is The Language Of The World.
Sometimes love is hiding between the seconds of your life.
I think I have something for films overlaid with narrations. They bring me one step deeper into the film, like a friend relating his story, rather than just plain voyeurism in the dark.
Funnie kungfu guy looks like Robbie Fowler, and footballer looks like Kevin Keegan, in Newcastle look-alike kit no less.
Two thumbs up for Cashback.
I don't know why it took me this long to write about such.
Destiny, dated.
I saw two girls in a train compartment at Raffles Place. four hours later, after traveling to the west and back, I spotted them, again together in the same compartment, heading in the same direction.
Quick note before I dive into and get lost in the hundreds of photos taken in Siem Reap..
Three full days - exhausting, enriching, scorching, amazing, dusty, and ultimately, well spent. Shall try to finish writing and filtering through the photos as soon as i can, before the memories disperse like dust blown off the Cambodian roads.
- My injury tendency quickly matured. The next accident was more gruesome. I was riding pillion on my father's old Yamaha motorcycle, sometime around my 7th birthday, an age when my young legs couldn't yet reach the pedestal. As the bike was about to round a corner into my neighbourhood, my left leg dangled into the back wheel and got trapped among the spinning spokes. I frantically signaled to my father to stop. Eventually he did. A kind hearted motorist stopped to help excavate my leg from the wheel. My left ankle was all raw. I could see black, red and white. Grime from the wheel, flesh dripping with blood, and standing out from which, part of my bone gleaming bright.
I did not cry, and calmly told my father to buy handiplasts from the mamak shop across the road. Thankfully he had enough sense left in him to not listen to my brave words. Plasters can't fix multiple fractures and a gaping wound.
The pain did not come till a couple of days later at the hospital, when they poured some solution to wash my wound. It felt like acid burning through my bones, forcefully purging out my stifled screams and teary eyes.
I spent the year-end holidays on wheelchairs and crutches. It took me a few months to eventually walk again and an entanglement of blotchy red scars remain in place of my skin today. My body was never whole again.
