feel like buying a bike soon. the rush of air into the face has never felt more inviting than anything else i've tried. really, really, really gotta hand it to the curriculum gymnastics that we took earlier this semester for my success. after all, i guess "it" comes naturally after you've gotten used to falling over, tumbling around in gym.

after the day's work, i walked over to serangoon gardens and bought myself a two dollar pack of char kway teow. sort of a small sized serving, i must add. thereafter i walked over to melvyn's place, but found out from his mom and sis that he just went back to australia, to university of tasmania. oops. lost contact with him alright. managed to get his contact and email address. will mail him soon, i guess. i thanked mel's mom and sis as i turned and went over to jason's place instead, and managed to chat up with his father. jason was my primary school classmate for two years, i think. it's a miracle that we're still in contact. unfortunately the reason why i talked to his dad, was because he just went out. oops.

and this was the bumper story of the night - as i proceeded back home on foot (i love the feeling of urban hiking somewhat) there was this woman who seemed to be a domestic maid. she said in halting english that she wanted to go to peninsular plaza. i offered to show her the way to the nearest bus-stop because i thought that i might as well help her save whatever money she has right then. so as we walked - a near 15 to 20 minute walk - i found out from her that her employer made her drink stale milk, past its expiry date. and made her re-mop and re-mop the floor at whim. this native indonesian domestic maid just wanted to go back to her agent named progressive employment services and just wanted no more of this suffering. though she was no Christian, i felt that i had to help in whatever ways that i still can. imagine being so far away from home, working for a measly $230 a month and enduring this kind of suffering... in the end i dug out $1.20 and gave it to her as bus fare for her to depart from the bus-stop where we were to peninsular plaza. i pray that she's able to escape this immoral tormenting soon... and find solace working for another benevolent employer instead... i'll try to give them a call at their office at 336-1811 tomorrow to see if her case has been dealt with...

in one of kiyosaki's books, i believe there was a mention: winners compare themselves against others' strengths, losers compare themselves to others' weaknesses.

wendy-mei and tricia-mei, i'll practice what i promised you both.

aikido policy.

John 10:9-11: "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."

yawn. the mystery-boy's back at it again. i just replied with a couple of down-to-earth answers to its retorts. barf. in any case i'll keep the promise that i made to tricia-mei.

and i just can't figure out one thing lor - why this mystery-boy got so much time to come back again and again to post comments here leh? as i previously mentioned before lor, either he likes something so much about me that he wants to become a fan of mine, or just has a big nut loose in the head. girls, for those of you who all got some form of hate-stuff on your site, what do you think is on the other person's mind?

definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

just tried cycling from eric's place to zongde's place on denise's bike, all the way on the pavement along bedok reservoir road, all by myself! i think the gymnastics module helped me a lot, especially in helping me being more aware of my center of gravity. and i didn't have any time where i really lost control of the bike at all... i think i soon can move up to the triathlon, assuming that i pick up race-cycling and throwing it to my already not-bad base for biathlon...


What Ayumi Hamasaki song are you?
Quiz by Mika Tsukino

Are you Addicted to the Internet? 55% Average@Internet-User.com (41% - 60%) You seem to have a healthy balance in your life when it comes to the internet and life away from the computer. You know enough to do what you want online without looking like an idiot (most of the time). You even have your own Yahoo club or online journal! But you enjoy seeing your friends and going out to enjoy life away from your computer. The Are you Addicted to the Internet? Quiz at Stvlive.com!

the internet addict quiz was off min's blog, and the ayumi song quiz off tricia-mei's site.

sometimes, some things are best left unknown. i have just uncovered a truth that is so much bigger than it seems to the eye. i am sworn to secrecy.

on the other hand, i have successfully uncovered yet another secret that is unrelated to the former. its nature and contents are open to anyone and everyone. there is nothing more to it that makes it a secret anymore. it has just transmigrated from an unknown subject to a known truth. there is no more worth in seeking it anymore.

everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed - stanza from pearl jam's corduroy.

the scent of food has lured the snake to the open. the light of day, has shone on the creature; the food it thought was, was no more than bait. the ensnarement that would usually follow will not come. the hunt has come to an end. the farmer let the snake slither away into oblivion.

ah good! something's finally over! just promised tricia-mei.

anyway, my attempts at cooking the bubble tea pearls at home didn't go well... some of the pearls got stuck to the bottom of the pot... will clean it up when i wake up... that's why i didn't reply your messages ar wendy-mei.

after a day of school, as i was about to cross the road from philips avenue, i met zane, my polytechnic coursemate... so i bid zahara farewell and i paid zane a visit at his place. wow, his place is soooo close to my school! and we were having a good time laughing off the comments from the mystery-boy who posted all those stuff on my site. later i left his place at about 8pm to go to hougang mall to buy some stuff that i'd need - like a whistle. i went to sports link and bought this whistle made by molten - wow, cool! an anti-bacterial whistle! that cost me $8.13. and then i just changed the battery for my swiss army brand watch - another 5 dollars gone. by the way, this is the watch that i won for being 10th in the army men's closed category in the army half marathon 2000. betcha mystery-boy doesn't have one... or placed anywhere in the finishers close to one (if he dared to run at all)...

actually, the best joke is that he's trying to call the bigger events as small... i just realized that the national schools which he takes so much pride on, to be only a schoolboys' race... and he doesn't realize that the army half marathon is the entire armed forces slugging it out for top dog. even includes many more national and ex-national long distance runners too. it doesn't take too much to tell which is more prestigious right? sigh. the boy's got twisted logic. ok, i shan't make fun of him anymore...

anyway, i've found the real picture of mystery-boy!

cute, isn't he? think you can guess his real name from the colour of the belly of the little chick... yellow bellied chicken! puk puk puk!

hmmm. judging from the responses to the pics that i shot, it seems very much obvious that it has to be tay choon kit who is the one posting all these messages, hate stuff, and allegements against me on my site. i can't really believe it, considering him to be from one of singapore's top junior colleges, and having such a "record" of behaviour? pity, pity. ah well. judging from what my fellow running mates shared with me, 17:17.1 is a lousy timing for a 5000 meter run on the track. why would i say so although i haven't run faster than that timing? simply because too many people are able to do it. if this young lad could run a 15:30, it's alright if he says he's too good for me. then again, i have never told many people, but some (maybe i told edmund sim before) people including my previous campmates know that the reason why i run the 5000 meter race and 10,000 meter race is because there simply isn't any other longer distance for me to race. so that's the only reason why i'm doing these two track events. the 3000 meter steeplechase, i'm doing it because i like the adventurous feeling of taking off and landing off the steeplechase hurdles.

for the rest of you who visit my blog regularly, you know something? this so-called mystery-boy (note that i used the word boy instead of man for obvious reasons) has now to resort to changing the topic from my running capabilities to my nsf commitments to attempt a feeble dust-slinging at me, because there's nothing in the first place for him to mud-sling at me.

nice try. i'll award you an A for effort, but F for results. oh, and before i forget, have you done a half-marathon distance faster than me before? no right?... and according to the overall compiled results for the ahm 2000, i was somewhere like 29th overall. where was your name?... oops, forgot that chickens can't run long distances... wait! i forgot that chickens can't even run!

hmm. we celebrated huiling's 23rd birthday, and yours sincerely here gave her a christmas/cny card that was modified to be a birthday card impromptu. received my new personal new king james version bible today from hui. after having lunch with the group, i went off to bukit batok and later cashew road to personally deliver two cny cards. though late, but better than never.

most of the afternoon i was in the half-asleep mode especially if i didn't keep myself moving. gosh. the good and the bad things running 20km on a sunday morning can cause...

woah! did my first 20km run in ages. didn't wear a watch for the entire run, and i did it in approximately 1:31, according to desmond. singapore biathlon, here i come! considering the fact that i have not done a single run of up to 10km for the past one year, i think 1:31 is a remarkable achievement. but then again, some particular runner might have a problem running the distance...

i also met this man named ted and he did the las vegas marathon three weeks ago in 2:47. hey mystery-boy, beat that!

woke up at 4+ pm today and it was soon nathan who called me up, asking me about going to the 6 div lunar new year gathering at sembawang country club. well, i decided to update the killerpess (diploma) group page with links to all our various websites. did that until about 5pm, then i decided to get a quick shower and head out of home to the destination.

reached the place just about 5:50pm, and there nathan was so relieved to see me there. as an active nsf personnel, he was in the midst of so many officers, and that really gave him some jitters - i mean, there were so many warrant officers, as well as majors, lieutenant-colonels, colonels, as well as our brigadier-general tay. we also spotted another prominent army figure there at the driving range - and gosh, was i suprised to see him there! (not telling who he is...) met han, his wife cat who's teaching in river valley high as a pe teacher (that logically makes her my predecessor), kian chye, andy and nathan, who happens to be my junior of two years from vs. of course we had other big shots like our division chief-of-staff, colonel eric khoo. for the unknowing, this man was once the chief commando officer. yes, you read me right.

this year is the year that 2pdf will be given a hard challenge by us 6 division in the army half marathon. i'll personally see to that someone's oh-so-superior running won't be of much use. after all, it's a team event, not an individual thing.


from left - andy, kian chye, han, cat, nathan. in front - me.

after the dinner, han drove me over to near holland village and then i took a bus over to orchard road. gave a call to tricia-mei and she said she was in the heeren. i dropped off at the heeren bus stop, and went straight to the 2nd level... and guess what? i managed to find dream theater's six degrees of inner turbulence!


before i bought the cd, i saw something (note: not someone) that was a visual prick. and now that something should know that big brother's watching him.

watch out! your back's not covered... you may get shot easily! surely must have been sleeping through all the previous training... or a slacker in camp...	erm, sorry, but black tees are now out of style. only kiddos and wannabes-but-can't-be's wear them... especially those with the tees tucked out...
as before mentioned... this is a very open shot open to all angles...	this is a good position for the arctic magnum to fire a spot-on shot to the head... any counter-strike players who's got the scope?

betcha he knows of nothing that's making him a star very soon. oh yep, he definitely doesn't know that members of our blog group are all around the island watching him...

just got woken up by mom a couple of minutes earlier on. i reloaded my site, read through the comments for yesterday (friday through saturday) and have to thank the sgts-girls, wendy mei and of course pink mei for supporting me. it was a novel perspective from lyndy who said that having some bad flamin' was better than no publicity. i agree wholeheartedly, but then i think this could be a civil libel case - not the recent posting of stuff, but the part saying that it would be no wonder raping my students. it was just sheer bad taste of whoever-it-was.

well, cousin raymond is flying overseas this morning to australia for further studies... for two years i think. and this somehow reminds of me an incident yesterday afternoon, as i was on the mrt from ang mo kio to yew tee. i heard this mother (an auntie type) asking her child, "were there anybody in your class who scored 25 our of 25 for your class test?". she wasn't like really expecting her own child to score a full 25, but somehow clearly it shows that singaporean parents are still generally so obsessed with plain numbers. i think this is totally unhealthy. like what i reflect on my c6 for my gce 'o' literature, i think it's better to score bad at something (be it any subject, but please don't aim for an outright fail) but making sure the essense of the subject can be applied to your life holistically. no point mugging for that top student fame and in the end? forget everything in the process...

in singapore, most students are puppets of their parents - living the life that their parents want them to live - at the expense of their own dreams. i'm very fortunate that my parents never really wanted me to live a particular destiny or life... but left me to choose my own destiny. they made comments, but never did ever discourage me from anything. i think this is one of the greatest liberties they have given me. i often share with my friends, that through my not-so-welcomed returns to vjc to run in the past, i've talked to some of my acquaintances and friends about their course of study in the junior college. a typical conversation would be:

me : wow! what subjects are you taking?
friend : double maths, double science...
me : cool! what do you intend to do in the future after jc?
friend : i don't know...
me : then how come you chose these subjects?
friend : because in my family there are a lot of engineers, so my parents want me to be one too...

the above is just a sample of the sad examples that i've heard a time too many. there are other variations of that too, but it's all so sad. i'm glad that i had the full liberty, though my dad wasn't really happy that i went to so many schools (four, to be exact) - but i think it was just a matter of face, should he be asked about it by my other relatives. i've lead the life that i wanted, though it was never really the ideal life that i wanted to live - because that would be already a fairy tale!

yesterday afternoon i was at the primary school for the on-site "tour" to orientate me with the school, and guess what? other than the fact that kai li was posted there for attachment, so was zahara! small world... the rest of the fellow nie trainees there are germaine, thomas ang and nani. so far the school seems pretty cosy and close-knitted. my cooperating teacher, roger tan is a company captain for the 69j boy's brigade company in singapore. wow! such coincidence... sad thing about roger - though nothing to do with him as a person because he's really a great dude - it's sad that he's not pe trained. i took a peep at his lesson plans for primary one kids and it includes relays for the kids. from what we've learnt in pess, relays should not be done during primary school days for children. why, you may ask. because the nature of the relays of running one end of the court to the other - there is very little actual participating time for each individual student. most of the time while the other 9 in the group are running across, the individual child is more preoccupied with jumping and cheering... erm... hahaha but all these have absolutely nothing to do with the developmental growth for a child.

yesterday evening after i submitted the hardcopy of the ecm102 and invasion games assignment back at nie, i saw the home ec girls from my fellow eed102 tutorial group - priscellia, kelly, khas and erma along the pe block corridor. the ladies were just taken aback by my smart appearance (i was wearing a long sleeve shirt wuth folded sleeves, and pants with a generous amount of hair gel slapped on) and i joked that maybe i should start a fan club for myself... we all laughed at the joke, and i asked them where they'd be going so late in nie. and guess what? they needed some amount of help for the eed100 webpage assignment. kelly was so kan cheong - that i thought she might be stressing herself too much. oops, slip of the fingers to type it out... hehehe... the rest of the girls were fine though. managed to teach them through guided discovery teaching model (wah...) successfully how to do a webpage/website in just one and a half hours. when it came to closing time for the library, i saw gary coming into the computer lab and i was surprised to hear that he was priscellia's boyfriend! wow! small world... not the gary from pess, this is the one from woodlands secondary... but he's the hod of pe in the school now! had a bit of talk with him too. just right after we stepped out of the library, the girls offered me one otah bun that gary actually bought for them - because i helped them with the website thingie. it sure feels great to help guide people to do a website albeit simple... especially when it's part of an assignment! boy, it sure feels great to be explicitly appreciated in the first place! anyway, we'd get to the carpark and gary drove the five of us to jurong point, where kelly and khas dropped off, and then drove the rest of us to town. erma and me got off the car at the swissotel and we took the train back together, though i got off the train earlier at paya lebar.

and guess what? i met eng chuan, a neighbor's boy from my block, and we had a talk about pe and army... the fine young lad was going to pass out from bmtc 'g' coy on 20th march, i think... good for him! anyway, he's a giant, towering over me at 1.90 meters in height! woah! oh yeah, before i forget, i'll be meeting the 6 division commander and the rest of the runners at sembawang country club in the evening for dinner... too bad no girlfriend, but i think it's better to have close girl friends instead.

this reminds me of something - when i first went to tricia's website, i remember that when i first wanted to post a comment, my ip address got banned. apparently, after some explanation, it's just that somebody else was using the ip address that i was recently allocated to use, had posted some non-relevant stuff, so that's why she banned the ip address. but i won't need to exercise this form of control; not that i can't, but i can't be bothered. jia ba si beh eng ar!, is it?

personal note to mystery man on my page - don't you think you've got an interesting personality, friend? someone who can just survive by the breath of hate, will not have eternal life. repent and live forever! frankly i do not know why you've been drawn back to this site for - to comment, to read even... wow! you must be a fan of mine, thanks! oh, if you're having queries about how i do my races, rule number one, i don't do warm ups for my runs which are too short for me - that would be a total waste of time. my idea is to go out and have some fun on the route... or learn the feeling of running free, once again...

you know folk? isn't it amazing that someone who hates you so much, also wants to find out so more about you at the same time? so how do i differentiate between a friend, a fan, and a hater? it's probably that the person wants to be like me so much, that's why he's taking the effort to pop back to visit my website all the time - logical, don't you think? no, mystery man, you're not supposed to comment on this!

this is exactly what pastor kong mentioned - this personality is just like the movie the mask (the old one starring cher). because of the different paradigms that an individual has, when he sees normal people - he may think they are abnormal, but convinces that he's perfectly normal - albeit in a "different" world. won't mention too much more, because there's a part two to this sermon. i was just thinking of yin-yang in almost everything we do - that's why we hear - every force has an opposite and equal reaction.

p.s. robert kiyosaki mentioned in if you want to be rich and happy, don't go to school? this good sentence for the day - never argue with an idiot, because you'll end up with two. so i won't bother to pitch in against you-know-who, because of you-know-why.

just checked my guestbook, and there was this sick joker writing there, saying that i freely distribute photos of girls that i just take at my own will, and he doesn't wonder about me raping my students. hello! sick joker... whoever you are, i have nothing to do with you. so don't try to pull off some smoke on me, because ntu email addresses DO NOT go like fbaxxx@ntu.edu.sg... you need to wake up, kiddo. i seriously doubt that this joker is tay choon kit, but who knows. tried to talk to him at the ntu-nus run but then he seemed to give me the cold shoulder. just hope it isn't him. i strongly suspect this joker is the same person who left that other offensive note in my guestbook, mentioning that i'm a slower runner. not a lot of people really know that i was the old boys' champion back at vjc for their annual cross-country run (a road race) for the year 1999. just that this someone was apparently so bitter that he couldn't come because he went into army, so that's why i won, he argues. eat my dust!

anyway, brushing this matter aside, tonight there were pretty bad public transport things that happened to me today. for a first, when i took service 179 to go to alwyn's hostel, the bus driver pulled up short of the bus shelter, although it was really raining cats and dogs! next incident was at about 9:30pm, when i was about to leave the ntu campus to meet siva at jurong point to get some notes, the first 179 superbus that pulled over had these idiots who were what we in the army call, excused brains, and couldn't move in all the way to the end of the bus. there was plenty of space for those poor chaps who were so badly squeezed at the front of the bus! anyway, this bus left, and then i just waited like 10 to 15 minutes for the next bus... and this bus was fully packed this time. in the end, siva waited for me at jurong point for around 30 minutes... then when we were entering the gantry for the mrt station, there was one of these gantries that was jammed. so i knocked on the glass panel of the station control room, and sure enough, one of the staff came out. he asked me what i had for him, and so then i pointed at the jammed gantry. and you know what he told me? he said in his fourteen years with the mrt, this never what... created a problem for him or what... in short, he just can't be bothered to fix the gate or get someone else who could do so... what type of attitude is this? tomorrow if i go there, i'm gonna lodge a complaint against this crappy service... fellow bloggers, i think if you read this you'll feel the same as i do, don't you?

thought the story for the night has ended? nope. the bus that i took home from the paya lebar mrt station - service 24 - the driver stopped before the sunk-in bay for the bus stop - just because there was another bus in front in the bay, and this driver of the bus i was on - he stopped on the main road and opened the doors! the transport service is suddenly decaying...

anyway, my biceps, triceps, shoulders all feel sooooo tired. reason? of course because of the gymnastics practical test lar! i screwed up, but then i think it's a good start for me, at this ripe old age of 22+. hmm... asked beverly mei to help me critique my performance once i get the video of the routine in mpeg format. it's always good to have a champ help to point out your shortcomings...

ok, just went throught the nie bazaar at the library arcade. wait, did i call the place by the right name? anyway, i finished the gymnastics practical test, it went ok, except this handstand that i wanted to come down by the chest and "roll off" it, didn't turn out as what i wanted - i went over and went splat. sigh.

anyway, i sent out an invitation asking if any ladies (those on my handphone's phonebook) if they would be free this saturday to attend the ntu choir performance at victoria concert hall. sigh. no one's is free, so...