13 Going On 30

The last thing I ever wanted right now is to fall sick. Unfortunately, that has happened, and on the day Emily and I were suppose to jog to her place. I am really sad that it had to be cancelled. I was really looking forward to running all the way to her place, despite it being 5000 light years away. It would have been fun to not jog alone for once. Sadly, I can't pretend that I am not sick because I sound pretty bad with my nose all clogged up. I mean, my mind still feels pretty strong and if I really wanted to, I could just jog anyway. I've done it before, but that was because I was very stubborn to admit that I was sick. So after considering the next few days that I have left in Australia, I've decided not to risk it.
I've decided to tune my activites down a bit because tomorrow night, we're going rollerblading as a final youth group event for the year. I really wanna go because, not only is it the only the final youth group event, but also the few 'activities' left in Australia with all of my friends. So I want to enjoy as many of them as possible. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I still can't come to terms with the fact that I only have a week left! Which is why I wanna go out as much as I can. This cold isn't helping..
The rollerblading place costs $8 to get in and $2 for the blades. In all, you get to skate for 3hrs and they usually hold many public games. I remember the last time we went, they had this skating race where they'd chuck several rollerblade wheels into the ring, and when they said go, we'd have to skate as quickly as we can to retrieve the wheels. Usually they'll have one or two less wheels so that the one who doesn't retrieve any wheels will be eliminated. If I am not mistaken, I lasted till the final 4 where I decided to stop because I fell too many times on my hips and butt, it was not worth it. Also, it wasn't fair because most of the contestants were these 'kid-workers' who are there every day skating, so they were so much better than me. If I see these guys tomorrow and they do it again, I'm not gonna bother playing. Won't end up getting anything anyway.

With rollerblading on the friday night, we're going to the beach the following day at who knows how early in the morning. We're going to go crabbing again, where it's 'legal' this time. The last time we went, it was illegal to use nets to catch any sea creatures. We didn't know and fortunately, no one told us off. This time round, it's legal, and now, we've got 4 crab nets in total. Yum yum dinner! Not sure what we'll do on the day actually. We'll let the parents do the 'sitting around and occasionally pulling up the crab nets to find if we've caught any crabs' job, and we'll probably just hang around the beach, perhaps do a bit of swimming. I think we'll 'hang' further down the beach because there were several fishermen near the area we were mucking around the last time we were there. Don't want a weird old man 'tugging' on me.


With all those plans for the future, let me recap on what happened last night at TimeZone.
We went to TimeZone again, and as usual, it was fun! I managed four Zone3 (laser challenge in a dark room) matches in a row, and I didn't feel too sore. Not as bad as last time. The last time I did it, I played five matches in a row and plus, I was pretty unfit back then. This time, no problems. That was, until I found the DanceDanceRevolution (DDR) game again. It had been ages since the last time I played DDR. When I was in Melbourne, Kat, Sam and I were tempted to go play it. But a group of geeky asians were hogging it. They were good, but they were geeky. This time, I was that geeky asian who was hogging it! I had forgotten how fun it is. Thankfully, the 'SuperSession' from Zone3 allowed us unlimited arcade action! We didn't know this until last night. We kept on going for an hour and thirty minutes. It was awesome. Game after game, I was like, "So, do you wanna play again?" hehe, I must do it again! Of course now, I'm feeling the effects of continuous DDR action.

Just a quick detour, I just realised while typing this blog entry, that I have a pretty good sense of time. Even though sometimes I make it sound like I roughly know the time which things happened, I actually know very well what time it happened. I just make it sound like I don't know the exact time because I don't want to be embarrassed in case I make a mistake while quoting the time when a certain event happened.
Am I making myself sound like a fool when I say this? I mean, if everyone can relate to this, so called 'gift', I feel like a fool to mention this. Anyway, this is what I just realised when I was typing just now.


Before I finish, I'll just like to point out that the wonderful, beautiful artwork above is from the gracious Uncle Wesley. If you ever need any wonderful, beautiful artwork, just find him. He's got everything you'll ever need ;) and I don't just mean photos..

Cool Runnings

This blog entry contains very boring details about my training. If you get bored by reading the first line of the blog, I suggest you just stop now.

Out of the 5 IPPT (the physical test), I reckon I can smash the first 3.

The sit ups and chin ups have no time limit. So as long as I get over 39 sit ups and 11 chin ups, it's gold for me! Surprisingly, the Standing Broad Jump is not at all difficult for me. Perhaps it's how I can leap pretty high vertically. The last time I checked, I was 174cm from my feet to the top of my head. Assuming when I raise my arms in the air, I add another foot, 30.5 cm, I then become 204.5cm. With that, if I can touch a standard basketball ring of 10 feet, 304.8cm, it would mean I am able to jump just roughly around a metre. hmmm, now that I think about it, that's pretty high XP

However, jumping up vertically would be harder compared to jumping horizontally. Which means the Standing Broad Jump shouldn't be too hard. I tested myself with the other day, just to see where I am on average now without any training. With Chariz as my witness, the 'maximum' length I reached was 260cm and the 'minimum' at 240cm. Considering how I have not trained for this test before, I reckon that's pretty good. lol Maybe now I should just practice on getting 260cm all the time if I can.

I don't know where I got my high/long leaping ability from. Initially, I gave credit to basketball in saying that all the lay-ups I do taught me how to 'co-ordinate' my jumps. However, now I'm not too sure.. cause not many basketball players who do lay-ups can jump nearly as high as I do. Even my school captain, who is 6' 3''??? can just barely touch the basketball ring. The only explanation now is that I am gifted +D and perhaps maybe, it's genetic. To my advantage I guess!

Chin ups and sit ups, I don't think I need to discuss with ya'll. You just need to know is that I can do respectively more than 11 and 39.

I hate jogging. I never like it because it's always so annoying when you're tired and wanna have air pumped into your blood. It's not the breathing patterns that I'm having trouble with. When I was back in Waverley, the 'marathon boy' gave me tips on breathing when running. So no worries there. It's when you've run quite a distance and your body can't keep up with the amount of running and that's when your breathing goes wacko. You try to maintain the breathing pattern, but the air always wanna come out faster than the air going in! Now that's really annoying, then eventually, your breathing pattern is gone, and you're struggling to breathe. That's when running becomes difficult. It's not the running bit. The running bit's awesome. Your legs are in so much pain, it's great! But you're too distracted by the pain of breathing, the legs are not important. By the time the run is over, your legs can't keep your body up anymore and you'd just collapse on the dirt patch outside your house.

I hope to run every single day now as I prepare to return back to Singapore. Adding more and more distance to each run, hopefully but the end of this Australian journey, I can run 2.4km easy. I just want to get there in under 10mins 21 sec. Preferably 10mins, so I got a bit of 'lee-way' when I actually do it.

Thursday, Emily and I might do something really crazy. We're gonna go jogging all the way to her place. Her place is roughly 4-5km away from my place! hehe, it doesn't matter. I'll just go at my own pace and hope not to die along the way. It's just like cross country again! Except people were shoving me on the ground and trampling all over. Let's hope Emily doesn't do that to me.

Click

I can't believe how quickly time flies. The last time I remembered, I was whining about coming to Geelong. Now, it's time to go, and I must say, I am feeling quite sad to leave. I think what scared me the most was how we were all moving to a new city where we didn't have any friends/relatives. On top of that, the first place we moved to was straight into the dorm. Now that was scary. I had a live in a small 3 x 3 x 3 cube with a computer, bed, desk, chair, PS2, tv, shoe rack and a bedside drawer. Fun? uh uh.

The last dorm we stayed in was back in 1996 when we were in America. Back then, everything was fine. We didn't need to have any friends because anybody we met were 'friends'. Remember back when we were kids, and whenever we met someone around our age: instantly, we would become friends. It would go something like this.
Me: Hey! Wanna play?
Kid: Yay! *tag* You're it!!
Me: I love you. I will marry you. *kiss*
Kid: ewwww!!! cooties!!!

haha, or something like that.
Back then, friends didn't really matter. All we cared about was our own selfish pleasure. We'd go out and play, kiss a few girls, and then return back during the night with our kil-, I mean siblings. Then after burning all the carbohydrates and fats, we'd come back and sleep. Day after day, we'd just do this until we finally left.
But things have changed. We can no longer use other people for our own selfish pleasures. We have to be good people. We cannot be kids anymore. Pfft


Anyway, coming to Geelong has definitely been my 'peak' so far. Well, I guess I can't really compare it with any other part of my life yet. So thus far, it has been my most accomplished year of my life. I wonder what other painful adventures I'll have when I go to Singapore.
One thing I am really really fearful of though .. is how when I become very comfortable in Singapore again, I'll be sad to leave again. And this isn't a year; like in Geelong. This is gonna be twice the length. Besides how most of my time will be in the barracks, there'll definitely be this sense of attachment to the environment again. Friends and relatives especially. Then of course there's the food. Glorious food! How I love you! I'm so happy I'm in the stage of my life where I can eat heaps and gain hardly any weight. Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! I'll just have to burn most of the food in my training there.

Speaking of training, I've been trying to get into my training routine as often as I can. Today, I've managed to run the street outside our house. By 'run the street', I mean I ran one side of the sidewalk and at the end of the street, crossed over to the other side of the sidewalk and ran back. I ran one lap, then recovered for 1 or 2 minutes then ran another lap. The street is approximately 100-150m; do the maths. For now, I think that's enough because I don't wanna kill myself now. I'll gradually increase the distance. Just not yet cause it's quite strenous so far.
Then after my run, I did the shuttle run. Basically, it's this 10 metre dash thing with 2 'pick up' objects at the end; both 1 metre apart of each other. What I had to do, is sprint from the starting point, grab the first object, sprint back, sprint back to the second object, and sprint back to the starting point. We're supposed to run this under 10.2 seconds to get 'gold' ... Gold, I like gold. If I get 'gold' for my physical test, I'll have a high chance of cutting 2 months off my NS training. Gold gold gold.

Here is the official 'table' on the requirements of the physical test:

Just recently, my dad returned back from Myanmar for his occasional 'mission trip'; so to speak. And when he does, he usually brings in the (I love this quote from Bryan) 'next shipment' of DVDs. And by DVDs, I mean good o'le movies. The most recent movie I've seen is Click and I must say, it's not quite what I was expecting. I won't reveal too much, but it was pretty much the opposite to what I was expecting from the show. It was quite touching, and I have to admit, it almost made me cry, but obviously, it wasn't good enough to make me cry. XD
There were several movies that I've seen which almost made me cry, but so far, I have not cried to a movie. Oh yes, what a man I am.

In The Middle

And so it begins.

The journey into my new life begins here. Well, maybe not here exactly, but I will retell the adventures of my new life here for all to read. A brief outline as to what I hope to accomplish next year, and the years to come.
- Get recuited into the Singapore army as soon as possible in the year 2007.
- Brush up on my chinese and teochew.
- Learn ball room and possibly a bit of breakdancing in the year 2008.
- Master one or two more instruments.

I've started this blog mainly for the reason that since I'm going to the army next year, I might as well start everything again. It'll be nice to look back, and read all the misadventures of the army life. Should be very interesting in a few years time when I'm all old and wrinkly.
Year 12 And I - 2006


My blog title, "In The Middle", consists of several meanings which I find are very appropriate for my current situation. For one, Singapore is situated somewhere near the equator which is why I'm gonna suffer when I go back. Another obvious reason is how I'm the middle child, and how I'm always being neglected for being too old, or not being important enough to deserve mature attention. There were other less important reasons as to why I chose this title but I don't think I'll go into them because these are the two most recognisable reasons.
It wasn't easy for me to come up with a blog title appropriate for this blog, because I'm very picky. Whenever I want a good, usable, title/name, I always need it to be full of meaning for not only myself, but for my readers as well. Why have a blog title which I have no relation with? I mean, wouldn't it be weird if my blog title read, "To eat or not to eat?" or "Me chicken, You Jane" lol, I actually did come up with very similar blog titles which have very little, to no meaning. Maybe it's how I have no creativity when it comes to outstanding phrases. But when I do, I need it to be rich in meaning. I guess this is as close as it gets. I like it actually. I like it very much.

Currently, the blog is still under going one or two more configurations which will be sorted out shortly. Shouldn't take all that long. Hopefully in the next few days, it will be completely sorted out.