An old friends gathering

Met up with old friends from school last night.  I have not seen these girls since 1994!  Everyone is now a mother of at least 1 kid.  Sigh... Yet it feels like no one has aged to me cos I recognized them all at first glance.  Until we pulled out old photos and couldn't recognize each other in it.  Haha..

It all started last week when I got a call out of the blue.  Jane is an insurance agent and I bought my first policy in support of her right out of school.  When my cousin (who now manages my insurance policies) updated my new home address and phone no, Jane noticed and called me.  Everyone now lives in the east coast area and so we met in a restaurant in Siglap - lucky me!

It struck me that our lives are so different.  The dinner conversation was a little reminiscing, and a lot of topics totally irrelevant to me : PSLE and the education system today, the maids levy situation, costs of bringing up children, property prices, mother in law problems... Yes, they are all stay at home moms or they work part-time.  I know, sob! they achieved 太太-dom and I am so envious!

It was boringly pleasant.  Although, they remembered my birthday and we shared a slice of cheese cake with a loud birthday song - to my embarrassment.

The only time my blood pressure rose was when someone started complaining about teachers.  Singaporeans, for the last time : teachers teach academic subjects, parent impacts values.  If you delegate values and character building to the teacher and your child goes astray, whose fault is it?

And after a while, everyone jumped into their Lexus, Audis, or waited for their hubbies to pick them up in their poshy cars.  The evening ends and I return home feeling, what a banal night!

Hill Training Run Route in Singapore

This is the route coach Alex created.  He even pre-ran it before he took us on it.  How sweet right?

Third last weekend before the marathon, still time for a nice 4 hour long run of all the hills in this area!  I was experimenting with coffee before a run.  Drank a cup of espresso and yeah, it seemed to work reasonably well in terms of better endurance.  Until I suffered from caffeine crash after 2 hours.  I just walked a lot - felt really tired.  And everyone was so mad at me for lagging far behind everyone.  They kept yelling at me to stop being lazy.  Sigh, there is no sympathy these days.  After about 45mins, I recovered enough to resume running and gradually didn't feel so tired again.  Need to tweak this caffeine as a performance enhancer a little more.  Will try again next 2 weekends with the 10km runs (Run for Hope and Brooks).

Here's the training route.  It is fantastic.  Many peaks to keep going at, mostly shaded by trees and breath taking views of Singapore.  It is possibly the nicest route I've run in Singapore.  Also the most painful run I've endured this year.

My third half marathon this year

First 2 half marathons this year were the Adidas Sundown and the Safra army half.  I clocked 2:08 in both.

When Linny offered me her slot at the GE women's run, I was quite happy about it.  It's a chance to try for a sub-2hour half marathon and also my first time at an all women race.

At the start line, they ordered "all men to please leave the route now".  Interesting!  All women races was really nice.  No armpit smell, no jostling and lots of free space to run.

At the 11km mark, I peered at my watch and it read 1:03.  A little slower than I was hoping.  I had to run a severely negative split to succeed now.  At the 14km mark, Simon and Peter popped out unexpectedly and jumped in to run alongside me.  Well, at least Simon did.  Peter happily sprinted ahead thrilled with all the women runners (still has not figured out how to pace).  Simon would pass me his drink bottle every couple of minutes, I could see envious looks from the other women.  Haha...  At the Barrage, they peeled off with a loud "good luck!".

I made my move then.  Upped the pace but there were a few small slopes and blah blah blah... excuses..my second 11km took me 1:00.  Not good enough.

Ah well, next year's goal.

Busy til the end of the year

As it is when it gets close to Christmas and New Year, people start to organize gatherings and meet-ups.  I feel terrible, but I'm too busy to slot in anymore gatherings!

My priority is family and my committments and seeing how I somehow accepted free slots/signed up for a few more races between now and Dec 30...

I meant to do Newton end Oct, relax through Nov, race Stanchart Dec 2, chill and walk through the Dec 30 ultramarathon.  But I can't relax now cos Nov is also a month of races - every weekend is a race.  It is exactly like Oct.  I'm crazy.  Yes, I know.
http://feldreams.blogspot.sg/2012/10/busy-year.html

On a positive note, Christmas is almost here.  I love this time of year.  I sing Christmas carols out loud as I run.  The air's cool, the mood's cheerful, and my run kakis broke out into gangam dancing last night.  Just hilarious.

Bad behaviour in the elderly

So just because you're older, you think you can throw all courtesy to the wind and get away with bad behaviour?

First my mom starts behaving badly.  Now my uncle too?  It's a daily test of patience.

Mon - I arranged a nice slow ride to Gardens by the Bay for him on Monday evening.  Asked Peter to come along for the fun of it.  Planned the route and to be honest, Peter and I are a little excited about it.  Uncle doesn't even show up.  Had to call Peter in a hurry to cancel - thankfully Peter's a good friend who takes last minute cancellation without fuss.

Tue - Asked him along for dinner with Ian/Michelle/Matty.  Restaurant is near home - at East Coast Park.  Long delay, finally he replies to say he has already eaten.  It's been years since he last met Ian/Michelle and he's never met Matty, but clearly, that does not matter to him.

Wed - Asked him along for cycling with my usual cycling group.  Rode really slow along the PCN until F2 carpark.  Uncle trailed behind on his foldie.  I looked back, waited and he has done the Houdini on me, again.  I went back searching for him.  No sign of him.  I just knew he wandered off without much consideration for others.  He did.  When asked about it much later at home, he nonchalantly mentioned I didn't need to worry.  *tear hair out*

I never expected him to ride with the group at our pace.  I explained that.  Just ride easy along the park, meet the group for supper, talk to the big happy group of fellow cyclists, like-minded people, it will be fun.  Definitely healthier than staying home and trawling the web for nonsense.

Thu - Hesitantly told him I was eating with Michy and Matty while Ian works late.  Uncle asked to come along. Told him to take the MRT and meet us at NEX.  He text back to say he is at my home, insinuating I was to pick him up.  It would take me a long time to battle rush hour traffic east and then back up north.  I texted him back to say IF, you want to join us, please take the MRT and leave soon!  He did.  Thankfully.  And he was mostly good.  Until after dinner, back at Ian/Michy's place when instead of being gracious as he should as an elder, he started boasting about his 24-room home in Thailand and how it's all marble flooring.  It was 10pm, Ian hadn't had dinner and so before he further insults anyone, I announced loudly we are going home.

Fri - Skipped out of dinner with Uncle.  Reached the end of my tether.  I got home late, almost 11pm.  Saw that he used my washing machine to do laundry.  Unhappy.  When I commented that I would be happy to do his laundry for him if he asked me, he boasted that washer-cum-dryers (which is what I have) have been around for 10 years.  That was not my point!  I was not boasting about my appliance, I am expressing concern that he operated it without knowing it's features since it is a little more complicated than a normal washing machine.  To top if all off, he started to boasted that he brought 5th uncle into my house to view it - yes, very good, now strangers are in my house in my absence.

Sat - He decided that since I was busy with my sports on weekends, he will go stay with his daughter.  I should be happy except when I got home, I saw he threw the guest bath towel onto the kitchen floor, just in front of my trash bin.  What did he use it on?!  Should I throw it away now?  What a nice departure gift... not.

And he wonders why he's such a pariah with the family.  The extended family is huge and yet after 2 weeks here, he met up with just 1 cousin?  Everyone else he called was too busy to meet up with him.

I am pretty sure I shortened my lifespan by a day or two just in my last week .

Comparing disasters: Sandy vs. Katrina

http://holykaw.alltop.com/comparing-disasters-sandy-vs-katrina-infograp?tu2=1

He's family, regardless!

Embarrassing adult relatives: Scowl! "Psst! Can't you chew with your mouth closed?"

By alisonpoulsen

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Everyone has some relative who has bad table manners, belongs to a crazy cult, or drinks too much. We tend to be hardest on those closest to us, wanting to eradicate their bad habits. Yet, showing embarrassment and disapproval tends to draw out the worst in those around us, and may reveal that we care too much about the family image.

Our relatives don’t define who we are and besides, no one is perfect. Life is too short to worry about the imperfections in those around us. Generally, a sense of humor can help us overlook our family’s extreme political views or incessant bragging.

You’re better off not trying to change adult relatives or to get them to see the light. If they haven’t changed in 20 years, they are not likely to change now. The exception would be if they became deeply motivated to change within themselves.

Abusive behavior or language, however, is another matter completely. It’s important to speak up or leave when someone is aggressive or acts inappropriately, such as name calling or exercising harsh criticism. When you respond to a verbal attack, you could say, “When you call me names, it’s denigrating to both of us, and makes me want to leave. If you have something to say to me, say it respectfully.” If they can’t stop their belittling behavior, then it’s time to limit or stop spending your time with them.

Harmless personality quirks, though, can be seen as a source of amusement rather than providing you with a mission to correct them. Challenge yourself to use your wit, creativity, and humanity to overlook imperfections and to bring out the best in those eccentric family members around you.

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.

                                                                  ~Robin Williams

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

A nice run route at the Marina Barrage

A nice 11km run route suggested by coach.  I meant to take Cara there, but the meeting overran by an hour and she has to catch a flight, so we compromised with a run 6km run from the Trader's hotel through Botanical Gardens instead. 

Here's the Marina Barrage route in detail - excellent views!

Eat healthy!

Last week :
Me to friend - you ate 23 plates of sushi?!
Friend - steady eh? (smug look)

This morning :
Me to uncle - you want some cereal (for breakfast)?
Uncle - I want nasi lemak! (indignant look)

I need to surround myself with people who eat healthy.  Seriously.

What do you think about during long runs?

A US friend of mine thinks of business ideas as he jogs.  He is currently incubating a start-up from one of his ideas and I wish him every success!

I have always found long runs very cathartic.  Over the years of solo long runs and hence long hours of thinking : 

- I've changed cars (2005) from my Toyota to Nissan Sunny

- decided to end a friendship with a person who was a leech (2005 and amazingly, I forgave/forgot and re-learnt this lesson in 2010).  Guess it is true : a leopard never changes its spots. 

- psyched myself through the most difficult years of my life (2005-2006)

- talked myself through job changes, work problems, emotional problems...

- admired and loved Taiwan during my jogs in very different scenic conditions there

So yesterday when a friend asked me what goes through my head during the long runs, I had no answer for once!  

Ironically 2012, I clocked a record number of hours in terms of training/racing mileage, yet most of it are not solo runs.  I have been blessed with running kakis (in plural). We LSD together, go to races together.  It's been a little support group that I truly appreciate.

These days, I chit chat or listen to music over the runs.  No real  logical thinking happens anymore.  

Is this a good or bad thing?  Good, I would say.

Dicey days ahead

I realize I suck at human relationships.  My alien uncle coming to Singapore and wanted to stay with me.  But his daughter now lives in Singapore and she has a spare room and welcomes him.  He prefers to stay with me.  My own family thinks it's not right, plus they worry for me since I stay alone and he has been mentally unstable in recent years.  I would prefer if he spent some time with his daughter and granddaughter - that's the right thing to do.  For all my emailing/SMSing, I fail.  He's still going to be in my hair.

This morning I prayed for patience and tolerance.  The next 2 weeks are going to be rough - it's a first for me in my new pad.  As Michelle puts it, I can't strut naked around.  Not that I do, but then I caught myself doing that, thought of Michelle's words and had to laugh out loud.

After my early morning conf call, I listened to Hillsongs for a bit before going to work.  And today's readings from Psalm 145 :

I will extol you, my God and king;

I will bless your name forever and ever.

Every day I will bless you;

I will praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD and worthy of much praise,

whose grandeur is beyond understanding.

One generation praises your deeds to the next

and proclaims your mighty works.

They speak of the splendor of your majestic glory,

tell of your wonderful deeds.

They speak of the power of your awesome acts

and recount your great deeds.

They celebrate your abounding goodness

and joyfully sing of your justice.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in mercy.

The LORD is good to all,

compassionate toward all your works.

All your works give you thanks, LORD

and your faithful bless you.

They speak of the glory of your reign

and tell of your mighty works,

Making known to the sons of men your mighty acts,

the majestic glory of your rule.

Your reign is a reign for all ages,

your dominion for all generations.

The LORD is trustworthy in all his words,

and loving in all his works.

The LORD supports all who are falling

and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look hopefully to you;

you give them their food in due season.

You open wide your hand

and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The LORD is just in all his ways,

merciful in all his works.

The LORD is near to all who call upon him,

to all who call upon him in truth.

He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;

he hears their cry and saves them.

The LORD watches over all who love him,

but all the wicked he destroys.

My mouth will speak the praises of the LORD;

all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.

Long tail marketing

I wished I paid better attention during statistics class in school.

Never knew how linked it would be to business.

Was chatting with an ex-HP colleague and he brought up the idea of long tail marketing.

It's made popular by an editor from Wired magazine.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=5&topic=tail&topic_set=

Yeah, I think such things over long runs.  Ideas, dreams...  And yeah, it helps that I have smart people around me where we can discuss these thoughts.  Thank you Jesus.

I realize I have not been reading for a while.  Time to go Amazon shopping...

My Bike is serviced and good to go!

My tubular tyres and rims were coming undone at the last ride.  How dangerous!  Thankfully I rode all the way back at our usual 35kph uneventfully.  Last Thu I took Speedier into Integrated Riding to fix the wheels and for his first ever servicing.  They found a leak in the valve of the rear tyre, so had to purchase a new tyre.  Picked up Speedier just before the ride, didn't have time to inspect him, went to the usual Wed ride.

So after the ride/run/supper last night, I did my usual wipe down of the bike and discovered a thick layer of muck on the chain - arghh... Integrated Riding must have put grease on the bike chain.  Took bike downstairs, degreased and hosed.  Had to repeat the process 3 times!  Should have just taken my dishwashing liquid to the chain.  Could have saved me time!

Mental note to self - tell bike shops never to help me grease bike.  Wax lube which I purchased as part of a mass order is simply awesome.  It's so clean!

While scrubbing the muck off, all I can think of is : I sure love living here.  Integrated riding is a 2min walk away.  I can hose my bike down even in the middle of the night without worrying about waking up the neighbours or making a mess.

And, one more : when I ask to borrow a bike, kind-hearted folks just drop it off since I'm so close to our meeting point at East Coast.   Thanks to K, my uncle has a foldie to explore the area when he arrives next week.  Work off some of his excess energy so he won't be preaching aliens/conspiracy theory to unassuming Singaporeans.

Matty

Matty and a slice of fake (rubber) bread.  

"Bread for me, why thank you!  Seem to have difficulty pinching a bit out to eat.  What?  It's fake!!!  Protests!"

Top city skylines

HK is no. 1?  And Singapore didn't make top 10?  I suppose it's all very subjective.  Even if you remove my bias, I still feel our new skyline with the Helix bridge, the Flyer, the spaceship-like Marina Bay Sands, is simply breathtaking.

I am blessed enough to get to appreciate the view every morning as I drive to work via the Sheares Bridge.  At the top of the bridge, as the view opens out, I still stop to thank God for His provision.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/top-10-city-skylines-20121022.html?page=1

Engadget writeup on Greenwave lighting

Company I work for made it to Engadget!  Woot!
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/22/greenwave-reality-ships-wifi-light-bulbs

Old friends

I just saw a post on FB by a friend, "old friends are like wine, the older they are, the better it gets".  In my heart, I started to say a quick prayer that she does not get hurt really soon.  

Human relationships are completely fallible.  It will happen, don't hold your breath.  I learnt this lesson many times over, the hard way, over the years.  The older/closer/better the friend, the greater the chance of that friend failing you, simply because you are more open/vulnerable to that person.  

It is best to expect nothing from friends, and when kindness comes, you will be genuinely happy about it.  Best lesson of all, adopt Job's attitude (Job 1:21).  
^{The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!”}

The lazy runner

Race no. 2 in the month of Oct (month of races) - Nike We Run SG.  Asked Alex to run ahead cos I didn't feel like sprinting 10km!  Memories of being winded beyond tolerance from the Safra run!  The coach clocked 49mins for the 10km run.  He was complaining of being tired from cycling.  Haha...

My plan was to start slow and then speed up after 5km or so.  But everyone was going pretty fast.  On many occasions, I literally slowed the pace and trot along just to catch my breath.  As my results shows, 2265 people finished ahead of me!  Fast!

With this race down, there's just 3 races to the end of the year.  Newton 30km, Stanchart 42km and MR25 50km.

I watch too much Korean TV

All started with Ian/Michelle watching this Korean series called 同伊.  As they relate in all seriousness, they once asked a dinner guest to go home early - so that they both can continue watching!  I thought they were joking, little did I know... After they were done, I was handed the disks with a "good luck".  Hmm...  

Initially, all Korean men look the same to me, I kept needing to stop to think, now who's he again?  Before you can say 'bibimbap!', I was in too deep.  One night I watched til 3am, ok ok I'm not proud of it but since there's really nothing much going on at work anyways, I took the next day off and continued with Korea hour.  Yesterday too.  I was happily watching and then had to stop in the middle of an imperial decree on dethroning the evil queen and reinstating the good queen, because it was dinner time with Matty!  

The kid is such a fussy eater. Ask him what he wants and he'll say soup and corn.  He rejected rice with soup last night and Michy had to get up midway through dinner in an Indonesian restaurant, buy a cup of corn from MacDonalds for the little guy.  

I am so tired now - between Matty and 同伊.  But be glad, there is peace in Korealand.  The good queen is back in place and the evil queen downgraded to concubine because the wise king was concerned for the crown prince's well being if he sent the evil queen away.

Do not be afraid

Gospel Lk 12:1-7

At that time:
So many people were crowding together
that they were trampling one another underfoot.
Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples,
"Beware of the leaven--that is, the hypocrisy--of the Pharisees.

"There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness
will be heard in the light,
and what you have whispered behind closed doors
will be proclaimed on the housetops.
I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.
I shall show you whom to fear.
Be afraid of the one who after killing
has the power to cast into Gehenna;
yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.
Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins?
Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God.
Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
Do not be afraid.
You are worth more than many sparrows."