went for a climbing session after camp with bev and fabian at safra yishun. damned crowded.

met jumiati while on the bus to yishun in the morning, had a chat until she dropped off.

essentially, this must be the most tiring and rushed day i've had in regards to army photography. there were two major events in the morning, namely the ndp pro briefing where i had to take photos of the pro's (public relations officers) who weren't around at the previous session, for their ndp passes. then there was simultaneously, in another part of camp, the sixth ndp media brief. i had a healthy access to quite a few lenses at that time though - my own 24-85, 70-200, jadzia's 17-40, and terry's own 28-135. from the event... i learnt that straits times has somewhat included canon into their camera stables, with eos-1d mark ii's in service now...

went off to prime gym in the evening, and gave away some of the photos that i printed out of my own pocket. gee. didn't expect the photos i gave to the club to be sold without my knowledge. granted that the club is non-profit, and that they don't have my contact, but surely somehow they could have gotten me, ya? harriet's mom was the most appreciative of the photos, i guess that's probably the best parting gift for a leaving family... but one of the parents spoke in the context apparently bought that cd, and thought that the photos she had on the cd were "too dark". they don't understand the tiring process of trying to tweak a photo to bring out its best... i feel somewhat disheartened.

bev just told me that i have a very lame sense of humour. simple stuff like that cuts my heart. i know i'm not a funny chap, but i try to - perhaps i've been trying too hard to please people. i should just remain solemn, not smiling etc. who gives a hoot if i smile, or frown? if i'm happy or down? why should i go around trying my best to please people who won't come across my path again? it's like how God intended love in His way - continue to love others endlessly, because love can only be given and received freely, and not expected. it brings with it some amount of hurt along the way, but it makes me stronger.

i'm not going to climb again. spend the money, can't endure much, and i'm definitely not thinking of competing. been there, done that. same as for iceskating too.


camouflage in action...

saturday was a fun day - went out to shoot my formation's life run at marina south, then packed up asap and headed home once it was all over. took a lift from the end location courtesy of an officer called lawrence who saved me the agony of lugging my camerabag over 1+ km to the mrt station... phew! that was indeed very helpful to prevent unneccessary muscular expenditure before my race in the afternoon... the surprising part was that he actually knew that i came back from disruption! apparently he was talking to maj chew on the run...

met up with shihan at the serangoon nel station, and then we went over to harbourfront to wait for clarence and some other folks to go into sentosa together. the aquathlon was pretty fun - met plenty of friends there too! i was trying to work on the basic tenets of the total immersion stroke, so i kind of went easy (i wasn't fast, anyway...), then as i did my transition, i almost fell over face flat over my stuff! gee, thankfully i wasn't really that woozy... once i got past my transition, i bolted out for dear life to do catch-up... only then did i realize that old chum fabian was there too! managed a time of 40:11 overall, fairly disappointing considering the winners did about 32 minutes... but there wasn't too much to complain anyway, since i was swimming slow...

went out to nooch with shihan, and embarrassingly, either the serving size had shrunk, or that we were both ravenous... i think it was a matter of both... we went out further still to marche for another round before we went back...

sunday was a day spent totally at the national stadium... it is indeed fun to go up to the rooftop to shoot the entire run of events. in the past, when i would initially think that the national day parade was hype, it was a revelation to see practically thousands of people zipping up and down along the pitch just to do mass displays for the nation to see. and i realized that the delayed broadcast was also meant as an opportunity for the participants to see themselves on the television! this national day parade stuff, i will share with my students in time to come... will be very handy to help out the n.e. staff back in school when i go back to teaching next year indeed!

for yesterday, i had half a day off - but i went off early to meet jadzia to pick up the loan of her 17-40 f/4l and eos500, because of my camera's lack of wide shooting angles from the stadium rooftop. gee... she is so generous! went out to safti to shoot some other events, got back home courtesy of cpt ho who gave me a lift back home... and one thing i learnt - i can get tipsy after only one can of tiger beer... hic! hic!

from the event results i checked online, i was ranked overall 22nd out of 163 participants, but the most astounding fact is that i came out of the water ranked 60th... and i caught my way up to 22nd!

saw shihan crossing the junction around my place as the bus i was on, was turning around that very same junction itself. wondered what she was doing around there...

met joo hie after i crossed the road, ready to go for dinner, and he was going over to church...

found out from terry that i've gotta cover the life run event tomorrow morning... damned, i thought i could be excused, because i'm taking part in the new balance aquathlon tomorrow... anyway, let's see how the official race photos of me turn out...

met ganesan again on the bus on my way home... and i didn't expect him for the second day running! before he boarded the bus, i was having a chat with my colleage, kannan, who, like me, deeply appreciate our current dispositions in national service. just like how encik tan told me how important photographers can be, to freeze that moment for eternity. he's been in service for 28 years now... incredible!

witnessed the rehearsal for saf day at safti in the morning, and it was really an eye-opener to see the "trooping" executed by safpu. they're not called precision drill squad for nothing, you know... edmund sim the walker also sms'ed me when he spotted me there... and i recognized my former bunkmate philip chew while i was doing my bmt recourse then in alpha...

"times roll by... low light..." - low light, pearl jam

ok, great. once again, i have been too fast, too much, too soon. and one more new adjective: too eager. wouldn't be a problem again for a long long time to come, because i'm going to stay single for a while again, though i may be doing casual dating. but getting hitched? not by a long shot, since i never seem to garner the interest from the ones i'm interested in. 101% non-reciprocal rate. how's that?

met ganesan while on the bus back home, had a chat regarding running, ns and teaching. went for a swim in the evening after i had a quick dinner - but all my attempts were futile, as my rhythm and balance all went to the trashbin somehow. can't determine if it was because i have yet to recover from yesterday's track workout. and i'd be going for this free adobe photoshop seminar come 7th july, gonna enjoy it for sure.

i'm throwing in the towel for shihan officially, being single is indeed good.

i've absolutely nothing against them, but homosexuality and bisexuality are all against God's will. i haven't been the best christian that i could be, by not going back to church for one-half years now, but i will openly say that He is integral in my life. i'm glad that i'm straight, i'm hetero.

sporty lasses, want to know me? pop me a comment or send me mail. *wink*

it was something to remind me of the days gone by - a simple track workout of only 2 repeats of 400 meters with spikes, was all that it took. it was fun to feel the aching gastroc's during recovery and stretching, and rekindling this "time travel" feeling back to 1998/early 1999 when i was at the topmost form i was ever in for my running career. i haven't tried a 2.4 ever since that 8:09 that i did years ago, though i had a close series of brushes with it back then with a string of 8:12's. so what if i can run that fast? does it make me any more or less special? nope, not at all.

had a chat with some acs runners, and jayamani after all the other mr25 people left. thanks to malcolm in the first place for telling me the fastest way to get to the track from camp. i must, however, ask for permission to set out earlier to reach the venue on time.

running is such a self-indulging activity, it gives such peace that i have not felt ever since '99, when i couldn't handling not being able to date lee li then. then. and guess what? i got to my highest fitness level and running performance. but it all came down with that silly run the day before i enlisted.

just tested my asics gelcharger during warmup - this saturday, i'm gonna burn the run leg of the aquathlon. why the organizers decided to call it an aquathlon instead of the typical biathlon, is waaaaay beyond me.

and i'm not shocked over her. but the feeling is just like when i first saw those two planes flying into the world trade center, exploding - eventually crumbling and crashing down. i feel numb, though things have happened. not that i'm insensitive, but i'm totally helpless about what is out of my control.

sunday morning was done with a morning run at macritchie with shihan. we ran the progressive 25k route, just shy of crossing the pipeline. we then went back and had a wash up at our own places, then i went over to her place, and her mom gave us a lift to acs(i) to wings' track meet. coincidental too, that her mom is knowledgeable in media and photo/video stuff - found that out during our conversation on the ride there. not sure though, if she was shocked that i'm seven years her daughter's senior by age... after the conclusion of the event, the two of us went over for dinner at raimah's. i have never, never had that much black pepper for one day, so much that it could come out overflowing from within me. sinful, but good... met emily huang as we were leaving...

today, we went for a morning swim, which she proposed to have 2 repeats of 1200 meters - but was cut short to 12 x 100 meters since there were these swimmers who couldn't keep their lines. urgh. she finished her 12, i gave up after 5. my rhythm was totally kaput. walked her back home after that.

gave a call to "auntie" rachel when i found out that she was contemplating quitting cycling altogether. if i were to be in her shoes, i'd follow my heart, and make my decision outright. why bother myself with such an issue? but females, being who they are, are more sensitive to such matters - i think that's a really good thing.

i bumped into my vs schoolmate bernard chua while waiting for a train at the mrt station, and i bade him tata as i carried on my way to hup leong. coincidental day or what, i bumped into both teryn and pris, as they were just leaving hl. had a short yak... after getting the spare tubes and such, i went to meet siva + lily at lucky plaza. i had just changed the battery for my polar s710 for 35 bucks, and gotten a new elastic strap for the transmitter for 10. the best part was when siva told me that he was asking people for directions to cathay photo in lucky plaza... because he boo-booed my earlier idea of going to cathay!

lily helped me to pick some earstuds from perlini's, because i was torn between the similar designs... ok, so i'm a silly guy... *blush*

met lenny with her two friends right outside famous amos', where siva bought some stuff for mike, as a return of favour for helping out with the nie t-shirt. fantastic job, i must say!

the three of us carried on, and went to borders. there, i met teck hong, while siva + lily bumped into the bassist and drummer of linkin park. it was damned funny to hear siva recounting lily's reaction when he spotted the two bandmembers right in front of her...

and from orchard, i went to her place to pass her the perlini's that i got for her, partially because i was the fool who tried to yank off her swimming cap in the pool, and almost lost the entire earstud on her left ear.

on a secondary note: why do some girls have confusion over their own orientation? i was really distraught when i got to know, what i now know. getting to sleep was all to His credit, to set me to sleep. i woke up, still shuddering from the knowledge, and it troubled me all the whole morning. maybe it's a sign to tell me, it's time to turn back to being a regular churchgoer again.

oh yeah, and i forgot to mention that we met lih tze my 96s44 classmate at the pool too.

yesterday evening i went over to another camp to shoot another event, but the r.p. seemed to half want-to-help, half playing-by-camp-rules, but yet having a nonchalant face. got my camera in after some lot of trouble.

after the event, i left with norman for raimah's in kembangan for black pepper chicken... gee, sinful food!

today... it was national stadium as per usual, though i went out to temasek polytechnic to cover some of the activities for the motivators. met salleh, one of the big triathletes at the stadium too...

incredibly coincidental day, i suppose.

didn't go to camp in the morning, since i wasn't feeling 100% then. my bed was my hideout up to the early afternoon, and i got out only because i fixed a swim training appointment with shihan.

of all people we had to meet... we actually ran into my cousin kiat at the pool with her students from her secondary school. thought that's the end? nope. my former student smarties was at the pool too - and i made a boo-boo by calling him rufus! that was embarassing alright...

we finished our swimming, then we walked back to serangoon gardens, where we had our drinks and we both had our hold-that-mug-horizontal isotonic exercise...

just came back from a short shooting session at the premises of the triathlon association of some of the national canoepolo team training. had to crank up the exposure to iso3200, f/2.8 just to get a decent 1/200s shutter speed. what choice did i have, anyway?...

saw dr koh in the morning for my on-setting flu, and was prescribed antibiotics and lozenges. hopefully i can recover enough so that tomorrow evening i can still do some swim training.

i just positively identified the snake that shihan and i came across while running in macritchie yesterday morning as a blue malayan coral snake... thankfully nothing happened because i stopped in time, because there's no antivenom for this snake! the snake we came across was estimated to be 60 to 80cm long...

just went to register for the new balance aquathlon challenge after confirming there's no rehearsal on the same day. phew!

went out with shihan to sportz and fitness team in the morning, she was decked out in her erm... cjc pe attire! couldn't spot her initially, since she was kitted out in the vjc attire the first time i saw her... a case of multiple personalities?

over there, she settled for one of those short beachshorts and a new one-piece swimsuit for a total of 45+, while yours sincerely splurged just under 80 moolah for one set of trunks, a new socket rocket (had a hard time locating it, no thanks to the improved packaging), one polo-tee, one pe-teech style shorts, and a safari-style hat.

we headed straight for the pool and tested out our new swim gear - my socket rockets almost popped my eyeballs out of the sockets, but with the optional fit-on eyecups, it did help a lot about the level of comfort. kurt and don't-know-her-name were there as well, silly old me didn't recall that he was in the bsc program...

as for the swim? finally she managed to catch the rhythm and movement of the dolphin kick - it does indeed look impressive to see someone who can do the basic butterly movement patterns - but let's forget about the "drowning butterfly" resemblence...

boy oh boy, did i get a tan from this past one week with three sessions in the sun with this sunny girl or what... at least i'm sure no one will call me "fair" for a while to come...

i'm glad that i'm given opportunities in photographing some behind-the-scenes scenes that other photographers are not assigned to. exactly what, i'm not gonna tell, i just shared with some close friends of mine already, and it's gonna be kept under wraps. *wink*

it was fun to bring shihan to run in macritchie this morning, she was totally blur about the routes in the fairly massive landscape. we did the 15k progressive run route, but detoured via the water pipeline path, and rejoined to the ranger station, and we went back via sime road. probably 18k's worth, i suppose.

we had a bit of chat with various mr25 members before we left - and we went for a swim at the pool yet again, third time of the week. but today's swim was more like an obstacle course session instead - and we learnt that there were a lot of people at the pool although it's close to lunchtime and when there was plenty of harsh sunlight. gee. after the swim, i walked her back home, and "enjoyed" another round of suntanning (as if i wanted to, haha)...

cycled off to bedok blk 85 to meet mavic over my self-rewarding 2 bowls of bak chor mee and 2 servings of teh peng, and went off to meet ash to pick up the compactflash card that i loaned her for her recent looooong usa trip. it was such a nice gesture of her to pop in a magazine that she bought in the states, as well as a locally banned item - c.g.!

if not for shihan's presence at the pool today evening, i would have highly doubted that i would do 5 sets of 400 meters basic endurance swimming at all - given my lack of efficiency, as well as coordination. with her pushing me, i finished it all, and then it was my turn to give her a push to learn the butterfly again...

after the swim, we popped by thrill action, this new bike shop around our area, and i saw some very nice element frames. but as it has already been known, it's ah boon's who's carrying those frames into singapore. the next destination was dinner - chomp chomp was out of the question; it was simply too packed. it was relatively easy to find seats at the serangoon gardens food centre though, and we had a long talk over dinner. when it came for time to send her back home... i just found out her place was like... less than 200 meters away from the food centre. really, that close!

best news of the night... she has picked up a little of butterfly! yeah!

last night i had one of the sweetest gifts that i could get from anyone - shihan told me via msn that she had baked a fair lot of choc-chip cookies, and told me that i could have some. so i went to her place at about 1125pm, and picked up the cookies. so sweet of her! consequently, i had the choc-chip cookies for today's breakfast. it was so fulfilling...

went out for the ndp brief this morning, found out more about jean danker and her um... unwavering support for hello kitty... shiekh haikel was just as a pleasure to talk to and to take photos of, with his zany poses that i would have difficulty in asking some other person to come up with... simply impressive!

good news today - i thought i was tired, but i surprised myself at the pool today - i managed 37 armstrokes for 50 meters! ok, if i counted wrongly, it's still 38. and just as an indicator, i can now do 16 to 18 armstrokes for half the pool's length... woohoo!

friday after camp, i rushed down via cab over to marriott, to help out for the pess d&d coverage. shot all the way up till 1130pm, got back home only by 1230am on saturday morning. tiring, but fun.

saturday was yet another day at the stadium. tiring. all the way to 10+pm...

sunday i woke up early, to go with jonique to go to sentosa, to let her have a real world usage of her own eos-10d. we shot from 930am to 1230pm approximately, and then we left for my home, where i burnt off the photos onto a cd for her. jonique had to go elsewhere, so i proceeded to head for the mr25 time trial. got to know shihan, a dancer-turned-xc runner from vjc. living around my area, it was pretty funny to find out that she took 76 and then changed for 74 just to get to macritchie... i found out about that as she was supposed to hop on some bus from macritchie towards hougang, until she confessed that she was headed for... serangoon gardens!


john clark looking good for the race!

it was a mad dash to see lgf performing at the streetfest, because due to some quirky stuff... their 7pm gig was started off at 645pm! by the time i reached there, i only had the chance to listen to one-and-a-half songs before their set finished... gee. went out with them for dinner too, and after that i went to borders to browse through the magazines until closing time. reached home... late, as usual.

monday morning, i woke up at 530am, and proceeded for a morning run with shihan. we had a slow run up to seletar, expecting to see sunrise... but all we saw was plenty of overcast skies. we took a slow walk back to my place, and we'd went for a long swim, where i attempted to teach her how to do the butterfly stroke - which turned out pretty hilarious! we bade farewell at the bus-stop where she departed for home, as i went back to mine to get ready for the shoot that in a secondary school in the east...

this morning just as the bus was about to enter the interchange, i saw a car that was apparently involved in an accident, stopped right in the middle of three lanes. once i got off the bus, i went over, and saw the motorcyclist writhing in pain. there were a couple of other people who were trying to help, and then one guy, who appeared pretty much able to get things under control, and looked like he was serving with the civil defence force. what he did - he requested a pair of scissors from the car driver whose car was damaged from behind due to the accident - and cut up the jeans the motorcyclist was wearing from the bottom. after the initial cut, he torn the fabric upwards slowly, and it was evident that the motorcyclist, had his tibia and fibula fractured. ouch.

thankfully, that's the only injury that was apparent, hope he doesn't get complications from contusion or concussion...

is this supposed to be a public or private sale? what happened to in-house designers or something, other than a plain gif file to have the text all thrown in?



this week must be one of the uber-low days of my life, where i'm pondering in my free time why i'm still single. is this similar to the female menstrual cycle where there's a longing of a partner of the opposite gender?

just had a call earlier in the afternoon from ntu odac, asking if i'd be free to do them a personal favour to shoot for them the adventure trail challenge on saturday. my answer? "i'll be shooting ndp this saturday, full-day"...

and yes, that includes reality (ndp rehearsals) and a dose back from how i was treated as media photographer on sunday. i do people favours only if it's mutually benefitting and doesn't compromise either party. last sunday was just overboard - i don't shoot events the way the organizer wants it to be done, but in accordance with my media "towkay" - in case he doesn't call the shots, i'll shoot using my intuition...

before my memory eludes me for good, here's something disgusting i witnessed last night while on the bus back home: i noticed one of those small cockroaches, trying to move from the top of a glass pane to the bottom, scampering away gingerly to the super-low friction glass of the pane. it all went well, until it hit a slick and flurriedly tried to cling on to the pane, and nearly fell right off! i could empathize with the worries of the insect as it was about to fall - it's just like starting out on a flying fox without grabbing your harness! the best part of it all?

the slick was created by the leftover hair oils and hair creams that people have left on the pane while they were sleeping on the bus. EWWWWWW.....

today i had the "pleasure" of sieveing through thousands of photos shot in the formation, but so many of them were underexposed, or shots where the cameraman was shooting at as low as 1/5 second handheld!

while waiting for the bus to come along, i saw this middle-aged man throwing down his half-burnt ciggie on the grounds of the interchange, snuffing it out with his dust-encrusted slippers, and nonchantly making his way into the queue for the bus. what was i supposed to say to him, to ask him to undo his deed? even if i change one chap, for once, does that help? the lot of ugly singaporeans now, have grown in number. a fair lot of those brought up in the long ago era still have it-doesn't-concern-me attitudes regarding littering. what a shame. and that includes the new generation of the same kind of bochup ones too. next time, take a look at the cleaners around you. regardless of local or foreign cleaners, they have families too. why make them do extra work just for the sake of one's convenience? how would you feel if your mom or dad was the cleaner?

similarly, i brainstormed. is there a possibility that getting hitched in singapore is actually very pragmatic? received a mail from liz kim asking me to help her shoot her wedding reception, but she addressed me as "martin"... ok, back to the topic. could the reason for hitching up be because that one person can't afford all the bills, the housing etc if he/she were to remain a bachelor/spinster, and now leading to marriages of convenience?

and this brought me to one point. no doubt that i'm easily moved and fall for girls very easily, and face a no-go end for myself, resulting in disappointment. why didn't i reconsider something that i thought of a very long time ago but yet forgot - that i'm worthy of a girl of my ideals to approach me instead of having to have it the "usual way round"?

remember stand up for singapore?

"be prepared, to give a little mooooore...."

after watching shrek 2 after that bowling session and massive dinner, what i hope to achieve, is called "happily ever after".

whether that comes into reality or not... i don't know.