The Wannabe Economist

This is no kidding matter.

Manchi just openly say i have tummy on her blog. Then again cannot blame her. ‘Cause i expose her first.

ROAR.

The figher in Chongky has been unleashed. I is the going to NUS Biathlon then Singapore Biathlon (all with 2 weeks, not one week like the previous round), then Swissotel Marathon then Stanchart Half Marathon then SAFRA AVventura again.

I is the quite pissed off. I have slacked for almost 2 years already. Now it’s time to wake up and go back to the old way.

3rd day straight swimming and feeling very good. Muscle ache is good.

Now it’s no more beehoon with kang kong for dinner. It’s going to be 6 meals a day and one workout everyday.

We are going to win first this year, ain’t we?

I think i slept for 12 hours. And i woke up with a strange feeling, hoping to be back at the time when i ran and workout everything other day. But i touched my belly and i realised i’m still the same old fat fei fei.

Neh said i’m fei fei the overweight over-achiever.

Nah lah where got over-achieve? I’m cracking my mind out to write the incredible resume and cover letter to apply for a part time job with a consulting company. Because there really isn’t much to booast about for me. I probably don’t have a lot of qualities they are looking for, and i suspect when the consulting companies come to our school to recruit fresh grads, i won’t even receive the invitational emailer from OCS.

Jess reminded me last night that i was supposed to clear my climbing instructor assessment in feb. I had unconsciously pushed that back into may because i stopped training. Not climbing anymore, no longer breathing the climber’s air anymore.

Gravical is on next fri. And i won’t be attending it because i want to jack up my ability in business cases at Cognitare. My role at securing sponsorship for Gravical is only considerably successfuly considering the amount of sponsorship value for a first time event only in school. I can’t say that i am good at selling ice to eskimo anymore. The sponsorship deals only come about because the contact points are my good friends in salsa and climbing. I suspect if not for our friendship, no one would push for my cause and i will probably end up with only FIT sponsorship, which in theory they will be supportive because they had a deal to build our school’s rock wall previously.

So that’s me. Nothing goes well and at all time low emtionally.

2006 came, and passed just like that. I can’t even remember much about what happened over the entire year.

Only briefly recalled that i:

1. Completed 2 normal semester and 1 summer semester setting my lovely mummy back by $6.6 k
2. Finished 1 10-weeks  internship at IBM
3. Started canoe polo but didn’t manage to do much, and passed it on to someone whom i believe can do better than what i did
4. Chalked out another bagful of event organisation experience with SMUX.
5. Completed the first marathon of my mind in a moment of stupidity that started the injury.
6. Came in second when there are three teams in the category (thankfully it’s not third) from my first adventure race, which continued the injury.
7. Got my first TAship after discounting that fact that LTM is just another half credit course.
8. Taught many batches of beginners salseros.
9. Went for ITC with SMF, gaining valuable friendships - people who share my passion for outdoors.
10. Performed at the first ever SISF which is going to be an annual event.
11. Officially left the performance team that i have been with 2 years.

I guess these are the main events that happened over the last year. Need to qualify these are events only list, before Mrs Chongky throws a BF when she doesn’t see herself listed above anywhere.

These events formed an important part of memories from my lifetime. Mixed emotions over these events. My thinking has changed since 2006 started. I used to believe that no matter what happened, i am still going to be very involved in outdoors after graduation. My career definitely has to be outdoors geared. My dinnertime tv channel has to be A1. Other than the latter point, the rest no longer stand. I don’t believe in basing my career in outdoors anymore. There is no money there. Can’t live a life of luxury from dreams and passion, can i?

Career takes the top priority over almost everything else. I quited the performance team so that i can avoid that overwhelming feeling of deep guilt when i burn training time with studies matters. Everything that i want to do in 2007 has one way or another to do with studies. More TAship, more RAship, Magna Cum Laude kind of GPA and the list goes on.

What happened to kayaking, salsa, dancing in general, the first trek that i have been looking for, canoe polo, the soccer referee practical part of assessment that i left pending after physical assessment and so on?

2006 is a year of dramatic change. No doubt about that. Everything that i have done before 2006 pays off in 2006. Even my Dance: East and West module in school i also managed an A+ with my paper on dance. It’s definitely not the participation or the screwed up performance that helped, like some course mates would think. This gave me a passing thought of again, go persue that dancing passion instead.

How much can passion last me? A lifetime? Of what? A lifetime of just getting by that will make me part of the average or below average Singaporeans that are likely to be labelled with more intelligent word than “useless” by the elitist?

2006 is the year i bow down to reality. No more dreams. No more fooling around. I have made the drastic decisions. I am going to make it big.

My masters. Then a good career. It is all going to start right now. This current moment i am living and breathing in.

This is the start of the new year. So i chose a reflective entry over another badass critical option. This reflective entry, of course, will not make my unmentioned resolution clear. I’m afraid the curious ones would have to read in-between the lines from this and past entrys. My friend, if you have read till this sentence of the usually heavy and somehow self-centered personal entry, i wish you a Happy New Year and a blessed 2007 to come. May our friendship continue to grow.

I’m a sucker.

The doctor said he might need to refer me to sports clinic in CGH if the swelling does not go away next week. Then just now when i was teaching the knee hurts. So after the class i was thinking i might need to see physio first.

And then i remembered Jenn is a physio and she works in CGH! As much as i hate calling friend whom i have not contacted in a long while for a favour, i guess this is the time i need to do it. After all at least we do get along quite well previously when we were dancing more actively.

Jenn is a sports physio and she is going to see my swollen knees tomorrow morning. I hope it’s going to be nothing rest can’t help.

Fuck i just realised not just my knees are swollen, my calfs are swollen as well. Now i really don’t know what’s wrong. Could it be lack of blood flow due to prolonged bandaging? Or knee injury made worse by continuing to stress it over the week?

Fuck man… now i’m really screwed. Life is trying to screw me up real bad this time.

Can’t let mummy know. She will probably kill me over not looking after myself.

How how? Argh. I should have prevented this.

Fuck you life, you finally got me this time.

It feels great to be back home after so long. Never in my life that i stayed out for such a long period of time. Not even NS.

It’s not the stuffy air that greets me at night. Not the warmth in the room due to the unfortunate direction it faces that gives it more than the fair share of sun it wanted. It’s the familiarity. The same old bed with the same comfortable bedsheet that is coated with dirt, due to the fact that the room is right above a main road.

In view of the festivals that are coming in the next year, and considering this might be the only break that i will have in a while (yes i need to do a summer again next year and one more good internship to booast my prospect in finance sector), i started tidying up my room. I am taking all the time i have, because i want to make sure that it’s going to be very very clean at the end of the day. So far i have only cleaned out my closet.

No more unnecessary memories of the loser JC days, the unfortunate NS days and the dark sec sch days.

It’s all about the present, isn’t it always the case?

Bro has coerced the parents that we need boardband at home. Wireless. Isn’t that great? Once they fixed it up i am going to play AuditionSEA and surf the net right in the comfort of my room.

The SAFRA AVventura is a happy experience, though the aftermath swollen knees are still there. Might be the endless shopping trips that i embark on after the race. Nevertheless everything is great. They seem to be recovering, though they still feel pretty weak. The organisers of the race are great people too. I just realised that my commenter earlier on is an UIAA route judge. During our correspondance it never came across to me that he is elitist or anything along that line. I felt that my feedback was taken seriously, though again it’s nothing that important. I am happy after receiving my prize, though i haven’t seen the medals that are going to my collection which will be put up in my room after this round of spring cleaning.

The prize money has been used up. I treated myself to Hans with that money. Mrs Chongky too. And her family a take-away dinner from coffeeshop outside to thank them for the Crystal Jade treat that Mrs Chongky brought me along. The rest went to my 18 kg dumbbells which i lugged home all the way from Serangoon in my unfit state.

I’m happy. I mean after so many years of looking forward to having my own set of dumbbells i finall have one. Probably can’t do much now, but it beats not working out at all at home. It’s strange that after all these years of convincing myself that i do not need a set because of the close proximity of gym at CDANS and then school, that now i finally bought the dumbbells.

It’s just like the pull-up bar story. I thought it would be good to have it, but i don’t need it. Nevertheless i was glad when my bro bought it.

Now i’m once again wiped out, i have decided to resort to Mummy for sponsorship for that AR clothes and a new pair of running shoes. The old pair gave up on me at the race, with the heel cushion coming loose and finally going missing at the kayaking leg. Probably Nor has already found them in her Capri. LOL.

To add to my dire financial state i have finally decided that i want to do something else than training for salsa performance. This decision puts my teaching career at risk. Needless to say, i think this is necessary if i am going to continue once again ballet next sem at SDT after that eventful trial lesson. Where am i going to find the time if i don’t give up something?

I have went though a meeting with the stats prof who shortlisted me for his stats B TA next sem. I hope i get it. I hope it’s going to be only two TAs. I need the money. Even if it doesn’t come now, but knowing that i am going to be paid later will at least lend some comfort. Furthermore i know i will relish the prospect of being offered a working space on the TA / RA floor. That’s definitely the best way to mug hard for the 3 econs modules next sem.

Anyway results came out, most of them. I have a historical C-. Other than that all is good. I wonder if any prof would want me as TA. Not outstanding in class but at least solid.

In any case i am leaving for home now. Sitting in a GSR all by myself in sch holiday is kinda sad. Back to home where i can lift my lovely dumbbells. They are ugly by Mrs Chongky’s standard. But they can make me lovely. And anything that makes me lovely are lovely in my opinion.

And later to pack some of the obscure memories into the plastic boxes to free out more space in my room.

Just seen a doctor.

He advised against more races, because of pre-injury sign of swollen knee (inflammation).

Man… just when i fixed my heart rate monitor and am ready for more training.

ARGH!

The last time when i was ready for NS i suffered retinal detachment.

This time when i want to compete in more adventure race i have knee problem.

EH LIFE CAN’T GIVE ME A BREAK!

Eh you don’t win me. I won’t give a flying fuck. I have my Nike knee bandages. I don’t care. I want to race. I will train smart. You can’t get me down. Not now, not in the future.

Seet Thiam Huat Says:
December 13th, 2006 at 11:51 am e

Hey Racer,

Thank you very much for participating in the race. I am the technical director and on behalf ofthe committee, we sincerely hope that your team has enjoyed the entire race!! Hope to see you in the next race!

It’s great to receive comment from him. I feel the personal touch to the race, even though i don’t know the other participants or the organisers.

I have this feedback which i have decided to omit in the previous post. Reason being that i know the SAFRA staff and i have foreseen the bottleneck.

The race is certainty well-managed, with adequate marshals and directions. However one area that could be better managed is the queue at the bottle neck. Frankly being caught up in the bottleneck for over a hour is ridiculous.

My team is in the second position (there are three teams in the same category, but the first is very fast and the third one registered but we didn’t see them along the way). So my partner and i are in good position to win the prize. Even though i can’t run, we managed to arrive at the last station at 12.45pm, with slightly more than 1 hour from cut off time.

However given the 4 lanes at the ascending tower and partcipants who seriously don’t know how to ascend, we waited in the queue for more than a hour. By the time we attempted the station it was 2pm and we have missed the cut off. Needless to say we cleared everything chop chop in probably 10 minutes. Which is funny because we could have reached the finishing line at 1pm if we skip the ascending part and suffer the penalty.

By the way, the penalty time for missing the station is 60 minutes and we waited more than that.

Because of the long wait we are not presented the prize at the award presentation. We thought we missed out on the prize until being informed by SAFRA staff after we got home.

I believe there is a better way to manage the queue. Knowing that while the teams in the open category in the queue are not in the top three position and there is a team going for the top three position, an express lane could be used for the team to “jump” the queue and clear the station immediately.

To add-on, other than this minor shortcoming, the entire race is well managed and we enjoyed ourselves.

We survived the adventure race. Could have done better if i can run more or spin faster. Could have won the second price if we overtook a few teams and get ahead in the long queue for the last station. Could have met the cut off time if we saved that 12 mins somehow.

Lack of training. Evident of not exercising for long time.

Sorry dude. Next time round i will make sure i train till i can run 21km again in 2 hrs.

Training for self shall start as soon as the knee swelling subsided.

Sports resolution for the next year (yeah yeah almost time):

1. Running 21km in 2 hours, 42km in 5 hrs (but note to self: fix the heart rate monitor this week, buy a new pair of lighter training shoes)
2. Spinning reach optimal spinning freq of 90rpm.
3. Gyming to be more tone and get those neh neh and abs out.

Just visited the doc. Just very bad swelling. He was taken aback for a while, before stating that the knees are seriously injuried and no exerise for 48 hrs. Then proceed to give me medicine to reduce swell.

Oh well.

I hope this injury is just something temporary. I don’t want to grow old with weak knees.

While i am entertaining myself when the rest went climbing, i watched “My Girl and I”. It is a Korean movie remake of the original Japanese movie, “Crying out love, in the center of the world”. Song Hye Kyo acted in this movie, while the male lead is Cha Tae-hyun from My Sassy Girl (the all time favorite Korean movie). As with other Korean movie, this is sad and yet beautiful.

Hard to describe the feeling.