Event Date
13th (Friday) to 14th October (Saturday) 2006

2006 Objectives

• Running In aid of Singapore Heart Foundation. The “NIE Director’s Relay” aims to provide an opportunity for the NIE Family of staff, student teachers and alumni to play their part in contributing to the community. It will become an annual signature event of the Institute.
• Director of NIE will lead the family to raise funds for a charitable organization. He will nominate or “adopt” the organization that will become the beneficiary for the particular year
• The first “NIE Director’s Relay” will be inaugurated by Prof Leo Tan, Director, NIE, in October 2006.

Organisation and Format

• The NIE Director’s Relay will be a 12-hour, Dusk-to-Dawn Relay over a 2.4km course around and within NIE.
• At 9pm on Friday, 13 October, Director, NIE will flag off the Relay.
  At 9am on Saturday, 14 October, the Relay ends.
• Food and drinks will be available throughout the 12-hour relay.
• There will be a “Breakfast-Gathering” of all participants, supporters and friends immediately after the Cheque Presentation.

Registration

• Each team consists of 6 participants/runners.
• Registration fee is $120 per team ($20 per team member). All registration fees will be donated to the Singapore Heart Foundation.
• All registered participants will receive a limited edition t-shirt (made of micro-fibre material).
• Team members can run in any order but each of them is to complete only one lap of the 2.4km circuit whenever he or she is on the run, jog or walk.
• There is no fixed composition of team members in terms of gender, i.e. a team may be formed with 6 men, 6 women, or a combination of any number.

Incentive Awards for Teams:

• (All registered teams) The first Eight teams with the highest accumulated mileage beyond 150km in 12 hours will recieve a $480 cash award (or shopping vouchers). Only laps completed within the 12 hours will count towards the total mileage.
• (All registered teams) One Team for the “Gold Award” of $600 cash (or shopping vouchers) will be awarded to the ONE team with the highest accumulated mileage beyond 170km in 12 hours. Only laps completed within the 12 hours will count towards the total mileage.
• (ladies only) A $400 cash award (or shopping vouchers) will be given to first THREE All-Women teams with the highest accumulated mileage in 12 hours. Only laps completed within the 12 hours will count towards the total mileage.

Source: NIE Website

It was an interesting hectic, yet very hazy week… especially on Thurday, otherwise hadn’t found time to blog the last few says, thus this accumlative post.

Early week Food poisoning
Tossed and turned for like 4 hours in bed Tuesday night/early morning. Initially I thought it was bloating or just gas curable with generous application of simple medicated oil, but my lower central stomach area just got so pain & uncomfortable I couldn’t sleep throughout the night. Dad drove me to SGH A&E around 3am where I see myself sitting in a V-bent posture seeing nothing but only floor most of the time in the waiting area to ease the stomach pain. After 2 X-rays, doctor says that theres nothing with me and it’s just a case of bad food, prescribing 4 different types of before-meals gastrointestinal relief medicine and a 3 day MC.

The doctor also highlighted about the danger of Appendicitis and it’s right side-pain-like symptoms for general knowledge (FYI). Though it’s a simple to treat and cure completely when detected early, it’s can be fatal when left unnoticed/delayed, not that I do not know of that, but it’s just freaky being told about it again.

It was almost 5.30am and close to sunrise upon reaching home. Had no choice but to decide to give school a miss having not slept the whole night which means no Track Training too, also theres was no important lessons such as practicals for that Tuesday. Woke up round early afternoon for lunch feeling very much better.

Now my bed all smells like feng you medicated oil… And it had been on for days…

Highlights of the week
My presentation at the year one DME, DMA student options talk on wednesday went without a hitch. Infact it was quite successful to the extent, a teaching factory lecturer and Dr Linda came to shake my hands after my presentation, saying “I want you to do MY final year project…” uh oh… My product design lecturer can’t keep chanting to us next day in class that “it was such a successful event… it was such a successful event…” maybe so as he also presented a part on the talk as well. My supporting class and teammates took some photos of the pres but can’t get to share any as they are all too dark with the Auditorium stage lights off showing only my silhouettes… wasted. Mmmm dunno should I ask my teacher for CCA points…

I remembered the scene from the MM office staff when she kindly processed my MC on the 5min express line and asked: “Are you sure you are taking one day MC?!?” Visually inspecting me for any possible sickness and giving the “I think you have an additional limb growing out back of your head trademark look…” It’s like she’s shocked to see LOA application 03/08/06 to 03/08/06 while the MC states 3 days till 05/08/06… cannot meh?

Noteable Classes
Writing skills for entrepreneurs module: Learn about competition and selling old stuffs off Ebay wrong, need credit card, but wait Yahoo now also need credit card verification to place auctions as well. Uh oh… so whole class can’t get anything up… Really got up wanting to sell some of my old stuffs online, having gone so far taking product pictures for class Mmmm why not just put them up for sale maybe later.

For Business Planning module, my team is looking into elderly care products as by the year 2020, 1 out of every 4 person in Singapore will be an elderly person. So we are looking to push a product and service as part of our group project for this module.

Noteable GEMS
My 1st GEM, “Metamorphosis” Book making workshop make children books from several art techniques such as painting, printing, etc, so far only painted and did styrofoam painting. 2nd GEM (Principals of WebDesign) just taught the basics of HTML coding, a good revision of direct code based hypertext entry through notepad, rather than relying on WYSIWYG editors.

Cousin Gordon came down earlier this week and brought 2 pairs of Bilabong surf shorts for me as an unexpected gift, would be invitng him (Mum’s idea) for dinner this sunday with my family, where I will be treating (dang!)… well, after a long delay.

Very funny, it’s like the third week into the term and theres like no urge to start the study whatsoever. Maybe should start hitting the books next week after the NIE Director’s race, also to gear up on my new NYAA booklet going for Gold.

I’m still lovin’ it my new HP 2335 monitor, would be looking forward to Windows Vista release around December/Janurary where I will by then top my system to 3GB RAM & 1TB (3 Hitachi harddisks 500GB + 250GB + 250GB) of Harddisk space together with Norton Internet Security 2007 and whole new system reformat, current workstation is little acting and slow lately.

Didn’t run this week, firstly as I was not recommended to exercise till next week and secondly, the haze conditions is very very bad for training now. Didn’t get any millege done this week at all. Only Gym-ed out 2 sets on wednesday afternoon in school. Might even need to cancel my morning swim tomorrow morning if the Haze gets worst (PSI like 140 today?)

Here ya go, as promised the details of the 2nd link bridge run:

Date: Sunday, 12 November 2006
Venue: Tuas West Road
Race start time: Competitive 10km – 8.00am
Non-Competitive 10km Fun Run: 08.05am
Reporting time: All participants are to report to the participants’ registration/holding area at Tuas West Road by 7.00am.

Finisher medals will be awarded to the top 50 runners in each competitive category on the race day. The race certificate with timing will be sent by mail.

Certificates of participation will also be given to both competitive and non-competitive runners in the event goodie pack.

All participants will be given an event t-shirt together with some of the promotional items from sponsors in the event goodie pack and will also stand to win prizes in the lucky draw.

10km Race Categories:

Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Men’s Veteran, Women’s Veteran, Boys (13-18, Girls (13-18) & Fun Run (7 and above)

The cut-off time for 10 km race and Fun Run is 90 minutes.

Registration: (Closing Date: 5pm 6 November 2006)

Price:
Competitive 10km (Individual) – SGD $10.00 / RM 20.00
10km Fun Run (Individual) – SGD $5.00 / RM 10.00

Mail-in registration:
Completed registration form downloaded from www.2ndlinkbridgerun.com together with cheque payment made out to Singapore Sports Council can be mailed to:

10 Admiralty Street #06-12 Northlink Building Singapore 757695 c/o Singapore-Johor 2nd Link Bridge Run 2006

Walk-in registration: (From 6th October 2006 at the following)

Singapore Athletic Association National Stadium, Kallang, 15 Stadium Road, Room 1, South Entrance S(397718) Tel : (65) 63862721 Bukit Gombak Stadium, 800 Bukit Batok West Ave 5 S(659081) Tel : (65) 65649300) Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board 80 Robinson Road, #01-01B, Tel: (65) 65344466/65326321

Race Bibs Collection

Participants who have sent their entry forms by mail will need to collect their BIB Number and t-shirts from 6th October to 6th November 2006 during office hours (9am – 6pm) from Monday to Friday at Singapore Athletic Association, National Stadium, Kallang, 15 Stadium Road, Room 1, South Entrance S(397718), Tel : (65) 63862721

Website

Mum got about purchasing 2 HP L2335 23″ WSXGA Monitors after getting a good deal from HP warehouse through a fellow colleague. These babies would easily go for $2k each in stores but got it at about less than half the price ($699/ea) with a three year warranty each.

With this beast, it’s bye bye to the 24″ Dell FP 2407 for $1299, bringing about a $600 savings (perfect for another good reason for a 500GB harddisk and additional 2GB of RAM, urrghh Impulse!). Both the HP L2335 and Dell FP2407 spots 1920×1200 resolution with 16ms color response time, so they are directly substitutable products minus a few features like flash card reader, USB hub and HDMI inputs – stuffs I really have or not really require. Mum will be using one at work while I get to drool over the other (mine! mine! mine!) for my home workstation.

The upgrade brought about few new challenges, especially finding space to put the monitor on my desk. Shifted my CPU tower to the floor to free my table corner space where the L2335 now resides and dunked my old Viewsonic E70f+ monitor. Finally got about repacking my room for 4 hours this morning and tada! Finally! now nice neat and tidy! Well for a least a month or so…

Fired up the monitor through DVI out from my Geforce 6600GT and whoa! The screen estate! POWER! no dead pixels (yea!) no text blurring and no gradient colour banding! There’s picture in picture and Hello Multitasking Madness!

In VGA analog mode, I can adjust contrast and brightness, but the contrast option is blanked out in Digital DVI, is this what it’s supposed to be? Anyone got experience in this?

Got to get back on painting homework for my GEMs and finishing my presentation on Wednesday. Would be giving sunday’s swim/run a miss this week.

Millege for this week (7 day period)
SP Track & Field Off Season Conditioning Training, 4×1km 3mins rest, 4km – Tuesday
SP Gym 2 Sets Target Chest and Bicep Weight Training – Wednesday
SP Gym 3+1 Sets Weight Training + 5km Threadmill – Thursday
SP Track & Field Off Season Conditioning Training, 2.4km Timetrail (9:56) – Friday
Total Millege for week = 11.4km(38.0% of 30km/week target met)