120101

I finally bought these stickers! Pretty boh? Saw them the last time I was at Daiso Plaza Sing, but I was with my aunties and mum and I didn’t want to be judged for buying stickers at the grand ol’ age of 31. I was a big sticker fan when I was a kid, one of my hobbies was always “collect stickers”, and I still keep a big tin of stickers from my childhood days. These make me reeeeally happy today!

On the first day of 2012 I’m glad I re-discovered something from childhood – that stickers cheer me up! I’ll know what to get when I need a mood lift next time.

We went for a charity night cycling event yesterday. Event took place right after the New Year countdown, and we were supposed to cycle 40km in the east part of Singapore.

Except that we didn’t complete the route. Sis’s bicycle had gear problems that we didn’t know how to fix. Since we were just a few km from home then, we decided to drop out from the pack and cycle back.

Phew! What a relief! You see, I had thought of chickening out for a few weeks. I didn’t think I can tahan all-nighters much these days, I wasn’t confident I could handle bicycle issues, and I was really afraid of drunk errant drivers, this being New Year’s Eve.

So… I’m still safe and alive. Cheers to a brand new year! This year I resolve to work on being more brave and gentle. That’s too vague of course, so I’ll try to have something planned out by Chinese New Year.

It’s almost midnight and I’m late for bed! Happy rest of the year, my friend!

111214

I saw a young chap wear this tee in the MRT. Hall 2 IHG 09/10.

I might still have my Hall 2 IHG tee from 99/00. Inter-hall games were such a blast.

I shall stop this feeling of age and misery, right now.

(I’m on the way to a one night stay-cation at Marina Bay Sands!)

111208

I said my last hot yoga “namaste” today. Thus ending the one year–plus one month–suffering.

Yay! No hot yoga ever again!

111205

1.

I finally received the blood test results today. No macrocytosis! In its place are the pleasant words: normochromic and normocytic. I’m still marginal at red blood cell count and iron level, and I also got red numbers for two other items. But this looks much better than the last test two months ago.

When I saw the doc for fever last week, she took my blood pressure and said it’s quite low. That must be why I’m still feeling wozzy. Must improve the health in 2012.

Phew… 20 sighs of relief!

2.

My first and last Yoga-Pilates class was interesting! Colette was funny as usual, and she’s always clear and precise with breathing, poses and movements. The teachers at Absolute Yoga are all good but she certainly is my favourite. I’ll miss her classes when my yoga pass expires in 3 days.

111204

Probably my last race in a long time

I thought it’d be nice if I could end my running career (‘career’ rhymes with ‘like real’) with the last big race of the year, so I went ahead with the SCMS half marathon today, despite having just recovered from high fever, and not having trained in exactly 50 days (not due to laziness lah).

I was a good 28 minutes slower than last year, but I’m glad I managed to finish it. Still had fun at the Universal Studios stretch, still walked plenty (sometimes voluntary and sometimes not) and I felt slightly better at the finishing point compared to last year due to the weather being generally kind. (And I was easier on myself!)

Yes it's blur... no stranger luck today

The cheap thrill of participating in a race is to read its Facebook page after, for all the comments and complaints. This year’s SCMS was terrible, as usual. There was a standstill bottleneck 1.6km into the half marathon which took a few minutes to ease. The water points were few and always terribly crowded. (I only managed to get half a cup of 100-plus once. Sob. But got ice mountain at all 5 points lah.) We had to walk on muddy fields to collect the finisher’s medal, and it was so crowded sweaty shoulders kept bumping. I felt suffocated.

I read about hour-long queues for bag deposit, resulting in people missing the cut-off time so they didn’t even get to run. I thought my half-hour queue last year was bad enough. Well, all thanks to SCMS last year, I stopped bringing a clean t-shirt to races. Just have to contend with bare minimum in my small arm band (2x$10 notes, EZ link card, 2 keys and the iPhone), whatever I could manage in my two hands (glasses and energy gels), and a tiny towel for the sweaty face, stuffed securely in my sports bra. Sorry to whoever shares the MRT with my stink after the race. Blame SCMS.

But you already know. Despite all the complaints, we suckers will be back next year. SCMS is like a bad boyfriend who always gets another chance.

-

16km into the race, my heart dropped a little when the ambulance with siren on drove past on the block road. Just saw in the news that a young chap had died after completing the half marathon. Very sad.

111119

Hehehe this morning I decided I want to watch 盧廣仲… so I came by MBS and bought a ticket! First time I buy a concert ticket 12 minutes before it’s to start.

The Circle seat is very high up though.

Excited.

111107

I am typing this post on my new Thinkpad X220!

The sister was in the US for work and her access to Amazon was a good chance to get a replacement for my sluggish 5 year-old Compaq. Though I did manage a last-ditch reformat to revive the Compaq. So now I have a brand new laptop, and an aged one that still works fine. Plus two old Linux systems – a desktop tower on Ubuntu 10.2 and a barely usable netbook on Jolicloud. And, if you really want to count, Sis’s 1 year-old Macbook Pro at my free access since she’s travelling 80%. I don’t have time or talent to do anything useful with all these computers. 败家…

So yes, a Thinkpad because I’ve wanted one ever since I saw CCE perform spreadsheet magic with her T22 in 2002. This one is no different in looks. It’s still black, still matte and still sports that 20 year-old boxy bento design. (Not metallic, glossy or has a half-eaten apple on its lid. Mmm…)

A pity I have no need for the impressive specs or battery life. But it feels good to use a gadget so fast.

It’s my bedtime and I’ll write again about my laptop, while I’m still in love with it.

Hello to whoever’s still out there

110924

Buay and I went for a enjoyable swim and a hearty hotel breakfast on Friday morning, before we trod off to work. Our stay-cation was too short but altogether very interesting and different!

Something rather curious happened too, when we made our way out of the island. On the Sentosa monorail platform a guy who was reading the papers glanced up. He noticed us and kept looking here, like he was waiting to be acknowledged. I couldn’t place him. He kept looking at both (not just one) of us, even on the train, and since we’re not the type of girls people check out, we felt rather weird but we pretended not to notice. I only asked Buay when we reached Vivocity and he went out of sight.

I kept thinking about him, until I suddenly remembered who he could be. When we were in JC, there was a pretty girl in class who dated the suave dragon boat team captain. They were one of those golden couples. That guy in the morning looked like an uncle-fied version of that boy!

I texted the clique, thinking I might be able to get a name, find a photo on Facebook and verify, but no one remembered the guy. We were boring, low-profile commoners in school, so now I learned we were really uninterested too haha.

I came back and dug out the year book. There he was. I found his photo on Facebook, thanks to an unusual surname, and he looked like — what can I say? — 31-year-old and a regular family guy. But I still can’t be sure whether he was the one in the morning.

Flipping through the year book for a short 15 minutes brought back memories of many people I’ve long forgotten. A few things dawned on me. At 31, those youthful JC days are a lifetime away. Everyone ages and looks different after more than a decade. You forget popular and celebrated school personalities soon enough if you didn’t know — or like — them very much. And, it’s terribly hard to find people with common names on Facebook or Linkedin.

I’m still trying to come to terms with all those thoughts.

110922

We’re stay-cationing at Hard Rock hotel at Resorts World Sentosa! Yay!

Pam works at one of the Big-4s and the firm is holding a management off-site here. Each of them gets a room. (See where your audit fees go…)

Buay and I only arrived here at 9+pm, because neither of us has been to the new Sentosa and we lost our way. That, plus we tried to check in at the wrong hotel. We were rather tired out. But it’s exciting to sleep on hotel bed and shower under rain shower. Yeah.

Going to mask! If we can wake early we’ll go for morning swim. This is awesome.

110919

I put half my life on hold over the weekend, for this book – Nothing to Envy.

The stories of life in totalitarian North Korea, as told by defectors to the South, is gripping! The book follows the personal struggles of six main characters, and it also presented the social and historical setting, and major events. It is mostly sad, but also interesting. I was worried this book would be a tear-jerker and almost didn’t read it but I’m so glad I did.

I love this find.