It had been sometime since I woke up to the morning darkness, but today is an exception as the long awaited New Balance Real Run 2005 is on this morning!

Had the “econo” Beehoon Horfun + egg for breakfast at Redhill market with dad (who had to go to the market for some groceries) before meeting the group harbour front MRT control station. & man was the place already packed with people, even the MRT staff were puzzledly amazed- an obvious sign of quite a major event.

The starting & finishing points are at the sentosa gateway carpark- whats left of the late disfunct fantasy island water park. The race started off @ 8.30 with the juniors (5.5km), followed 15mins later with the open, hometeam & veteran categories (10km). Overall the race was great I just simply love the feeling of overtaking people on the various upslopes & downslopes- places where people tend to slow down, not to mention the notorious beach run. I always maintained by pace & only overtake, not to be overtaken. Furthermore I devised a method of running diagonally along the coastal path so you end up going straight along the coast without slipping down the beach, thus allowing me to overtake an exceptional number of people too on the sand run. Amazingly too, alot started walking after the sands, allowing my team & me to gain an edge too.

The most exciting part is definately the last 400m where the everybody’s pace & spirits are up towards the last dash. Finished crossing the finishing gantry with twin funky “hang loose style” (aloha in Hawaii). The gantry read 58mins 24s when I crossed it, so minusing the 3-4mins time taken to flag off the crowd I guess my timings around the + - 55mins range for 10km. Only when the results to be released in 2 days will speak the eventual actual timing.

The most dissapointing part is the lucky draw at the end, where they decide halfway to donate the prices to charity when they are no takers for prices, a call by the orgainisers, but a definate let down by the geering crowd. All in hand 100 prizes given out, neither any of us got an lucky draw prices.. sad, maybe the lottery is easier to win…

& now I got an addtional dry-tec event shirt & shoe bag!

Sorry for the lack of event photos as I was a competitor & didn’t take much pictures, especially the crowds at the starting. Out!

Well, its finally the day of the long awaited SP Sports Grand opening day, with poppers, balloons, unicyclists, not to mention bag pipers in quilts, yea, my friend Andre came to school in his quilt (aka “the shirt”) all the way from pasir ris on MRT today! comments! comments!

Our Guest of Honour is some Doctor or so from South West CDC. Who officially opened the complex with a lion dance & a great Singapore workout. We got even free visors! Not to mention free CCA points for everyone! Besides this, track & field had actually been using the track (on a soft opening) for months already for training, infact since May, wonder why do they choose it open it now? Which is kinda.. umm late? My role there today is very much being a track marshal for the track events to be held as part of the programme, & a finishing-line marshal as well. But all that is after the old-boy’s soccer match…

Yes, the ex-Singapore national soccer players came to compete on a 45min friendly match against home. The Singapore team consisted of several old Singapore football legends, back at the time when its “still good” including, Sundram. Overall the match ended 3-2 with the Singapore team taking the win. & its only on the penalty shootouts were they finally broke the 2-2 tie. Good match, & I guess thats what everybody’s there for.

The Sports Complex!	Ex-Team Singapore vs Team SP	Track Events

Track events followed thereafter. Everything went well, with the exception of one competitor fracturing his leg on the men’s 60m veteran event, which definately sent the red cross volunteers scurrying & the ambulance on standby rushing off them of to the nearest hospital thereafter. The event ended 6pm + & dang I had to RUN after the bus this time on my way out the complex… as bus service 196 is just so notorious for its waits at the bustop. Luckily the old uncle driver was kind enough to hold the bus for me, thanking him on the way in. *sigh* Come to think about it, such kind drivers are so hard to come by these days…

We came in empty but left walking out with our arms behind our backs like pregnant women. If you guessed “buffet” you are right. Just say “we” as a class went straving since lunchtime till 3pm, when we finally arrived at Westmall, Bukit Batok where we chomped to our hearts delight till 5pm. For a student rate of $16.00 including all the misc charges. Overall the class was split into 2 tables of 5 & 6 & we are amazingly tied at 70 coloured plates one both tables, thats brings about 140 coloured plates of sushi in total. hehheh…

Got a call from one of my troopers Zhiwei today. Called asking whether I’ve recieved my 2005 $200 marksman bonus the SAF is supposed to pay me. Initailly I thought I would never get my $200, considering that I didn’t get my ATP-M marksman bonus for last year too, with the exception of IPPT bonuses. So I guess as screwed up big organisations can be, I wasn’t even expecting to get it this year. But the call came as a welcome & I see our inkchik is really fighting real hard for us to get the bonus. Whee! till I get the injection, I would be $200 closer to my wishlist items! Hello HTC Universal!

Met up with Erick, Darius & the rest of the track gang at Dover mrt to gather & make our way to NTU , where the annual X Campus run was held. We alighted at Boonlay where we took service 179 to the campus itself. Estimated each college & polytechnic sent in at least 1 team to compete, 2, being the norm. The race was great & I guess I clocked in one the best timings since training on the actual grounds itself. NUS came in tops this year, on the invitional category where we belong in, though we all finshed, Coach was a little dissapointed with our results as quite a few of us didn’t performed as expected to be. Infact afew performed of our teammates came back with stitches, etc where coach ruled “need more training”.

Overall, I clocked in at 31mins 24seconds for the 6.6km run. Not the best, but I tried my best & very much made it in the top 40% percentile, beating even the NUS track girls team, with their guys team being the exception. & man I guess the feeling of overtaking 5-8 people in a row on the downslope is super shoik! haha on the notorious 3rd upslope in the run near building N1.

Alex came with more events lined up for the year, starting with the The Mizuno Wave Run in October & the Raffles Swissotel Vertical Marathon 2005 in November, allowing us to earn more CCA points too. Upcoming events: Newbalance Real Run (28/08/2005, 10km), Sheares Bridge run/AHM (11/09/2005, 21km)

Got back home earlier today as theres no track training for those competiting tomorrow. It’s more or less a rest day for us in prep for the X Campus run. So I went around catching up on my surfing at home & I came across this online IQ/EQ tests.

Haha as we all know, such online tests are definately an inaccurate gauge of one’s ablity. But I casually tried one anyway, & in hand I actually found some of the questions rather interesting & respectable to an commendable extent. It’s a rather short test, comprising of 20 questions, & the results are haha kinda positive in my light, scoring 77% on the “SCIENTIFIC INTUITION” part and 62% on “EMOTIONAL INTUITION”. You can give the test a try here.

The (their) explaination of the results:
The graph represents your place in Intuition 2-Space. As you can see, you scored above average on emotional intuition and well above average on scientific intuition. Your scientific intuition is stronger than your emotional intuition.

Your Emotional Intuition score is a measure of how well you understand people, especially their unspoken needs and sympathies. A high score score usually indicates social grace and persuasiveness. A low score usually means you’re good at Quake.

Your Scientific Intuition score tells you how in tune you are with the world around you; how well you understand your physical and intellectual environment. People with high scores here are apt to succeed in business and, of course, the sciences.

Oh well, so much for that!

Wish me luck on the Competitive NTU X Campus Run tomorrow!

Had been sometime since I went out grocery shopping with my parents (its like 2 years or so, since I left the army) so why not join them over the week at our usual nearby neighbourhood NTUC fairprice. Overall I have to comment on the rather pleasant shopping experience fairprice has offered over the years, even till now. Now they not only have an expanded selection of food & exotic varieties, they even have a dedicated electronics branch. Furthermore with recent renovations, improvements & such, the place is so much bigger now. Even the aisles are so much wider now, allowing trolleys to parked by the sides without obstructing anybody, (not to mention those trolley races when I was a kid!) to the extent on packaging improvements & expanded range of NTUC homebrands too. Wow thats alot I’ve missed!

Taking on packaging, as educated citizens, we all know that plastic is bad for the environment, being non-biodegradable, its it will be like there even when we throw it away. Though people may think I am crazy (only in Singapore) but sometimes I do bring my own bag to hold my groceries, not to mention declining to at local provision shops & such. Over here its take it since its free, Singaporean style.

More plastics	Individualy wrapped peppers	Arghh! more plastic!

However, a trip to the greens section gave me a big head-shaker- everything is all plastic wrapped, where had all the traditional vege selections gone too? In place of classic weighing scales, baskets full of fresh mud filled rooted vegetables & the earthy smell of greens all replaced with synthetic, individually wrapped, vege packs with stickers showing its prices, weigh, etc… This is overboard, even the geen peppers are individually wrapped in plastic! argh! The humanity! Argh, the environment. If Fairprice thinks plastic is the way to go, maybe they should adhere to the bio-gegradbale ones, which I think such profit orientated companies won’t bother spending more money on.

Mmm, theres a new upcoming addition to the coke family, called the Coke’s Calorie. It claims to make you lose weight by increasing your body’s metabolism, in turn buring more calories (Burning Enviga) its slated for 2006 Debut, check out the news on yahoo

The day ended with a short Q&A with our EL teacher, Mr Wong Sim Ming, otherwise known as “ahkao”given his rather funny pun on “ahkao hui lia!” (Ahkao come back!). Mr Low, our tutor finally released out thermo class test results yesterday, in a rather cartoony manner too, flashing results with him blocking half of the over head projector’s image…. sian. Completely oblivious to his error, we managed to persuade him to show us the results again & its only on the 5th projection when he actually blurrly heeds us by not standing in front of the projector to flash the results. Oh man! Anyway I’ve got a cool hundred for it, a perfect score on the test. Things weren’t so bright for electronics though, scoring only 92/100, not the highest in class, not even the 3rd highest! Dang! Duh I am feeling stopider already. Anyway I learnt from my rather careless mistake costing me 8 marks from perfection in total. So in all, for the 1st term of the first semester its quite a good start with 90% & above on average for all my modules. Gotta start studying for semester exams due in a month.

Its the patriotic time again - flags hanging high on our trademark HDB estates, people walking around like mini flag poles planted on their bags, or simply wearing red & white, motorcyclists riding around with flapping flags. Whether it my battalion giving free army rides to the public/marshaling at jurong east, or my platoonmates selling watches at the marina field national day market for a cash or two. It’s the time of year again where Singaporeans get together this time for the celebration marking 4 decades of Singapore Independence - man will it be a bang!
Happy 40th Birthday Singapore!

Just when you think SP is already full of commerical stalls, like Pizza Hut, Popular, KFC, Macdonalds, Resturants, Travel agencies, Bakeries & Print services, not to mention our 6 food courts, wait till they open a HMV branch here. It came as a surprise when some students approached me in campus asking me to help & participate in a survey they are conducting. Initially I thought is just any ol’ pesky business students regularly bugging people & such, but hey they are FROM HMV. One interesting part of the survey asks where would I want the HMV branch to be opened in SP. Without hesitation, its the Plaza, the PLAZA! I love music near my study block… It would be neato, furthermore with the possibility of having student deejays & such, spinning the discs on my regular breaks for the love of music & maybe piping music throughout school, foodcourts & such. Count me in dudes!

The schedule calls for a meeting at SP stadium at 10am today by the track commitee for a rather short brief & rehersal on the upcoming SP sport complex heats events on next week, Wednesday. I am appointed a track marshall so I am pretty much the witness or orderly of the 14+heats to take place on that day. Ahah authority. Coach Robin treated the whole bunch to drinks during lunch at foodcourt 3 thereafter, each got a cup of ice milo for slurps.

NTU X Campus Run Training
Only 4 from team 1 & 2 decided to stay to train at NTU, so Coach conveniently packed all of us into his tiny brand new blue Kia picanto headed towards NTU through the AYE. We did a drive-thru followed by a the actual runs. The route consist of 4 upslopes, the 3 upslope around block N1 being the real killer, but we are pretty much rewarded by the long 500m downslope which followed thereafter. The 1st part of the orientation jog saw us pacing 34mins on the 6.6km route with coach robin informing us of distances while pacing his car along with us. Just say hes very much a mobile water-point/pacer/distance tracker & a form of great amusement driving around chasing us with his little blue car. We ran another full 6.6km round before doing our standard striding, strengthening & cool down, by then its about 5pm already. In the changing rooms, we were quite amazed that NTU provides free lockers for users too, not to mention actually encouraging people to use them instead of leaving them prone to theft. We kinda completely dosed off in the train, shagged from all the training, luckily I didn’t miss my stop.

Site Updates
Look a new font size selector! In response to the comments I’ve got about difficulty some people have on reading the small fonts in my blog, I ve included a font size selector on the blog page. Please note that this only controls the size of the blog fonts & nothing else & its quote buggy at the moment.

This week at school, I see myself scoring 100% for Mechcanics Test 1 (yea! perfection!), 80% for the Autocad Assement one & 99% for the Autocad Practical Class test one. Though I am not the highest scorer for Autocad now, I just have to give the limelight to people who rightfully earned it by grades. Though I think I am still the overall lead student.. *grins* No turning back now, gotta keep up the standard for University…

I remembered sitting down & chatting with Jeremy over lunch at food court 3 about CCA grades, & how flexible SP’s CCA grading system is compared to other polys like NYP, Nee Ann Poly etc… Doing away with the rather restricting categories such as enrichment, participation, etc… with points ceiling for each cat. & the number of total points coresponds to the respective grades: 10-25 for a B, 26-35 for a B+, 36-45 for A & 46+ for an A+. Only the top 5% of the cohort will be selected for a distinction grade. Jeremy highlighted a senior he knows who got like 40 (A grade) after year one. An amazing feat we could only eve together. But emm does he knows that I am already on an expected 46 point count by end of the first semester? & we are not even halfway through year one! Now tell me, am I evil? haha

Caught a glimpse of the Flea market going on at the plaza today. Organised by the beezi people from the bee-siness courses. They have quite a few homemade & crafted items, quite interesting Didn’t have much time to check out the goodies as we are all too involved with tests & such.

And what other better way to end this rather busy week than to celebrate some national day cheers at the stadium? (haha yea we are bluffing ourselves again) & to enjoy the National Day Observance Ceremony. I guess the highlight are the japanese children singers who came all the way here from their home country to sing us a few choir songs, other than that the helicopter aerial display was kinda cool, didn’t know its so maneuverable. Thinking back, I almost wanted to take petrol driven remote helicopters as a hobby few years back, but turned down by the rather high costs of maintaining one.

If only I were more proficient in my electric guitar, I don’t mind performing an electric piece for the concert, at the same time chalking not only CCA points by chick points too.

Since the activation of my 1.5Mps ADSL line on wednesday, (haha yea not the fastest in the world though…) Got my free Homeportal1800HG gateway modem installed & a 40GB pocket harddisk from my ISP through the mail on Friday. Previously, I was paying like $58/mth on 512kps on like a expired contract which no longer exists (duh). The newer 1500kps plan was going like $57.50/mth (plus all the extras misc charges about $60/mth) not bad bheh? $2 more a month for 3 times the speed + $400 worth of free hardware & 3 free months of Singnet outdoor wireless surf.

For the 1st time on my home computers download speeds are actually in the few hundreds KB/s range. Gotta get used to that. Say a 100mb file normally won’t finish in 10mins previously, & when I promoted done, its like “Are you sure you are DONE?)

MMORPG to the power!
What can I got to do but discover my “new found powers” Went around downloading & tryin’ out some free MMORPG. Like PlaneShift - Crystal Blue & Fate the game. Fate the game is a very diablo II like game almost VERY identicial, only that its in 3D & all battles are in the stinky dungeon… bleach! Otherwise Planeshift is kinda neat, but the interface & controls sux big ass, not to mention the lack of players on Fragnetics. Being an avid player of Warcraft since WC II- Tides of darkness, I was very eager to try out World of Warcraft, in response to all my friends inviting me to join their little bitty various clans & such… Then when I told them that I don’t play WoW, then its like “erhhh ohhh…” Partly as I completely detest the pay-as-you-play subscription based system - just imagine how much Blizzard can make out of that? Unless if I can get sponsers… hehe

Remember, with these new powers come great responsibility - Petter Parker’s (Spiderman’s) Dad