In the mist of all the war battle & gun fights with exams, presentations & projects let me just sit on no man’s land to recap the happenings of the week so far. The CNC turning test went well on Tuesday think can score in it, my previous class DME/25 is doing CNC milling, though different topics, the test format is very very similar overall, given the same module head. So much for hints, anyway they did say that the Pro-E test they had (& which I will be taking on friday) is easy peasy, so hope as it will be for my class. Submitted my Product Design model (one project done) & did my GEMS presentation on Online Entrepreneurship, being “one of the better ones” as our lecturer says.

Also, for the 1st time since I entered poly, I actually FAILED an assignment. & So did 85% of the class too. Well one may say that through failur comes success, but I guess the teacher wasn’t clear in making his stand & requirements of the paper, quite unfair. Guess my “killing spree” & “godlike, monster kills” since semester 1 was ended by my DTS (design technique & skills, which is more like problem solving technique & skills) module teacher. Part II, the finals of the DTS test is tomorrow, Daming freakaziod!

& hey I am a left hander for the day! Having 7 blisters on both hands (excluding 2 open ones on my right) as a present from the bouldering climbs in the rock gym today. Now I learnt about the hassles of limited motion, whether is the sharp screaming pains on soap & water contact, its trying to brush your teeth with 3 finger & soap & bathe yourself with one hand only, not to mention taking a long time to actually get this blog post typed where I should be rushing assignments & studying… whoops!

Well, its raining cats & dogs out now, so I guess I won’t be able to make my morning swim today. With this new found time, Mmm lemme me recap the Moulmein CC X-Country yesterday (27/05/06) at MR. The run covers the 5.3 km route for men’s open & the ladies open, 4.1 km. Overall the racing group is a rather small (with the juniors starting off together & the opens & veterans at their own groups) but a rather managable & leisure one.

There were 10 over marshalls stationed at all the usual strategic locations round the route, so 1st time runners like Adison won’t go running into Subaru Forester SUVs like what he did yesterday near finishing line. The only hiccup is them being unable to unlock the side gates to from the road to the reservoir bridge route which caused quite a jam.

SP track have 3 runners coming in top 20 overall, not bad I say, whats more we won a CD mini-compo & vacuum flask from the lucky draw held after the prize presentation.

Put your Best Foot Out!

Darius Headchopper!

Ending Group Shot!

😳 Runtime (5.3km) – 23:32

Intially wanted to bring the gang to Annalakshmi for an indian vegetation buffet where you can foot any amount for the bill (literally, as its for charity). But was scrapped due to delays & undecided on the actual head counts needed for reservation. Leading to about 20 of us raiding funan’s basement food junction before doing the same for the Running Lab store on the 3rd floor, which was the highlight of the trip.

Met SGrunner readytorace where he tended & gave advice on the shoes, especially on the DS trainer 11. Guess they were quite shocked to see such a large group entering the store all of a sudden. Whats more SGrunners get 10% off everything storewide! So got myself a Nike Clima-Fit Dry fit cap (1 item off my wishlist) for $18.90 after the discount from $21. Darius got his DS Trainer 11 at 30% off & Zhongyan got his long awaited running shoes at 50% off. 😉 Well, courtesy of the discount lobang I brought & so discreetly have to use “under the counter” lol.

Walked around funan to look for a laptop sleeve for my T4020, but ended up getting nothing due to many shops already closed at 8.30pm on a SATURDAY at funan? Only challenger superstore was open which don’t have anything special either. It was quiet on our way up only to come across a couple, one like 35 year old man hugging another like 20+ year old guy face to face by the walkway side railing. It was like so “wat the? in public…? omg… WTF…?!?” – An expression you can tell similarly sketched on Elrick’s face who was there & passing by at that time too.

Haha enough gayness, anyway, on a lineup… The PC Show will be coming up 1-4th June at Suntec, more details here.

Its exam period (3 Papers & 2 Presentations next week), so won’t be running alot this & the following week. So sorry everyone, have to turn down all your movie requests these weeks, I know MI:3, Da Vinci code, Over the Hedge & X Men 3 are damn nice movies to catch, but can please please please hold till mid June? Maybe on a bright side, our free-passes will be valid then! haha Thanks!

“Am I on belay?”
“Belay on”
“Climbing”
“Climb on”

These are the words ecthed into the heads of any climber during the rock climbing sports elective now. A very basic phase I believe, but we won’t be doing any belaying so soon either as theres actually a belayer course & certification to qualify for one, too far fetched for our 2 month rock climbing course. Didn’t touch the inclined wall this week, but scaled the easy wall with a little more challenges – taking restricted paths up the wall only on special taped routes to make each climb more challenging. The finale of the restricted challenge route on the inclined wall involves 1.5m distance jump from one tile to the other right at the top, only so far only seen achieved by our elective instructor, Jinli (she even beat the rock climbing guys to it, shame!).

We also learned that with lives at stake, a carabiner’s life is restricted to that of only 3 direct drops from waist level, where microcracks could form & will only rear its ulgy head when you don’t need it most – during a fall (explaining why all climbing areas have padded floors). There are 2 types of carabiner arm shaped, the inward-bent one usually more suited for ropes & the straight one for climbers. Furthermore, the chalk we use in climbing are not blackboard chalk but those gym free-weights chalk duh!. Besides that, so far we were introduced to the various belaying devices, such as the air traffic controller, a pig nose shaped spring belayer aka Bigger Brake, a GriGri & the figure of 8. You can view a whole list of them here.

Moreover, we also learnt rather interesting knots such as the double figure of eight & another niffy knot (which name I forgot) to attach on the climber’s carabiner side. From then we have to tie all our own lifelines before each climb, interesting…

Once we conquer the wall, Bouldering will be following next in the campus’s Climbing gym.

Though always heard so much hype about the NewPaper BigWalk this year is actually my first time officially partcipating in the event as a registered walker. & yes in case you are wondering, you can gate crash & join in the walk anytime, just that you don’t get the event shirt, goodie bag & all the freebies which goes with it.

Was there unexpectedly 1st at 6.45am only to feed 13 mosquitoes at our meeting point – The People’s Association front gate. Coach was there & so was a good attendance from the track team, about 30+, together with our seniors Ahlong & David. I guess being 10km runners, a 10km walk can be said to be quite an ordeal for us – preferring to run & get it over with that is! But nevertheless we walked all the way, often getting separated from our main walking group because of the crowd. Some came in slippers & brought shoes, but later did we found out that neither do any of them even have to change to shoes to complete. The route brought us from the National Stadium (start point) to Kallang carpark over the Merdeka bridge towards Nicol highway, going straight & U-turning at One – Fullerton. There were some Ice-cream points where we stopped to chowed on a particular instance. Heard the route will be different next year due to the re-building of the national stadium.

The Walking Trio

Where’s the rest?

The Finish

Besides the all expected copy of The New Paper for the day, shining from all the other junk in goodie bag was a free Macdonalds Sundae coupon! whee!

The other highlight (Big Walk Part 2) was walking over 5km+ over to a coffee shop near the old Kallang hawker center for Lunch. For $3.50 I’ve got a plate of Mee Goreng + A Prata Egg, the most value for money option given the same prices for chicken rice + little extra chicken & rice or hot bowl mee pok dry which most had. Had a good talk with the juniors & interestingly learnt that one of them was from the 02 batch, same age as me, haha. But he kinda “retained” due to a recovery from a bad bike accident years before.

Darius so wanted to expend his free GV movie ticket & phys-coed Elrick & Addison to catch the Da-Vinci code with him, nevertheless everyone was too tried to do so (amazingly from the walk to lunch & not the actual event itself) & alighted at cityhall to take a tube home. Carried on service 16 home to catch up on projects & work, not rest for me I guess, tomorrow being another school day.

Got an intel from Alex about the Running Labs member’s sale up to 50% off off-season & 20% off on-season products, cool!

Training ended today with hopes of our new long distance coach coming in next week. He is a current SP lecturer in the school of MM, heard that he was quite good in athletics & events during his time. But I’ve never heard of or even seen him in person thought being in the same school as well. Heard he specially requested to coach the long distance track team, (which comprises the majority of the track members including me). Lets just hope he’s not the ultra “drill-sarge” type of coach…

😉 800m time trails were hold today, did an average 2:48 which is ok for long distance runners lacking speed I guess, but up close with the best though. We got a few new track & field members to interact around with today. The training ended wth a 2.5km run around the inner school perimeter route with 2 laps round the Poly 50 route. This time mum & dad had dinner before picking me up (they had gotten smarter now!),. They accompanied me as I chowed with the standard servings of yong tau hoo & fish & chips for dinner thereafter.

Track & Field T-Shirt
A current job up on my neck would be coordinating the orders & printing of the upcoming track & field shirt. Design courtesy of Alex, its a black Dry-Fit shirt with the text SP-Athletics “Stamped” on the back, check out the concepts!

Overall shirt design

Zoom on shirt logos

Hope I can get Wenjian our club treasurer to settle the collection money for the job so I can concentrate on getting the samples, prints & graphics up in time for the SP Track & Field meet coming soon.

😯 Poly 50 training will follow over the next few weeks, so it will be up a key in training for us soon. Moreover our competitors SP dragon boat (which teamed up with SP netball to form the “Dragonball Team”) had already started official training, in hope of getting back the champion title which we took from the the previous event. We will be a force to reckon with too though…

Note to Thiam Hock & Soma – You can only enter Poly 50 under track & field through the accumulation of time trail points, we will be sending in 4 or more teams if you meet the point cutoff & the numbers of members permit.

Might be going for a 10km run tomorrow at tiong bahru park to bring my millege for the week to 20km & finishing it with an additional 10km at the New Paper Big Walk on Sunday.

Meeting place for New Paper Big Walk – Meet at the People’s Association gate, Kallang