was it one or two days ago when i had that horrible dream (it's not a nightmare yet) - that i dreamt that i had to give up cycling because i got struck by cancer - just as lance wrote in his book, my x-ray showed clouds of white in my chest...

it was deja vu, but from lance's book, but i can remember that everything is happening just like what happened in the book.

just received my first order from the nie biathlon, from a chap called stanley. anyway, i'm going out soon to shoot a little at the schools' lunch, and after that, some action from the finals of the canoe polo comp...

while i was on the bus making my way to school, i spotted a very nice looking girl at this bus-stop outside toa payoh lorong 8. then it hit me hard just as the bus was pulling away - it must have been yaomin! two blonde streaks in the hair, that's what threw me off initially. i gave her a call on the handphone, just to confirm, and indeed it was her... it has been eons since we last met...

the founder's day event wasn't as bad as i expected, although i must admit that i feel very very taxed while taking photos indoors. at least i'm done with it. met dennis, one of my pess seniors at the running track - he was appointed in-charge of students who want to go on a volunteering trip over to thailand at the end of the year to do community work.

yesterday, i popped by xinghua to drop in on my former students. it was quite a nice experience - to meet up other staff who had given me their support in a way or another during my stint there. the primary reason why i went back was because of my former students, who else? if not for the fact that i was having a full day break from my school today, i wouldn't be able to make my way down there at all.

got back home, slept like a log. woke up at 7pm, and rushed down to hup leong to get the new wheelset to replace my cranky existing ones. met archer there, and anza rider marcus as well. got home, fitted in the rear wheel, and found out that the existing brake cabling has gotta be changed - so it was off to tiong hin for me. 7 bucks for an xtr brake cable with cable housing - not bad eh? but then again, i don't know the market price...

sent one of my p5 schoolkids home, to rochor road. he missed the bus because he was being punished... *bleah* but i think he's alright la, just doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

as i was walking to the little india mrt station after my maiden visit to sheng siong hypermart (which is a little on the small side), i saw this indian man sprawled on the walkway. gosh, was he bleeding from the nose or what! will call up his employer, raffles town club to check on him in a day or two. apparently, this chap had a massive dose of alcohol, and he just did a faceplant without having a need for any force on him...

now i know how useful a cateye micro-halogen light can be in case you come across an injured person in a dimly-lit area... once again, for those of you who don't have your own red cross first-aider certification card, please register for the course - you'll find it very very useful someday.

went out to bishan to return my lens-loaner his 70-200 f/4L lens; and we had a talk about work, and photography, what else!

the shooting of the canoe polo matches was something totally new to me - finding angles is crucial for me, i guess. got loads more to work on it.

today's nie biathlon shoot was a lot better, but very, very tiring. plenty of familiar faces seen over the years, all there. and boy, do i think the 70-200mm f/4L lens was useful or what... view some of the photos at my nie biathlon 2003 samples page while it's still up.





met up with effy and ping at jurong point last night too, took the same bus back to campus before they hopped off the bus...

picked up the lens at woodlands mrt last night from my fellow photographer friend, and i also met xmen1977, who was going to malaysia for the day/weekend. the long lens is fun, but the camera shake at full zoom is massively amplified! yikes!

yesterday evening, one of jun's colleagues popped by the school in the evening - didn't catch her name, but i made mention that i talked to jun before. and also, yesterday marks my last pe class with the primary 3's and 5's for a while to come - at least the next 5, 6 weeks.

today? the awry feeling from just tahanning from two days ago finally got me. i'm not dead sick, but there's a little break time to reinstall windows xp, and get ready to pick up the canon ef 70-200mm f/4 lens from one of the clubsnappers - his identity is to be covered up in case he gets similiar requests from other people...

just now a group of 5 or 6 pess year 1's (i presume from the diploma course) just popped by my school. boy, was i surprised to see them in the school, because neither arthur nor anyone else mentioned their visit - which is primarily to visit a school and observe pe lessons in real-life. if anyone knew of their arrival, it sure wasn't me. they stayed on to observe my lessons, which is fine by me, because we're essentially part of the pe fraternity. but for aileen, they aren't the same chummies to begin with - not to say there's anything awry about their relations - but the problem that aileen had to have 2 or 3 people watching her conduct her pe class without prior notice. now, that's called stressful. and don't forget, imagine teaching your class pe when you're not formally trained in pe in front of pe trainees - that's the ultimate. anyway i think i will feedback to joan fry regarding these folks' not-so-direct approach to getting to the school - one of the girls said that she knew gene, but he's not a fulltime staff in the school! surely, there has to be some courtesy visit to drop by and greet the principal before anyone gets cracking with observation, you know... *sigh*

felt a little sickly/feverish for most of the day - didn't have the vocals to raise at the students even if they required it.

the soccer gca lesson went on alright, the students seemed to enjoy it. and i wasn't that gabra with the q&a part of it all.

talked to handbag about me officially covering photos for a particular event, and putting them up for sale. i'm working on that... and i presented my proposals to cover at least two more major local sporting events and putting up photographs for sale. one of the things we have to figure out is whether we're allowed to shoot a la graham watson.

yesterday i reinstalled winxp on loi's notebook - the joke is that it's 3 years old, but it looks surprisingly spanking new!

after class last night, it was a quick cab trip back to nie for the interclass floorball comp, took some photos there. met a whole lot of familiar faces. tried to do some sorting of keeper and trash shots while on the train back - pretty useful. although i could do better without the lcd protective wrap on the notebook, i think - but the notebook's not mine! argh...

today i had the honour of shooting photos with john cosgrove at the saca/cannondale mtb race, and he's a really good photog! ah boy joined us later, using a canon eos-d30 he managed to loan for the day, using the same lens as i was. noticed some key differences between the d30 and the 10d i'm using currently - i wouldn't choose to step back in time for anything! after the entire event, ah boy and i cycled back to my place to transfer the photos he'd shot onto a cdr.


to be replaced by one in the gallery section

forgot to mention for thursday night that i changed my brake pads to koolstop's, after the xtr brake pads broke while i was installing them...

friday's lessons went alright. and friday night too, i met sunita outside borders while i was chilling out with cue, and i was there in the first place because i thought that i was meeting up the other clubsnap divers on the same night when it was supposed to be on saturday! urgh... i was one full day earlier!

almost got kissed big time by a guess-what... taxi around my home. i was just sending in my photos for developing, when this taxi on the left lane of a 2 lane per direction road, decided to pull a u-turn right in front of me. i was taken aback, but i managed to lock my rear brakes - could feel the beloki effect, but thankfully i did not kiss into the driver's door. the cabbie pulled over, and i walked over to tick him off. although he sounded half-apologetic, half-reluctant, he still did say he's in the fault. argh, what to do, leave him alone lor. thankful i'm still around, anyway...

new stuff - handbag got his computer infected with this w32.blaster.worm, and i admit this worm seems a little more trickier than the previous user-removable worms. symantec has posted up a removal tool for this worm.

if you need to, get this microsoft patch 823980 and protect your system first... even da monster has got it in his system too...

just had a sharp, sharp pain in my heart (or somewhere around that) that i thought, "this is the end."

if anything happens to me, maybe an autopsy will reveal a little too much gunk in my heart despite all the exercise.

also recalled that i saw one of my students, cai ling with her mom that night as i was cycling home from the fireworks shoot.

dr koh told me something she told her son, who wasn't too enthusiastic about his geography. the young man apparently said that he'd only like geography if he passes it. so she said instead, "why don't you like it and then pass it?"

the way that we think sometimes, are the exact paradox that we would like things to be.

cycled down to sell fatmah some photos from the team time trial held two weeks ago, and marianne as well. marianne looked so chao-tar from her trip to penggerang!

dropped by with her over to ram's, and soon after i'd left for tiong hin where i got my hands-on practical to do some bottom bracket/crankset maintenance work for a friend with a specialized m5. also happened to meet asmah (the cyclist) there as well.

met up with alex ling in the afternoon at his place, learnt about his background and his bike.

next thing i know, i was hurrying home, throwing on the necessary photography equipment, and zipping down to kallang beach park on my bike. met djchris, fooxx, mystic, sljm at the little pier at kallang beach park (if i didn't get the name of the place wrong). here are some shots i made:

after the staff lunch, as i was crossing over to the side of takashimaya, one of my students, jerry appeared right out of thin air and called me lao shi. was i surprised or what - he was decked out in a full roller hockey attire sans helmet.

as i was boarding the bus to head back to school, i met jonathan's mom - she recognized me, but i couldn't recognize her! good thing - she looks like she's have had enough rest compared to the past.

i went back to school, and recharged one of my batteries for the camera. i then left school, and cycled home. as i was passing by the australian international school, the gurkha outside smiled back to me in reply to my smile. after reaching home, i realized i forgot all about the charger - so i quickly cycled back. when i got back to the school, the shutter gates were all down... sigh, wasted trip!

got back home, talked to srinivas (if i didn't remember wrongly) about our work...

math was ok today - the principal decided to pop into my lesson and have a peep of what's going on.

both my pe classes today were both screwed up, again.

apparently one of the students called another teacher "bitch". umm. wonder what's wrong with the boy, to disrespect the teacher that he would do this.

my pe class today was screwed up - the boys just couldn't be bothered to move faster. argh.

i was woken up by a call from faisal - we talked about his school, and how his school is like. they may be pending closure - but no one really knows. in the meanwhile, he's stuck with a very small space, and very little equipment to use. worse off is loqman, who is totally not teaching pe!

cycled out to the nus triathlon in the late morning, and went straight to tanjong beach - i forgot all about meeting edward before the linkway to the island.

my race was not bad, but the swim, i was struggling with it - yelch! i felt surprisingly strong, or should i say, unweak for the entire bike ride. last night i inverted my stem so that i can go even more aerodynamic on my heavy-like-hell bike. must have said, that it works, you know. at the event, i also manage to meet a whole load of people i know - and rightly, one of them quipped that i know a lot of people! i find it slightly overwhelming too.

from togoparts:
wendy chan, dolphie, bullit, cue, pris, wer, aggressor

from vjc:
peipei, jerrick (formerly known as zongrong), guang hwee and claudia

from nus:
gary heng, an shun

from boac rides:
winnie, lai wan

from the triathlon association:
dayan, alec kuok

from running:
foo mao cheen, pamela chia

from pess:
jess, frankie

from biathlon/triathlon:
dylan wade, ruoying's pals - serene, zul

from road riding:
woon lip, lawrence yap and company

from vs:
philip

from samba boys & gals:
siva, debbie, lily, banz, alwyn, xuan

from diving:
alan (u/w photographer)

i also talked to pamela chia without introducing myself, it's nice to see that she responds quite well with even people she doesn't know. my timing was 1:17:28, just managed to dust edward at the end. pamela told me, when i asked her, that she did a 1:12 for today's race. WOAH!

went to school early this morning, helped in the conducting of the p6 prelim oral examination - then after that, tried to do some photo practice with the sport cca boys - rugby, soccer, hockey, and also the scouts. nothing arty - i was just testing out what ideas that come to mind, basic settings etc.

went off to the sports school presentation with petrina and khairil, and we arrived late enough that we were asked to quickly give way to yaacob ibrahim, who is the head for the ministry of community development and sports. we went through the 8 major points for the success strategy for the school - it was indeed, what dr steven tan discussed with my diploma class regarding coss. incidentally, cannoncal was one of the two official photographers for the event - the rest were from the media - and i learnt a hand or two from him regarding shooting indoors - he is a studio/indoor photographer after all. also happened to meet nick aplin with his wife, and anders (though i didn't say hi personally to them), mr k, and ah hui, and cue all there. also spotted one of my friends from ntu hall x as well...

after the entire ceremony we left the place together, and i got to get my hands on the nikon f5 that he brought along, as well as the af-s 17-35mm f/2.8, af-s 28-70 f/2.8 glasses that he brought along. more importantly, he recommends selling off the f5 after heavy usage (10 rolls a day, everyday, for 3 years) since the warranty runs for only three years - the upkeep of it if the internal mechanism fails would be far unworthy - getting a new camera instead would be wiser.

and speaking of bikeshops, tef is one shop that i would personally recommend for personalized services. last night, my bolt-based seatbinder just finally gave up - the internal threads just wore themselves flat - and that was before i left to meet marshall at brewerkz. so i dropped by tef, and managed to loan one seatpost quick release from wilson for free, so that i need not buy something when i already have one at home that's functioning. i cycled over just to return the borrowed item in the evening - gosh, it's so nice of wilson to do me the favour.

forgot to tell you guys, those who love guitar "gods" - you absolutely gotta have joe satriani's the crush of love (live) on any format you can hear, and better still, also hear. if you see the way he plays the guitar, you'd be tempted to throw away all regular methods of learning how to play...

the lesson yesterday went on well, for both mathematics and pe. finally got to ask the class gca-styled questions.

met marshall outside brewerkz, and i got a not-bad sum of $30 for the photos. he likes the ladies' team photos - apparently, some of the riders are practically full time cyclists! and two are going to manchester for the uci competitions later this year... wow!