just finished a fairly long talk with stacey over the phone just now... we're planning to start mutual training for running in the coming months. good - haven't had anyone i can talk freely with, to train together with me. we'd probably do the training based in the ntu campus, where we could stash our stuff at one of my friends' hostels and then go for the running and come back later to wash up.

for a while, i remembered how happy she made me, when she presented that pair of nike air zoom streak i wore for the army half marathon yesterday, to me back in 1998 as my birthday present. up till then, no one ever, ever presented me with something that made me feel so loved, and encouraged me to pursue what i loved. ah yes, that fuzzy feeling of having an elder sister to look after you.

i was somewhat surprised/perturbed when stacey not to give up wooing jeam. i said, there were two problems - #1 - jeam indicated that i was not mature enough for her liking, #2 - she's not a Christian. stacey said, that jeam could always become a Christian later. i was like going, "HUH?"... but i'll choose not to go for jeam again. not that i'm hit once, and unable to recover - but it's not what a Christian should do - to woo a unbeliever. alright, those who haven't said if they believe or not...

just found out online while chatting to my polytechnic coursemate adelle that she's been an air stewardess with sia for... around two years only today! well, at least now i know who to ask to help me lug back cycling products back from almost any country (or so i hope...)

work due
1 oct - motor learning lab
1 oct - etm maths quiz
3 oct - etm tutorials
this week - imagery notes

hmm. i've asked peter to help me to check the price for a polar s710 heartrate monitor, and guess what? apparently he's able to get it for just 440 clams, instead of the 520 bucks that i might be able to grab it from house of times at lucky plaza... cool eh? from the recommended retail price is $586... imagine this - it comes with a bike speed sensor, a bike mount, a built-in altimeter and thermometer... any more stuff and probably james bond would be using it too! but of course, assuming if it's the correct model quoted for $440, it's almost a massive savings of 25%! now (still assuming the price is correct), the money saved can be used to purchase the usb-to-infrared adapter for the watch to upload/download training/heartbeat information to my computer - all together at the same $520 i was quoted from house of times just for the basic s710 package alone! kewl!

yep! finished the danged race, surprisingly i didn't feel that fatigued that i thought i might be during the entire route - there wasn't an occasion that i panted at all for the army half marathon, but i clocked in only 1:33:++. didn't wear a watch for this run (my first time, not wearing a watch for any major event), so this was probably a problem with my pacing. the initial route (up till the half) out, there were a ton of army category runners who zipped past me, but relying on past experience, i expected to be able to overtake a lot of runners after the 11km mark, of which i made it there in 49:++ apparently. well, that expectation of people struggling never happened, not until with only 4km to go, i started to catch people back methodically. well, that's me. my specialization is kicking in when people are struggling. in fact, the earlier distance i covered is my warmup!

of course, when i sensed that on the general that i couldn't overtake people by that distance, something was wrong. ok, so i learnt that i shouldn't just cycle and use it to replace cycling. that was a truth that ltc hong let me know after everything ended. i mean, i'm supposed to be a key player in the team, but with my dismal showing this year... sigh... (1:23 in 2000, 1:29 in 2001 and 1:33 in 2002) something is not right. never mind - this year i did the danged distance with next to zero training, so imagine what i could do with specific distance training...

just a sidenote: i beat dr. bala for this year's run!

of highlight, i met several folks there - of most significant mention - stacey! saw also mark leong and sunzman from togoparts.com, hong guang, jin kiat, sunil, eric, chien hsing, kien mau, eugene, adeline, thian huat, le-anne, paul thompson, peter davison, teck heng, lawrence ang, eric tan and his wife, andy and his girlfriend ruizhi, shui khan, uncle lian hock, donald, grace and her husband, jj, desmond, amongst many other people. of course, and my teammates, ganesan, steve and his wife rose, ling xing, his twin brother ling kai, peter, han (and his wife cat who's a pe teacher as well), kian chye, elangovan, pandi, veeramani, aaron, siva, nathan, royston, ernest, gary, peng joe, yusri... (that's a lot of people!) and not forgetting our brigade commander, maj indra, encik ng, cpl aw... and the rest of the 9sib guys who were present. hey... this is a first time i'm naming that many people i've seen in a day! oh, and i think i saw geraldine, who i know was a triathlete from hcjc last year or the previous one - i took a photo with her back in the polar s-series biathlon back in late 2000 together with chee-chong fun at sentosa after the event...

and yes! i met xiaochun and her coach sim at the starting line... she was really easy to suan! also, i met vs senior keng cher at the starting line - when only days ago, he signed my guestbook, asking me if i'm going for the run... talk about coincidence!

yesterday for our recce trip for the run's route, i also took a lot of photos of the cats at one of the east coast park public toilets... really, really cute. i sent some pics of them to xuan just now, and i asked her if she knew why the cutest pics of them weren't really cute... and of course, she was none the wiser, so i replied her, because there're someone going with a backpack in nie that says "cute"! i'll upload those pics when webshots.com is feeling better...

after talking for quite a while with dr. clara, it seems clearer to me now how i should take my priorities now. though cycling is crucial to keeping me sane and functional, i should treat my entire work/play schedule much like the tour de france. not that i'm cycling the entire 3000+ km of it all with all the mountains and whatnot, but that i should strategize my plan for the entire trip (my life) just like the individual stages in the entire race. for some stages, it's not crucial to win, but more to keep up the pace, but yet i should conserve my energy for the later race legs - just like how some times i should put other things into higher priority also. but on another aspect, even though i might be lagging behind the race leaders, there's never any real telling if i could come out near the top - or even be the tour leader, in the coveted yellow jersey. even though i might be midpack, i still have the time now to catch up with whatever i have been lagging behind for my pess course...

i'm not gonna let up. really, really, dr. clara is one heck of a good person to talk to if you've any problems in your head. at least it worked for me...

haha... i know what i'll get myself next month - a spanking new camelbak day trekker crimson! great for cycling and carrying all my tools as well...

for those using broadband, you should really take a look at this movie trailer. gosh, it's just damned cool!

have to slog things out tonight, tomorrow my instructional strategies microteaching session...

wonder what's gonna happen to 2pdf's team this sunday. in the evening i watched kien mau win the men's 10000m ivp race in a time of 35:12, and jin kiat in second position with 36:20. the should-have-been second position guy, sunil (who was two years consecutively the a division national schools' boys champion) somehow faltered abruptly with only 90 meters to go - from where i was seated, i saw his running with rubberized legs (serious!) and two seconds later, his knees just buckled out under him, and he fell! and he got up, wobbled, and fell again! goodness... wonder what happened to him. but i admit, he's in great shape for sunday's army half marathon otherwise.


6 div army half marathon team! yeah!

can hardly fall asleep these days, although i very much want to get some more rest. my lower back is still as sore as ever, my mood swings up and down, and since midnight last night, i was trying to sleep, but then issues just popped into my head and gave me a fucking headache. i never felt much closeness to my earthly father - and i dare say, none. since when was i ever really, emotionally happy in his presence? he just fills me up on my material wants and needs, not my emotional/spiritual wants and needs. the last thing you want your own old man to tell you at the end of a phreakin' tiring marathon is, "are you ready? let's go back". come on, no socialization at any level? hurrying me to go back? no thanks! i'd rather do things by myself these days. at least i'm the one who's solely responsible for whatever that may happen. thankfully i understood how my mom still cares for me - especially after that big crash i had during may.

initially, i set the alarm clock to buzz off at 3am, so that i could wake up and finish up my assignments, print them out and get ready for submission before i even head out of home. but i couldn't. i couldn't get to sleep - all those past memories of those times when i put in effort to woo any of those girls - i don't know what the fuck went wrong. it's so cliched - "i don't know you well enough" - come on! i'm not asking for marriage! all i'm looking for is mutual commitment and company! screwballs to all those girls who told me that. realizing, that all throughout my life so far, i only have a lot of acquaintances, not true friends was another issue that came to fuck my mind up. zongde, ever since he got attached, i try to let him have as much time as possible to himself and jeslyn - even to the extent that i let them stay together in a hostel room that i registered in name with him.

in the darkness, i realized that the time was 1:57am (or thereabouts) and i definitely wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon. in compensation, i adjusted the alarm to 3:30am instead - and great, the mindfuckin' thoughts just haunted me up till 2:57am. and then i re-adjusted the alarm to 4am. this continued agony of wanting to sleep but unable to do so, plagued me until around 4:30am or 5am.

i need a long term female companion.

i just deleted off jeam's number from my handphone. once i get back the helmet from her, that's the end.

i've got plans to buy the polar s510 heartrate monitor next month. should cost around s$463. it costs us$259.99 after all. i'll forestall the plans to get the cervelo anyway. by then, probably the 2003 p2k model might have been released - an even better model for the same money. and of course not to forget all the nike usps team attire stuff that i listed here last time.

came home after gymnastics, and saw doctor koh again. i gotten myself sick with urti (upper respiratory tract infection) after yesterday's project care ride. too hot, too sunny, too little water. you get the idea lar. never had i seen anyone so concerned for my well-being before - i've seen this doctor since 1990 to now, for your info.

she was telling me, that she wasn't that concerned about issuing mc's for me - but instead, it's more important that i change my attitude to life. she reminded me, how in the past i used to be more eager running through a minor bout of flu - but look at the contrast now to how i react now to my sickness. i'm just dragging myself along now, drearing everyday.

of course i could sulk, when jeam sms-ed me telling me that she had to return me the helmet i gave her last night right after the ride. she quoted that it was too expensive, and that she doesn't know me well yet. ah well. and she is not interested in younger guys. not in me, at least. the best that can be done - friends. it's so cliched, this statement. alright - i'll stay away from girls from now on. my sports and fitness are anytime more important to me than a girl. i've been thinking, it's good to have Him for company, but for a guy, what else could make him whole, other than a female companion? and vice versa for a girl? guess not everyone takes this mentality anyway.

alright, once i recover, this sunday i will toast some serious butt for the army half-marathon. gotta turn my focus to something more worthwhile, then. seems like this - girls like mature guys. and guys like me, who are fairly mature in most things - but usually act goofy - are treated as immature. what do they want? a guy who's always pulling a long face? life's already too stressful already - i've learnt from last week - so what's the point with being immature? i have a new resolution - sports are in, girls are out. out, out and out. shoo, shoo!

anyway, it was despicable to see that fat faggot from cannondale asia going up to shake mr chan soo sen's hand as if the whole project care ride was his show. from what i understand, he went around talking to people and asking them to go to the showroom... capitalizing on some meer donations here and there and trying to get people to buy his bikes just because he's sponsoring the bike that the guest of honor was riding. i won't forgive him for mis-fitting jess on her triathlon bike - and mark me - i certainly will advise against people buying cannondales in singapore - because that means that some money goes to his income. i don't like that idea.

so many people can blog like there's nothing wrong. hope this goes well. just before midnight, i met up gordon who's about to pop next week, and boy, did bmt do him good or what! i mean, he's no more the fair (i hated that word on myself then) and slightly pudgy overgrown boy he was, but a lean, mean young man! the wonders ns does for guys. we had roti prata and some what, chicken chop noodles (?!?!?!) at blk 283 bishan, our "old place". after returning home, in the wee hours, i had a good talk with emi-chan, and it was somewhat unnerving to know how much information about where you stay, that other people can find out from your website, with some clues picked up here and there. of course, it wasn't her who found out about me, but me finding out about her. just a safety issue here, although we bloggers generally remain in our anonymous lives. slept at around 5am after reading through with renewed interest in the local ji issue here.

today i rushed back to nie via cab, reached the gymnasium at about 10:30am although i'm supposed to meet ceqin and faisal at 9am for a curriculum gymnastics practice session. then an accident happened - as ceqin was going for a handspring, and my spotting was off (because our timings were screwed up), and then i got her foot thumping my mouth - result - blood. lots of it. for the first time in my life i felt the sensation of having a mouth full of blood. it was warm, thick, and very me. even as i type this, one of my fingers still has some dried blood on it. back to the scenario - i walked over to the guys' changing room, and it felt odd as i watched clumpy blood splutter all over in the basin. the dilution effect that tapwater had on my blood didn't look nice. i prefer the bright red look of my blood. momentarily, i was reminded of pearl jam's song, blood... "it's... my... blood-od!" at least i'm sure i cut the supply blood vessels this time - my upper lip was cut by my teeth - the blood was a bright, crimson red. bloody red, if you want. talking on the issue of blood, take a look at this forklift usage safety video - sadly, it's in german, so probably people like caroline can appreciate it fully.

after the cut was washed and such, siva shared with us his commando days photo. surprised to see so many vs/vjc seniors in it - jimmy, rubin (then boyfriend of eleanor), and a few other i don't know the name, but only the face. the world is close knit after all, i guess.

oh. and i bumped into yuzanne with her boyfriend in jurong point - they just got there after looking at fish - luohan? around the area. and heng kin too, who was peddling some wares at the second level.

doctor koh was so nice, when i visited her around 4:30pm earlier, she wrote me an mc and asked me to take a rest instead. no prescription, no charge. she's really a very nice, sweet doctor that i don't know where else you could find one more like her.

i need a shrink. you got me right - i don't want a shrink, but i need one.

oh, forgot to write about this one. mavic and me are back to ok again.

i still haven't started on the ecm201 maths assignment on error analysis. i still haven't completed the socio-psychology assignment either. i missed the basketball assessment this morning. i missed the creative dance assessment this afternoon. i need a break.

stoopah blogger.com has been breaking down of late. damned.

to him, fish are more important than a family. to him, the welfare of two luohan fishes are more crucial to him than a son.

i should have never, never offered to give that crystal fountain to him. it's making him more idol-worshipping.

i'm thinking hard to find a place where i can hole up for good. the only things that's stopping me, is that i need to move all my books, magazines, computer and my bike.

in the early hours of today, as well as those last two hours of last night as i headed out to nowhere, i rode hard, and how i wished that some big truck would just run me over. i don't know what my purpose in life is.

i stopped at a bus stop along lentor avenue, trying to find inner peace within myself, but i only further recalled all the bad past i had with him. i was seated there on the seat that only i occupied. i was awaiting the presence of a phreaking large trucker to lose control and slam the entire collection of the bus-stop and me to atoms. i remember what i wrote back in february during the first day of the lunar new year. looking into retrospect, i saw even clearer why i need, not want a girlfriend. until that day comes, the gates to the inner me shall not be open. mutual trust. why have i been harping on this for so long? lee li, said she wanted to work. yimei dissed me. time to remove her from my contact list. she was that precious to me then that $100 out of my $240 ns allowance then went to a topaz pendant and necklace for her. yeah, memories. janice, who told me i was insensitive. not as if i wanted to, but was she willing to help change me? oh no, she said it wasn't nice to change people into what they weren't. yeah. get lost from my life. hyopcrite. huijia, although i never got to see her in the person in close-up, and only once from far, broke the possibility that she could be the one - she broke the promise to me that she'd hold off until the a-levels were over first, by telling me before her prelims that she was likely to pair up with some guy just after the prelims.

everything i do, in his eyes, is overboard. then again, he has never, never told me that anything that i've done has made him proud. summary - i don't need an earthly father. he had the audacity to tell me that i tried and failed as a salesperson. yeah. how eager are you going to be selling anything, including yourself, when you've been had for over $2000? that's one and a half month's of my salary, for the matter. how i wish i had a background like lance. once i get cancer, whether i pull through or not, it doesn't matter. it would be the perfect way to see my life summing up to an end.

"i want to die at a hundred years old with an american flag on my back and the star of texas on my helmet, after screaming down an alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour."

i'll go for my record fourth mc in two weeks later. i'm drained by everything that's not happening.

"how can I feel abandoned even when the world surrounds me" - "misunderstood", dream theater

"i now have only good days and great days." - lance armstrong

doctor koh told me, it's a good thing that i've finally realized what is called stress. apparently of late i've been stressed out enough by work to be able to have a record of three mc's over a period of just over one week. apparent signs of stress can show up as minor ailments that can rule a person out of action for no apparent reason otherwise.

ah good. now that i have all the multi-tools for my bike (namely the crank brothers multi-17, bondhus #12632 & #12592, parktool mt1), it's the end of the acquisition of all the bike tools i've ever need for a long long time to come. good, at least i don't need to pressure myself what i need to get myself for my birthday this year.

incredible - today for exercise physiology lab, we did this wingate anaerobic test - we initially warmed up for four minutes on a stationary bike - maintaining at 70rpm, and hitting all out efforts for about two seconds each time for each minute. in other words, spin at about 70rpm for 60 seconds and hitting 2 seconds' all out effort (with increased load on the bike with 7.5% of body mass) and repeating this until the four minutes was up. when it came to my turn, i couldn't go any slower than 75 rpm. in fact, i was spinning at 90 to 110rpm and i felt that was already too slow! *gulp*

the actual test portion is where we have a "rolling start" at 70 rpm on an identically set-up stationary bike, and then upon a 5-second countdown, we'd whack the daylights of the bike for a sustained 30-second period. incidentally, boom boom boomed out the bike with a solid (almost animalistic) power output of 828 watts! but his performance hit a 49% power decrease. yours truly, on the other hand, couldn't churn out more than 594 watts of power, but the performance drop was a measly 15%. in fact, i'm the only person in the entire class to have a power output drop of less than 20%! the next least drop performance was churned in by edward, with a 31% drop. sheesh. is it the project care training i've been attending helping me with this performance? i guess very much so...

by the way, most of us learned how to take blood samples from one another with the appropriate clinical devices... and it sure was a confusing sight to see xuan laughing and crying at the same time during the initial time her thumb was pricked with the "thumbpricker" in order to get the blood sample from her... i had the opportunity of watching debbie-saurus give the cycling machine a trashing with her apparent dinosauristic powers... and observing hui doing a lion-dance on the test setup (siva said that!)

date	time	module
28th Oct, Monday	1330-1530	EED 101 introduction to teaching and learning
1st Nov, Friday	0930-1200	EPA 211 Physiology of Exercise
2nd Nov, Saturday	0930-1200	EPA 203 Social and Psychological Foundation of Physical Education and Sports
2nd Nov, Saturday	1430-1700	ETM 201 Topics Related to Primary Mathematics II
6th Nov, Wednesday	0930-1200	EPA 205 Motor Learning

damned tired. shan't do my socio assignment now - will do it early in the wee hours, where the air is fresher... blah blah blah... not!

bought a bondhus torx gorillagrip torx set p/n 12632 from the hardware store at the basement of jurong point. had to get it, because once i have the time, i can use it to disassemble the logic boards for two of my identical hard disks... have to save my programs back!...

and on the bus ride back home, i met yuzanne, who was my polytechnic coursemate. she's still toweringly tall as ever!

the pictures from sunday's round island bus recce ride are now up! and some older pictures from 080902's ride, courtesy of smurf are up online as well!

had a fantastic dinner with jeam and smurf at chomp chomp - satay, chilli stingray, bbq chicken wings, and hao jian... good food, singaporean style!

went out cycling with the hall 10 guys last night, and we pushed off at only about 10:30pm... i assumed the role of sweeper, partly because i was the only garangly attired personnel (and armed with a stock of tire levers, two air pumps, and six spare tubes amongst various other tools) and also for the apparent fact that i was using clipless pedals and the only long distance, endurance passed fast cyclist. ok, enough pr for myself.


this is how we looked before we set off

the route wasn't that hard, really, but then there was this stretch from lau pat sat to labrador park where i almost fell asleep on my bike! reason was - this last cyclist whom i was escorting, was pedalling so slowly, that i was afraid, in my accompanying riding with him, i might lose my balance and fall! anyway, we eventually finished the entire ride at probably 7+ am back at hall 10, and after packing my belongings which i left with zongde. i only took two breaks (where i lied down and rested) - one at labrador park itself, and one more time at west coast park.

with a little extra nutrition ingested, i then cycled back to nie, packed my necessary papers for this coming weekend, and took back the worn clothes and the tools and extra spare tubes i brought along, washed up, and then clamoured down to basement 2 to sleep on the benches there. i was super, super tired. it's a rare occasion when i would use this description on myself - but i mean was really tired because i didn't sleep at all from thursday night into friday morning, because i was rushing to clear the ecm201 assignment... of which after i was done with it, i cycled 25 kilometers into nie, had a day's worth of classes, and didn't sleep all the while and i actually continued with the night cycling activity? man... tough training, my style.

i summed up saturday, by waking up at four plus at the basement 2 benches, visiting the nie library and finally cycling over to hup leong and picking up a park tool chaingang set, a bondhus allen key set p/n 12592 (sorry anne-mei, i got it for $7 only!) and a crank brothers multi-17 multi-tool set. all these for 85 bucks. of course, not to forget the ride home.

woah, that's enough. gotta get enough sleep so that i can report to east coast park at 0645hrs to do my army formation training run... but hopefully jeam will call me before i sleep...

to the dear person trying to impersonate my dear friends, you can stop now. i know my friends better than you think i know them - they are not the kind to spout rubbish like you. and i must add, it's pretty childish behaviour trying to use names of people i know, or even don't know, in your futile attempts to spoof-comment on my site. but... i thank you for your continual support for my site, judging from your repeated visits every other day. thank you!

i'll say, 'f' for your effectiveness in riling my temper, but 'a' for effort.

this is an odd day.

effy just called me to tell me that she somehow ended up in ntu and got lost. i said that i could help her to get out of it, but she said she knows how to get back home from there. huh? she got lost but she knows how to get back home?...

about half an hour earlier, jeam sms-ed me telling me,
"yo! erm.. rem 'dat' msg? e very sensitive 1? My col sent 1 lah..."
i was already lost when i read this message. then i replied, asking what sensitive message, then she replied,
"e 1 abt interest in guys.. Rem?" now i'm really confused...

look here, edmund, i don't diss the triathlon association of singapore. alec kuok is a pretty nice laid-back chap, and i respect him. charlie and mark are equally good folks too. in fact, most of the key people in the association i'm on ok, if not good, terms with them. but that doesn't mean that i have to respect everyone in the association. respect has to be earned. people who trash-talk often, like ato boldon can perform. but can every person who talks perform to prove their creditability?

looks like there's some spoofing attack on my site here. i know edmund that he wouldn't care much to tell me about my sport instead of his sport... so whoever's impersonating around here, you just watch out.

received a call from robert this morning, and though it was a surprise, it was not a pleasant one. he'd just come back from china from the asian champs triathlon, and he quoted some informer/advisor of his telling him about what i wrote about him, or rather, it's probably more so about what i wrote about his products. you see, i quoted a team-mate of mine as saying that zipp wheelsets are apparently more prone than other wheelsets in terms of breakage. back to the conversation, he asked for my address and home number, and i just gave it to him. according to what he said, it would be better to have my folks around when he talks to me about this issue. i'm absolutely ok with anything. from the way he spoke, it sure sounded like he's preparing me a legal letter. (otherwise, why would anyone use the word, "advisor"?) he also made some mention that he did finish the hawaii ironman back in '89. now think about this - isn't it odd that if the singapore amateur cycling association have their own website, then the triathlon association doesn't exactly have one to really call their own? there used to be one that mentioned the singapore international triathlon 2001, but it's so incomplete and outdated, that i don't think it's authoritative enough to say anything. let alone a local ironman finishers' listing. anyway i lost the url to it when i flushed my cache...

despite of what i may seem to be doing, i'm not a person who'd gonna mince my words, or simply edit my blog, just to attempt to "siam" the consequence(s) that i incurred by writing here. after all, this is a personal site, not a commercial site. legal defamation case? nah, i'm not defaming anyone. ever saw anyone who wrote in to the straits times forums being shot or hung? nope. expressing the suggestion that some wheelsets are more prone to breakage? come on, given the right conditions (ok, the wrong conditions), anything on planet earth can break! wonder who's being really serious around here... but for sensitivity's sake, i'll edit away the price for that particular bike with a particular setup... those who didn't catch the price, won't get to know about it liao...

and adding to the complexity of this potential best-seller saga, look at the wonderful guestbook entry that i highlighted a couple of weeks back - and what popped up on my tag board a couple of hours earlier - i coupled both pieces of electronic vandalism on my site in one screen, and you can all look at the screen shot i've made... (click on the image to see a larger version)



now i wonder if the text on the tag-board is from you-know-who as well... if it really was from her, it's such a shame to see such behaviour from a national athlete. hmmm... anyway to me, it doesn't really matter!

oh yes! the entire 130km mother of cycling trips, we finished it! i'll write something about this soon...

all the photos available as a full zip file now... zip file size, 7.6mb approximate. i'll need the webshots assistant to upload the photos though. something wrong with my computer...

deadlines:

subject	who	date due
epa203 social psychology	alvin, faisal and henry	?
epa205 motor learning	?	?
epa211 exercise physio	hui	11th sept
epc201 curriculum gymnastics	faisal and ceqin	?
epc203 creative dance	loqman and nizam	9th sept
epc206 soccer	?	?
epc209 basketball	?	?
epc215 instructional strategies	dylan and angie	10th sept
etm201	?	?
ecm201	individual	?
eed101	jeremy, melisa, hairozan and alfian	part 1 - settled, part 2 individual (23rd sept)

a temporary wishlist for me:

1. cervelo p2k
2. park tool chaingang
3. crank brothers speedlever
4. crank brothers multi-17 multi-tool
5. nike 2002 usps team short
6. nike 2002 usps team short sleeve jersey
7. nike 2002 tour de france yellow leader's jersey
8. nike 2002 tour de france commemorative yellow jersey
9. nike usps yellow podium baseball hat

earlier in the morning, (does 2am sound early enough?) andy gave me a call and invited me to pop over at his chalet over at costa sands east coast. i said ok, and then quickly fixed up my bike, and pedaled there... in just 35 minutes (including one or two stops at petrol kiosks looking for gatorade) i reached the destination itself, for a journey of about 10km. shared a couple of ghost stories and then i just popped over to my class' unit to see if the folks were back from pession. once i got back to andy's, it was the orange juice-vodka time! gosh... no one told me that it was a race to see who could down that small plastic cup the fastest, so in the end i had to down another for being dead slowest. later, after i moved myself and my stuff back to the class chalet, i could feel the burning of my back of the ears, as well as a hallucinating sense of gravity... and boy, it was hard trying to sleep like that with a pounding head. moral of the story: don't drink alcohol of any sort especially when the last time you drank it in the form of beer was on 3rd october 2000. please do standby some anti-histamines in case of severe allergies to alcohol, otherwise you might look like a result of a bee/hornet attack. saw that happen to siangling a few years ago at ken's birthday lunch back in sicc.

oh, saw andy and his girl at east coast mcdonald's when i joined my class there, when they had their breakfast. wonder why i wasn't feeling hungry at all - in fact, i continued to cycle to joo chiat, stopping over at several bike stores - namely, song seng chan, soon watt, treknology (frankel). and the following is a post that i also made in togoparts.com*
"today around lunchtime i cycled over to soon watt, deciding to take a look at the park tool chaingang package. instead, something in me decided to ask for a zefal hp-x pump, after learning about its high pressure capabilities during the project care rides. in the end, the first hp-x that was found by auntie, was an old hp-x 2 (judging by the slightly rusty metal shaft). later the senior boon came along, and found a new hp-x 1, still in the box packaging. since the hp-x 2 was used (apparently second hand, judging by the scratches on its handle), the senior boon offered me 26 dollars for the older hp-x 2, and 40 dollars for the fresh unit of the hp-x 1, adding that he wouldn't charge full price for a used unit. i then opted for the older pump partly because of the price and the length of the pump itself, and once i settled on it, right away the senior boon took the pump outside and took apart the pump and serviced and oiled it for me, because i earlier noted that it was somewhat rusty along the shaft. he took even took out the shaft and oiled the internals of the pump, as well as the attachment head of the pump. simply good service that i felt that i oughta share with you guys, especially the mtb-ers transiting to roadies..."

as i was cycling home, just at kembangan mrt (after i had a teh-peng at where jeam and i had our "sinful" black pepper dinner last sunday), jeam gave me a buzz, and we talked a while regarding what lobangs she could get for oakley stuff... i'm looking forward to seeing her... i mean, the round-island cycling trip with her... i mean, the project care group this sunday!

just received a spanking new ibm ultrastar 73lzx 18gb hard disk in place of my failed 36lzx from the courier guy who just popped by my place... i certainly have no idea how much this baby was worth, but i'm sure it was worth more the $300 that i paid to get it in the first place... imagine... the 36lzx was rated with an internal media transfer rate of 21.7 - 36.1mbps, but for this 73lzx, it's rated 29.2 - 57.0mbps! what an increase! at least this drive is made in singapore, where the previous failed disk drive was made in thailand. nothing against thailand making high technology products, but then two out of three ibm ultrastar hard disk drives that i have which all are made there, are d-e-a-d. one of them was the precursor to the 73lzx of mine. that means i already have a 66 2/3 % fail rate for ibm drives made in thailand... hmm, statistics...

earlier this morning, i talked to a fellow multisport friend. although he isn't excellently fast, at least he did finish one ironman. yes, folks, the ironman. he told me from his personal views that robert choy is probably a person to whom every single gram shaved off the bike is worth spending money on. hmm... for me, i don't care that much... because once you have one more gram of seawater on the bike from the swim leg on your bike, you already wasted that amount of money you've spent trying to shave weight off in the first place! he too, shared with me that in practical use, that zipp wheelsets aren't the wheels for training, and racing in local environs. in fact, it was because he had his zipp carbon rims snap out of him quite a few times - and obviously that means money spent, gone! well, at least now i've gained some other person's viewpoint about robert and the products he carry. according to my friend, he told me that robert is fairly a puff of wool. (sorry, i couldn't think of a better phrase...) i mean, come on, how many people can preach to you about what bike setup you should use, when he hasn't even finished an ironman?

one thing i like about this friend - his attitude. he'd rather drop and die rather to give up... unlike someone who can prescribe for me to get a giant tcr aero (2002, presumably), full dura-ace parts plus zipp wheelset for S$xxxx. oops. i said too much. but anyway, i personally go for hed wheelsets instead of zipp wheelsets, since the united states postal service professional cycling team use hed wheels instead of zipps. i mean, you know who mr. yellow jersey is ya? anyway, for those who know nuts about cycling technology, both hed and zipp co-own a patent for aerodynamic wheelsets.

oh, yesterday at the class chalet, we celebrated wooi ling's birthday, and we took a crazy picture on changi coastal road, right in the middle of the road itself! we went to changi village where the class girls (for those suaku-er ones) caught their first glimpses of the quinessential changi bapok... also, the class guys all learnt a new meaning to "giving tuition"...

yawn. can't be too bothered with some sour-lemon on my site. oh, if you read this, would you

1. not post some pornography-related email address/website,
2. please take the effort to correct your english. it's simply atrocious!

oh, yesterday, i bought terry laughlin's total immersion, along with august's issue of procycling, september's maximum pc and triathlete. on my way back home, i met kabil dev peddling at a newspaper stand along orchard road. i wished him good luck for his should-be-upcoming ivp steeplechase 3000m... his likelihood of winning the event shouldn't be hard - his clearing of the steeplechase hurdles is just so flowing!

woah... dead tired... slept from the morning (10+? 11+ am) to 4:30pm just now. woke up to start adding captions to yesterday's photos for the ride. talked to jeam over her office phone, seems that she wouldn't make it for the pess jam and hop this thursday night. she was chuckling at the sheer coincidence and cheekiness in some of the photos, like the one of the yellow money with the yellow rudy project helmet.

don't know why, ruoying sms-ed me out of the blue asking me if i were interested in buying over her bike. we hardly talk at all, and now she's suddenly asking me this question? i replied 'no' to her, for a couple of logical reasons. one, her bike is o-l-d. giant peloton? never heard of it. i'm dead sure it's a steel bike, by the tubular frame. two, the sizing/fit. enough said. three, i have my dream bike, although costly, it would be a very much core part of me. in case you don't know what's my dream bike, it's the cervelo p2k with full shimano ultegra kit. about S$3800 now.

a bike, no matter how cheap you could get overseas, is not worth getting if there's a chance that the fitting may not fit you. simple as that. in the meanwhile, i'll crank out the max from my don't-know-how-heavy cromoly, full suspension, trusty khs. would only need to change the stem, that's all. once i get that cervelo, i'll definitely make an impact on my personal timing and performance, as well on the local triathlon scene. but i don't need to make an impact on the local triathlon scene either. here's why - i only targetted doing the triathlon because i want to know that i can do it, not to beat people. but it would sure do good to shut a few mouths that say that i'm a poseur. for those loudmouths, i would like to have a chance where they try to take me on for long distance running, and see who's able to walk the walk. and even in the full triathlon race, i'll like them to compare the run timings and let them eat humble pie.

and i'm not gonna be that quiet about the fact that i helped joseph, chong wei, and sunny improve their running because of my joining of them in run training in the past. in my fittest period of my running only career, i managed to crank out 7 x 1km repeats at an average of about 3:34 for the first six repeats, and 3:25? for the last set. pardon me, the pseudo-triathlete who's been commenting negatively on my site, you can always show me if you can beat me, or you're just a dork.


attack of the yellow jerseys!

this is a super-summary of what happened for sunday.

morning, 5:40am > cycled from home to east coast park for the army half marathon (formation) training.
morning, 6:40am > embarked on the 15km time trial. finished it off in 1:05:17. then again, it's only an approximate distance, to be taken with a pinch of salt. my quadriceps were slightly burning from the running. didn't really feel breathless at all although i hardly run now.
morning, 9:40am > met ennnnnnnn at east coast mcdonald's. cycled off to my place after that.
afternoon, 12:00nn > lcy came to meet ennnnnnnn and me at serangoon interchange. we push off to head for woodlands.
afternoon, early 1+ pm > reached woodlands stadium.
all afternoon > cycling, cycling and more cycling.
evening > dinner with jeam at the kembangan mrt muslim kopitiam, we both had black pepper chicken chop. absolutely sinful!
late evening > sent jeam over to her friend's place around aljunied.
midnight > got home myself.

photos from this ride/day totalled to 118.

summary
8+km morning cycling to ecp from home
15km time trial (running)
8+km cycling back home
20+km cycling to woodlands from home.
60++km half round island cycling
extra ~8 to 10km cycling back home

total > 15km run, >106km cycling. thank God i didn't have the ntu hall 10 night cycling recce ride tonight (~65km)!