Happy Easter Triduum, Matty!

With Maundy Thursday (today), we begin this year's Easter Triduum.  And Matty's 2nd birthday is on Easter Tuesday.

So to be prepared, I have bought little trains for Matty's birthday - both Thomas & Chuggington trains and later tonight be prepared to spend some time at holy hour/adoration at Holy Family church tonight.

Wishing all Catholics a blessed Easter Triduum and everyone else, happy long weekend!

Pebble Watch

http://getpebble.com/

Where do I get one?

Abu and Sentosa

Abu was my first belayer in Taiwan.  From the days of walking into a gym full of climbers I do not know and approaching the safest looking dude so I can excise my climbing demons.  Last week, he drops me a Facebook message out of the blue and very last minute that he's visiting Singapore.  I canceled all my Sat plans.  Why?  Because I believe in 饮水思源! Funnily enough, I am always tour guide!  I'm tour guide to Singaporeans while living in Taiwan, now I am tour guide to Taiwanese and US folks!  I don't see any of my friends/peers do this - except perhaps entertain business associates.  The difference is, I pay out of my own pocket! Definitely no expense account to claim from.  (I usually will offer to pay since I am host).

First I stopped by Glory to buy some local tarts/rolls as a welcome gift and then pick him up from his hotel in MBS.  I chose to park the car and take the cable car over to Sentosa since it is Abu's first time in Singapore.  At the ticketing counter for cable car tickets, Abu insisted on paying.  Very gallantly he says he will cover the day's expenses.  Even my offer to go dutch was rejected.  Certainly very rare, most people will simply let me pay.

We went to the Underwater World first.  I explained to him the recent controversial decision to purchase dolphins.  And we hatched a plan to each grab a pink dolphin to freedom.  Underwater World surprised me.  Lots of sharks and rays and rare fish like sea horses, sea dragons... I went all the way to Similan Islands to see ONE leopard shark on day 4 of diving - there are many leopard sharks in Underwater World.   Even a guitarfish that I first thought was guitar shark (it is a ray).  I caused a mini pandemonium walking backwards on the moving travellator following the guitarfish, yelling "guitar shark"!  All divers should visit Underwater World.  Only we appreciate the rare species there!

We skipped lunch on fears that if we ate then went for iFly, we will puke over ourselves.  iFly was an absolute blast.  I wonder why I have not heard anyone rave about it before.  So I shall.  Everyone should!  Yes, it's expensive but so exhilarating.  I agree with their humorous ads - no ugly big fat jumpmaster strapped to your back, no risks of poor packing of your parachute, no need to throw yourself out of a plane.  Haha...

This is one of the few hosting days where I actually enjoyed myself and yet did not burn a small hole in my pocket.

Clockwise from top right :

Nautilus, weedy sea dragon, guitar fish, pink dolphin, iFly, more pink dolphins, leopard shark, leafy sea dragon, 2 huge spider crabs, horned moray eel

Kinetics Gym

Since I moved over to the eastern part of Singapore, the closest climbing facility to me would be Kinetics gym in Paya Lebar.  I know I've been talking about this place for a long while, but I finally visited last night.

I didn't go under the best of circumstances :
1. was meant to climb at Yishun, but Jo canceled on me at 6:30pm citing rain.  I was already in Thomson Road and it was dry as a bone.
2. Michy had taken Matty to play at Changi Airport, so I can't go to dinner with family.
3. Traffic in the north is just horrendous and I got a little lost trying to navigate back to the east.

I wasn't upset at the late cancellation, rather, I was upset because I was already half way there.  Rush hour  evening traffic is not pleasant, that round-about scenic route in bumper to bumper traffic becomes a test of patience.

So I entered Kinetics gym with a stomach-full of frustration.  Yes, it is a really tiny gym so it feels very crowded easily.  Yet, the routes are nice, and the climbers quick to offer betas or their fave routes and ask you to try.  I didn't manage to try all the V1 to V2 routes, it was too crowded and after an hour, I was ready to die.

I will be back.

How to shop in a bookstore

How to shop in a bookstore.  Model : Matty Cheng.
Step 1 - always take a basket. 
Step 2 - stationery esp colorful pens always warrant a 2nd look. 
Step 3 - basket gets heavy as it fills up, push if you must. 
Step 4 - when done, always double check you have enough Thomas the train DVDs. 
Step 5 - find a giant spoon to rest in, shopping can be tiring business.

Penitential service for Lent

It's week 5 of Lent.  Yes, most of Lent flew by without any concerted effort on my part towards increased prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Last night I went to OLPS at Siglap for penitential service.  Since I was early, I had time to prepare myself and I also realized that being early means my car (hence me) would be trapped.  (As with all Catholic churches, we double/triple park ourselves within the church compound during mass/service so there is no way to unblock yourself until after it ends and everyone leaves together).

Shrewdly I had chosen seats such that I'd get my confession heard first and indeed by 8:30pm, I was ready to go.  I decided to sit and spend time with God, so I squirmed in my seat until 9pm.  Amazingly I found I could reverse my car out, so as was at Advent time, I left early.

There is but 11 days to Easter, I resolve to spend little time in stupid time-wasters (Facebooking, Candy-Crushing, reading nonsense online), better utilizing that time either prayer/read Scripture/rest/sleep early.

Happy feast of St Joseph!

Never underestimate the need to be productive, to contribute meaningfully to organization/society.  Yes, that's the long way of saying my brains are mush from inactivity.  I want a more challenging role!  Been trying for a few months now but after having hopes raised and dashed a couple of times, I am feeling a little down.

Today is the feast of St Joseph - patron saint of workers.  I am reminded of a sermon 3 years ago, also during feast of St Joseph while I was still based in Taiwan.
http://feldreams.blogspot.sg/2010/03/wandering-and-wondering.html

Ironically, after 3 years, I am right where I was.  So I will persist. Thanks for the reminder Father Cary, St Joseph and Jesus!

Daylight savings starts this weekend

In Haiku style :

I stare at the sun -
longer days she says,
less sleep for me!  

With daylight savings, my morning conf calls are now an hour earlier - 7am.  Yawn, less sleep for me.

Was trying to explain the concept of daylight savings to a friend, and I started with the earth's rotation on its axis... Friend's eyes glaze over.  Singaporeans really don't have any general knowledge at all!  Yes, I know we don't have DST nor seasons, but it does not justify us being ignoramuses.

My Final Resting Place

There I did it.  Morbid as it seems.  Signed the forms for 3 niches in the same chapel (area of the columbariam) as Pa's.   For me and my 2 brothers.  Both refused (as did Michy) to discuss with me.  But after some thought, I decided to just go ahead and buy 3 in a row for all of us.  They are reserved in order, C, mine and I's (which he will share with M).  Now the family can be together - after we die.

Who is a Singaporean?

I have interviewing to hire another product manager for the little startup I work for.

So far I have interviewed a Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian from Pune and a guy from Beijing China.  Except, they are all Singaporeans.  All 3 been here since early 2000s and call this island home.

They are what I call fob (fresh off boat) Singaporeans.  They have strong foreign accents (yes even the Malaysian), completed their education entirely in their native countries (up to post-university level), have spouses also from the same native land they were born in... In short, culturally have little in common with a typical born & bred Singaporean.

Actually, the Beijing guy came late to the interview, dressed too casually in a very creased (un-ironed) khaki-green long-sleeved shirt unbuttoned at the sleeves.

So who is a Singaporean?  All of them.  Yet the real question should be, who truly loves Singapore?

The North Face City Run

Kids, do not try this at home.  After a nasty bout of stomach flu, I ran a marathon.  Other than cramps on my left foot - probably from an electrolyte imbalance from the excessive diarrhea-ing and an overall lethargy that had my running really slowly, I managed to slowly claw my way to the end.  At 1 point, we realize we were coming very close to the cut off time of 8.5 hours and I contemplated quitting to free the team to run faster.  We all held on in the end to finish the race half an hour before the cut off time.

The race was pretty fun, you self-navigate and so I got to see a lot of Singapore that I otherwise would not get to experience.  For the first time in my life, I had to run underneath an expressway (AYE).   We were joking if one day we decide to be grey importers, we know exactly where to stash our goods.  The route also involved running through the old Malaysian railway tracks, now called the green corridor by the National Parks who has taken over and done a great job in transforming the ugly railroad tracks to a nice strip of park land.

The only downside was HY pulling a back muscle very early in the run, just after checkpoint 1.  But then again, we were also able to pick up the pace a little after that. 

Photos on Facebook

We finished 49 out of 61 teams (well 65 teams if you add the 4 teams that DNF), clocking 44km in 7:43mins.  Absolutely herculean effort considering the circumstances.  Now I will rest a little.  No more races for a while.  No more 5am wake up to run Sunday mornings.